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BBC Radio Five Live
Broadcast area	UK - National
First air date	28 March 1994
Frequency	MW: 693 kHz, 909 kHz, and on selected BBC Local Radio Station's frequencies overnight. DAB: 12B Freeview: 705 Virgin Media: 905 Live Stream Real/WM
Format	News & Sport
Owner	BBC
Website	www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive

BBC Radio Five Live is the BBC's radio service providing live BBC News, phone-ins, and sports commentaries. It is the principal radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcasting virtually all major sports events staged in the UK or involving British competitors.

It is transmitted via analogue radio on 693 and 909 kHz AM in the mediumwave band, frequencies that belonged to BBC Radio 2 from November 23, 1978 to August 26, 1990 (before that they were used in some regions of the UK by the BBC Home Service and BBC Radio 4), and on digital radio, digital satellite and Freeview (digital terrestrial television). It is also streamed online, however due to rights restrictions, coverage of some events, especially "live" sporting events, is not available online. Some content is available online but restricted to UK users. The station broadcasts from the News Centre at BBC Television Centre with a small office in Manchester and a team of its own reporters based around the UK.

Contents 1 History 2 Current Programmes 3 References 4 See also 5 External links

The success of Scud FM during the 1991 first Gulf War led Liz Forgan to suggest (on a Friday in May 1993)^[1] the introduction of a combined news and sport network. Accordingly, the "old" Radio 5 closed down at midnight on Sunday March 27, 1994 and the new Radio Five Live began its 24-hour service on the morning of Monday, March 28. The first voice on air was Jane Garvey, who later went on to co-present the breakfast and drivetime shows with Peter Allen. The launch was described by The Times as "slipp[ing] smoothly and confidently into a routine of informative banter"^[2] and The Scotsman as "professionalism at its slickest."^[3]

The tone of the channel, engaging and more relaxed than contemporary BBC output, was the key to the channel's success and would set the model for other BBC News services later in the decade. The first audiences were some four million, with a record audience of six and a quarter million.

Before the launch of digital broadcasting, the station (and Radio 5 before it) broadcast for several years on analogue satellite with near-FM quality.

The many presenters over the years have included Peter Allen, Anita Anand, Danny Baker, Matthew Bannister, Susan Bookbinder, Jon Briggs, Jon Champion, Adrian Chiles, Edwina Currie, David Mellor, Nicky Campbell, Victoria Derbyshire, Kirsty Gallacher, Jane Garvey, Fi Glover, Stuart Hall, Nick Hancock, Brian Hayes, Jane Hill, Eamonn Holmes, John Inverdale, Desmond Lynam, Simon Mayo, Louise Minchin, Stephen Nolan, Jonathan Pearce, Mark Pougatch, Allan Robb, Nick Robinson, Sybil Ruscoe, Mark Saggers, Rhod Sharp, Kate Silverton, Colin Murray, DJ Spoony, Bill Turnbull, Sian Williams, Richard Bacon and Julian Worricker.

In 2005 the Radio Five Live Sporting Yearbook (ISBN 0-00-721598-3) was published.

The station won five Sony Awards, one gold and four silver, in 2005 and was nominated an additional six times. The lone gold award was in the News Story Award category for its coverage of the 2004 Asian tsunami.

Five Live were Official Broadcasters of the FIFA World Cup 2006 along with talkSPORT. Both stations will broadcast live Premiership commentaries from August 2007, with the 7 rights packages being shared 6 to 1 in favour of Five Live.

A companion station, BBC Five Live Sports Extra, was launched as a digital-only service on February 2, 2002.

Five Live broadcasts an extremely wide range of sports and covers all the major sporting events. The following is a sample of its output (with sister station BBC Five Live Sports Extra).

• Live Premiership and FA Cup matches
• The World Cup
• The Olympic Games
• Men's Golf Majors and the Ryder Cup
• 'Grand Slam' Tennis tournaments
• England rugby union test matches
• The Six Nations Championship and the Autumn Internationals
• Rugby World Cup
• The Super League and the Rugby League Tri-Nations
• The Challenge Cup
• England cricket tests and One-day Internationals
• Cricket World Cup
• Formula One
• The Grand National
• The Cheltenham Festival
• The Derby
• World Athletics Championships and Commonwealth Games

Five Live occasionally collaborates with the BBC Asian Network (Bob Shennan is controller of both stations). In 2005 the General Election results programme was simulcast.

Five Live's commercial rival is TalkSPORT, but unlike the commercial television station, Sky Sports, TalkSPORT has acquired few exclusive rights, and tax-funded radio, represented by Five Live and the BBC's local radio stations, remains dominant in radio sport broadcasting in the UK.

Regular shows as of December 2006

• Wake up to Money, presented by Mickey Clark and Andrew Verity
• Breakfast, with Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogarty
• The Matthew Bannister Programme (Replacing Victoria Derbyshire who is on maternity leave)
• The Midday News
• The Simon Mayo Show
• Drive, with Peter Allen and Jane Garvey (Rotating with Weekend Breakfast presenters Matt Smith and Rachel Burden)
• Five Live Sport, presented by Mark Saggers from Monday-Thursday, Mark Pougatch Friday & Saturday and Eleanor Oldroyd on Sunday
• The Anita Anand Show
• Up All Night with Rhod Sharp or Dotun Adebayo
• The Stephen Nolan Show
• The Eamonn Holmes Show
• Fighting Talk with Colin Murray (or Gabby Logan)
• 6-0-6 with Spoony
• The Worricker Programme

• List of BBC radio stations

Note that Radio 5 Live operate International and UK feeds. International feeds aren't allowed to cover certain sports events because of local radio rights to those events.

• BBC Radio Five Live at bbc.co.uk
• A few jingles from R5, including the final close of the old R5