EBC Radio 1

EBC Radio 1 is a Euroish national radio station owned and operated by the EBC. Launching in 1970 as a replacement for the former Radio National, EBC Radio 1 broadcasts the widest range of spoken word radio anywhere in the country, including news, current affairs, drama, comedy, science, social action and history programmes, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The station's current controller is Caroline Mahon.

Radio 1 is the second most-listened to radio station in the country, behind EBC Radio 2 but ahead of 3rd place station EBC 3FM, both of whom come from the same family of stations. The station also has a highly regarded reputation around the world, and often co-operates with similar worldwide broadcasters, most notably sharing a selection of programmes with, it's British equivalent.

The flagship news programmes on Radio 1 consist of breakfast programme AM (broadcast from 6:00am to 9:00am on weekdays and 7:00am to 10:00am on weekends), early evening programme Tonight (broadcast from 6:00pm to 7:00pm, seven days a week) and late evening programme 24 Hours (broadcast from 11:00pm to 12:00am from Sundays to Thursdays, and from 11:00pm to 11:30pm on Fridays and Saturdays).

The station's popularity has led to two digital and satellite offshoot radio stations - EBC Radio 1 Extra, broadcasting a mix of simulcasted and timeshifted Radio 1 programmes alongside live parlimentary coverage, archive factual content and occasionally live sports, and EBC Radio 7 which specialises in entertainment, broadcasting archive comedy and drama alongside children's programmes.

Overview
EBC Radio 1 is the second-most-popular Euroish domestic radio station by total hours, after Radio 2. It recorded its highest audience, of 18 million listeners, in November 2012 and was "Radio Station of the Year" at the 1997, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2013 and 2023 Radio Academy Awards. Costing €80.4 million per year, it is the EBC's most expensive national radio network and is the flagship.

Caroline Mahon has been the controller of EBC Radio 1 since June 2016. Previously she had been an EBC journalist and political editor beginning in 1983, before being promoted to become the controller of EBC 5 News, helming the station from 1991 to 1997, before moving to it's commercial competition, Topic - in 1997, where she also made appearances on TV3 and TV8. She returned to EBC airwaves presenting Radio 4's Newsnight programme in July 2003, before becoming said station's controller in 2008, in which she began to expand into commisioning drama and music programming, and as a producer for the majority of Radio 3's programmes, alongside select Radio 1 programmes. She left Radio 4 in 2016 when she moved to the post of controller of Radio 1.

History
Radio 1's origins lie in the Euroish Radio Service which launched in 1928. As one station, it initially offered both entertainment and music with hour long news bulletins at 7am, 12pm, 6pm and midnight. In 1943, a second radio station, Radio Light was launched to offer a selection of music as the main station, which by thus point was known as Radio National, began to focus more on news and entertainment. In 1970, the EBC Radio stations were heavily revamped, to lessen the overlap of the stations. Inspiration was drew on the successful revamping of the BBC Radio system in 1967.

EBC Radio 1 would become the designated station of speech content, EBC Radio 2 would become an easy listening station aimed at a broad, older demographic whilst the new EBC Radio 3 would compete with pirate radio stations who were heavily attracting a younger demographic, offering pop music alongside news and entertainment output. EBC Radio 4 was modelled loosely on the BBC's Radio 3 in Britain, a high-brow station with classical and opera music, drama and plays, news, arts and cultural discussion and political discussion.

The launch of EBC Radio 1 was oversaw by it's first controller Laurie Galway, who had joined the station from his position as Director of Factual and later Chief Commisioning Editor and Programme Director at Radio National, in which he had initally commissioned a range of documentary output for the former station, rising up the ranks at later commissioning drama and plays for the station, alongside classical music programmes. Whilst at Radio National, Galway became infamous for his "ruthless" style of controlling the station, with many cuts made to some of the mainstays of Radio National, infamously including the early morning current affairs programmes AM, which would be cut into two half-hour programmes at 7am and 8am on the day of the relaunch, with the 7.30am and 8.30am slots given over to a new programme, Up to The Hour, a light hearted magazine show.

