(Credits: Far Out / BBC)
Wed 7 January 2026 8:00, UK
“And, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the exciting new sound of Radio 1,” were the immortal words uttered by Tony Blackburn at 7am on September 30th, 1967.
With that, the full force of BBC Radio 1 was launched into the world, changing the game of modern radio, new music, and live performances all in its midst. In some ways, it seemed like the pinnacle of slick showbiz culture when it first burst onto the airwaves, redefining how broadcasting could sound by displaying that it wasn’t just a vehicle for the most refined tastes.
In some ways, that paints an illusion of being quite thrilling and glamorous, but in reality, in the first few moments of heralding in this new musical era, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Blackburn and Co might have been seen as the cream of the crop in terms of fresh radio talent, but even still, they were the ones caught short and left scrabbling around in the first moments Radio 1 went to air.
Of course, as with any music milestone taking place in the media, the all-important first song choice is what a station often lives or dies by. In this case, the selection was ‘Flowers in the Rain’ by Move, and although it was undoubtedly a high honour for the band, they may have been flattering themselves a bit if they thought they were specifically chosen for a special reason.
That’s not to take away from what was unquestionably a landmark moment, but it was one struck by panic for the man responsible for being behind the microphone. Blackburn recalled, only in the safety of years after the event, that the morning in which Radio 1 first graced the airwaves was nothing short of a shambles.
Not knowing if any of the records were actually organised, it was a simple situation of grabbing whichever single lay closest to his hand in order to just get something on air when the clock struck seven in the morning. As luck would have it for The Move, that just so happened to be ‘Flowers in the Rain’, and thus history was made.
In some ways, the slightly chaotic choice was symbolic of everything that Radio 1 would go on to stand for. A band like The Move represented a singularly British version of rock, not swaying to the whims of transatlantic acclaim, and within the space of a few years, it had evolved to create something far greater than the sum of its parts, in the form of ELO.
You could say that Radio 1 followed a largely similar path. It was brought into broadcasting to fill the radio chasm of British pop and rock music, marched to the beat of its own drum, and was never afraid to change with the times as things grew bigger. One haphazard morning was all worth it to provide decade upon decade of sonic pioneering.
As with everything, it seems, there is an argument to suggest that this classic genesis of Radio 1 is something it would be better off returning to in the long run. It’s not a case of going back to the drawing board necessarily, but just taking the spirit of Blackburn on that late September 1967 and truly grabbing the bull by its horns.
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