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Radio 1 Anthems station will be completely Christmas Anthems from the 11th December at 12pm. They are starting slightly later this year as going back to last year's schedule, it was totally Christmas Anthems from 11am on the 3rd December. From the 26th December, it's Radio 1 Anthems by year starting at midnight with 2006 anthems. Given these slots are supposed to be for the new presenters, I think a key change will be these shows will be voice-tracked or pre-recorded rather than live.

As for listening figures, it's no surprise with there being a million and one stations for every decade and every mood, that people are tuning in elsewhere. Of course some followed Ken, but I imagine a good chunk of Vernon's 6.6 million listeners aren't new, and plenty stuck with R2 when Ken left. Considering the vast amount of choice, that is still a very respectable figure.

I think everyone has hit the nail on the head. I get Ken was probably asked the question in the hope they'd get a negative BBC headline.. but he chose to move on. Radio 2 has changed a lot in the past few years, but I think the changes made were the right ones. Radio 2 has to evolve. If some people had it their way, there would still be a lot of Big Band and easy listening type shows, and 60's/70's on daytime shows (it's not as if they don't still play anything from these decades in the day) When I read people saying it's like Radio 1 from 20 years ago.. the only comparison is some of the presenters. The actual content and to be fair most of the music is nothing alike. Yeah, they play some tracks now that R1 played at the time but R2 didn't, but a lot of those songs are 20 or more years old, so it's no surprise Radio 2 are playing them now.

I'm actually really liking the schedule after Christmas. Feels really fresh but also good to see a mix of new pairings, a few new cover presenters and familiar faces.

This makes complete sense and I’m glad they’re doing it.

I didn't think of Radio 1 Anthems to be fair. I think you might be right on that. Makes sense having the back to back Anthems on that station.

Since the original press release says it's across the 3 stations (Radio 1, Radio 1 Anthems, Radio 1 Dance) I'm guessing there will be some specialist shows on Radio 1 taken by the 'Up and Coming' presenters, then some daytime stuff on Radio 1 Anthems since the schedule from 26 Dec - 31 Dec is the yearly based anthems scheduling with no named mentioned yet. Since Radio 1 Anthems is on DAB it makes sense to put the constant anthems programming on there instead of on Radio 1, so anyone wanting to listen to the new presenters can. Plus anyone wanting to hear a relatively consistent schedule can tune into Radio 1.