Blackburn on Radio 1 for its 50th birthday

HE was the first DJ to broadcast on Radio 1, launching it as the BBC’s new pop music station.

Now Tony Blackburn will return to Radio 1 for the first time in 33 years, for a show marking its 50th anniversary.

Blackburn, 74, pictured, will host an hour-long special alongside the station’s current breakfast show host Nick Grimshaw. The pair will invite other former Radio 1 DJs on to the show, to be broadcast on September 30, and play a mix of archive footage and hit records from the last five decades. They will also revisit some of Radio 1’s old jingles, sung by the likes of The Who and Abba.

Yesterday Blackburn said: ‘It is hard to imagine that there was a time when the BBC would only play 45 minutes of popular music per day and we, as teenagers, had to wait until 7pm in the evening for [the pop music slot] to come on.’

Blackburn’s show will be broadcast simultaneously on Radio 2, which will also mark its 50th anniversary. It will kick off a three-day ‘pop-up’ vintage station, playing 50 hour-long programmes hosted by different Radio 1 DJs from the ages.

Most of the shows will be mined from the archives, but some DJs will come back on air to introduce their segment.

However, the celebrations will see no mention of the Radio 1 DJs whose fame has lasted for all the wrong reasons, such as the reviled Jimmy Savile.

Blackburn himself was temporarily sacked from Radio 2 after the BBC found his testimony to its Savile inquiry ‘fell short’.

Yesterday Radio 1 boss Ben Cooper said: ‘I think that part of Radio 1’s history is well-documented so for obvious reasons we’re not going to go there.’