Radio 5

   Radio 5 is the BBC’s fifth and youngest radio channel, carrying a twenty-four hour mixture of news and sports. Radio 5 joined the network in 1990 with an uneasy mixture of material lacking space elsewhere, including adult education and schools broadcasts, sport, stories and magazine programmes. It once seemed that Radio 5 would become home to a planned continuous rolling news service, but in 1994 was instead relaunched as Radio 5 Live, seeking by comparison with Radio 4 to offer news and current affairs in a format which would gain a younger and broader range of listeners, alongside a wide range of sports commentary. Radio 5 seems to be attracting its intended audience, which is predominantly male (though too simply stereotyped as ‘radio bloke’).

   See also: phone-ins and chat shows; Radio 1; Radio 2; Radio 3; Radio 4

   MICHAEL GREEN