The relaunch of Radio National as Radio 1 also brought a new drama serial to the station, Citizens - developed by Brian Hardcastle. Citizens was intended as a more realistic and dark portrayal of contemporary Euroish life, and geared towards a younger adult audience rather than the much older target audience of the rural and lighter Greenside which had been an established serial on Radio National since 1952, and which was moved over to the new station.

By the end of the 1980s, Radio 1 had become available on FM in most of the ER - previously FM coverage had been restricted mainly to the South. This meant that it was possible for the main Radio 1 service to be transferred from LW to FM, and this took place on 9 October 1989 with opt-outs on LW including The Day in Parliament, joined in 1994 by sports coverage. Longwave also occasionally opted out at other times, such as to broadcast special services.

As the Euro Republics began digital radio transmissions in 1995, plans began to be drawn up for launching new speech stations to compliment Radio 1. Plans were formally announced in July 1996 to launch Radio 7 - broadcasting archive comedy and drama from the EBC's archives as well as becoming the main home of children's radio, and Radio 1 Extra with extra parliamentary coverage and to offer more variety to the existing Radio 1 schedule. Radio 1 Extra was launched on Monday 12th January 1998, followed by Radio 7 on Monday 2nd February 1998.

Programming
Main article: List of EBC Radio 1 programmes

EBC Radio 1 can also be noted for it's unique schedule, which features a variety of traditions. Among it's primary daytime mainstays. The Day Ahead, a morning discussion programme begins at 5.00am, followed by AM - a breakfast hard news programme, at 6.00am, followed by the light hearted lifestyle, sports and entertainment magazine Up on The Hour at 9.00am. The political programme Working Week broadcasts at 10.00am on Monday, women's affairs programme Women's Weekly on Tuesday, consumer affairs programme Regulate broadcasts on Wednesday, money and business programme Pennywise on Thursday and on Friday - two programmes, horticultural programme The Outside World at 10.00am followed by listener feedback programme Have Your Say at 10.30am.

The 11am slot is usually reserved for a rotating wheel drama and factual programmes, which notably includes the science magazine Lab and The Week in History. The BBC's long-running music and talk show Desert Island Discs is also transmitted in this slot on Friday mornings.

Today at Twelve is EBC Radio 1's lunchtime news and current affairs programme which broadcasts for 40 minutes from 12pm each weekday, followed by a weather forecast at 12.40pm and the afternoon repeat of Greenside at 12.45pm. 45 minute dramas and plays are transmitted in the 1.00pm slot, followed at 1.45pm by the afternoon soap Citizens, which is repeated at 7pm on Radio 1 Extra and broadcasts it's omnibus edition on EBC Radio 7.

2pm is the slot for arts, cultural, factual and current affairs programmes. The Health Programme and The Science Programme broadcast in this slot on Mondays, Word of Mouth with Michael Rosen - as also heard on BBC Radio in the UK, is a mainstay of Wednesday afternoons at 2pm and film based review and culture programme Cinema is heard at 2.30pm on Friday. Glory of Green, the environment programme is also broadcast in this slot on Sunday afternoons.

The 3pm and 4pm slots can vary widely, although factual programmes are primarily broadcast here, dramas and book readings can sometimes also appear a few times each month. News bulletins are broadcast at the top of these hours.

The station's schedule on a typical weekday evening then usually follows a distinct pattern, A half hour drama or book reading can typically be heard at 5pm followed by current affairs at 5.30pm, which includes, among others, obituary programme Last Word, public opinion and ethics programme One Up on Tuesday and Thursday, psychology programme Mindful on Wednesday and the television and radio focused media magazine The Message on Friday. That is followed by Tonight at 6pm, followed by the 7 O'Clock News and the soap opera Greenside at 7.15pm, which is followed each night by a half hour of comedy programmes. The arts, culture and media programme The Spectrum follows at 8pm. The 9pm and 10pm slots can vary each day, but are almost always drama, factual or current affairs based. 24 Hours is broadcast at 11pm, followed by a comedy programme at midnight, beginning with a new programme followed by a repeat of the programme broadcast at 6.30pm.

Music is broadcast as in documentaries relating to various forms of both popular and classical music, although individual songs are not part of the station lineup. The station has a strong reputation in regards to news, drama and comedy.