Anne O Rack

I think in the very early days of the ten-hour takeover they actually were able to scour the grams library in Yalding House and play stuff off CDs/vinyl/whatever they could get their hands on. So back then, more effort might have been made to send the interns into the depths of the archive. I do remember seeing the photo galleries posted on the R1 website with piles of CDs in the studio. Suppose the modern-day equivalent is to scour the music stores of R2/6 etc for the relevant songs, but I suspect it is a lot more involed if they want anything not already loaded into the computer. Even they have the desktop jukebox, it would probably be a bit more faff to try and get it all in and takes some of the sheen off the 10-minute takeover, and add to what's been said for it to be 'on brand'. I'm sure if I texted asking for Cliff Richard's Millennium Prayer it wouldn't get played but I am more than willing to be proved wrong (!).

Radio at work is a funny old thing, interesting you mention the male skew towards GHR/Absolute/Radio X. I've always noticed hair salons/barbers/caffs have a tendency play commercial radio, either Heart/Magic/other local commercial radio and for some reason taxi drivers it's more often than not Magic. All boring auditory wallpaper designed to blend into the background. Confession time. In a galaxy a long time ago, I worked in an office where the radio was tuned to the local tinpot FM. I changed the radio station to Radio 1 or 2 occasionally and a few weeks later I got the heave-ho. I was a temp, mind, but I couldn't stomach 8 hours of listening to the same songs with truly awfully produced adverts for local businesses. I suspect my love for commercial free radio played its part in my demise. ?

Especially on all request drivetime, please play Celebration by Kool and The Gang for Tallulah in her mo-ho and ponies in the Cotswolds celebrating her 50th etc. OK, I take the piss with the above statement but I see what you mean. Although, some of the DJs do reflect the older and changed audience who have become 'middle class mummies' themselves. I did like Simon Mayo as he did take the mick a little at times but the caller not twigging. Look at Zoe Ball and Sara Cox now. Wind back the clock 20 or so years and they'd be falling out of a bar in the West End with a bottle of Jack and fag in hand, the epitome of ladette.

The "launchpad to your weekend" jingle is a fantastic piece of work, the steeo image sounds great in the car or on a good set of speakers/headphones.

They use VCS as the playout software. It's a suite of applications - the elements you will see often in front of the presenter are the cartwall and onair control (running order). The former is a touch screen Windows application and the latter is controlled using the wooden control panel on the desk and is also is Windows application (originally was unix). The content for either can be edited via the software on the PCs. On the photo attached it is the second and third screens on the desk, however, they are logged out. The cartwall is a load of coloured blocks in normal operation.

The Xmas bangers show was pretty good, although they did kind of imply for people to get in touch via the hashtag. No texts or emails (for us old codgers and anyone that knows what memorex is!!!) being read out or advertised, so pretty obvious it was on tape.

Just had a random thought pop into my head; what were all of the albums on Scott Mills' Masterpieces for each year? I know there's a load of stuff on the internet for Zane's but for this parody feature there exists little. Some might say it would be good to be expunged from public view haha but my curiousity has got the better of me this evening... I do remember them playing Busted one year when I was slaving away in the university library and tuned to Radio 1. Secret guilty pleasure that was that and spurred me to write more on my dissertation. You'd think eh? Over to you...

Not a massive fan of the summer mix, not much interactivity (a la nixtape) and I do miss the 10 min takeover, as you weren't ever sure what would get requested (although some people were proper boring and requested playlist stuff!). If i wanted to listen to a mix of music for an hour, I'd stick a CD on. It feels like pretty lazy programming.

They used to use the text console from WIN, no idea if they still use WIN.

I feel like a complete geek posting this, but I noticed yesterday that the RDS on my car's radio for Radio 1 had changed 'BBC R1 from its usual 'Radio 1'. Have they ditched the Radio 1 branding to align in with the other BBC radio stations on FM - e.g. 'BBC R2/3/4' etc - or was it a technical problem? Anyone else's displaying BBC R1? *firmly zips anorak*

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/webcam/webcam1/ here's the webcam page but it's no longer linked from the website. You now also have to register to message the studio, which will probably put many people off. It's a shame they don't advertise the email addresses anymore, or the text number on the main page.

Just heard the new package in action and it is certainly the definition of bland, nothing really stands out and gets me to listen as the old Newsbeat packages did. Don't know about the whole listen/watch/share strapline, it just sounds a bit naff - and even though there is drive to make radio multi-platform these days during events, I don't think watch really works most of the time as the roving webcams are off, and they are deviating from what the whole point of R1 is, a radio station!

Not so much a cockup,but they just played out a 1tro'd version of Alicia's Empire state of mind. Twas a nice surprise.

Haha, I loved Scott's masterpieces, even though I had to iplayer it. I do wonder about some of the people that ring in though like the girl before asking if they could do Basshunter's masterpieces. :s

Most likely that there is someone in the studio monitoring the feed and firing jingles/songs as necessary. You can often tell when they are doing this anyway as the voices sound a bit more mushed (and subtly different, due to the different setup at LR and being fed down ISDN) than the actual songs, which are played back in the studio. Moyles is probably doing most of the mic fading, but the sound truck does the adding of effects, I seem to remember them asking bloke in the truck to add stereo flange and echo. That would seem about right anyway, the OB mixing desk for the presenter seems rather barebones and from the looks of it I wouldn't expect it to do fancy stuff.