I started listening sometime from Monday 18th July 2011. Amy Winehouse died on Saturday 23rd and when this news broke I had only been listening a few days.
The way I switched was random - I was listening to Magic 105.4 for months and one evening whilst driving home I got bored and hit a random preset on the radio which happened to be R1. I thought “let’s listen to R1 for a few days” and soon realised I had been missing out on great chart music, new music and fantastic club anthems. Intending to change to another random station soon, I realised I couldn’t because I was hooked. And since then my radio has stayed tuned to R1.
I can even remember a song I was listening to within an hour of changing - Barbara Streisand by Duck Sauce.