BBC Light Programme

The Light Programme was a BBC radio station broadcasting mainstream light entertainment and music. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the longwave frequency -- which until 1939 had been used by the BBC National Programme -- of the wartime BBC General Forces Programme, and closed at 02:02 on 30 September 1967. At 05:30 on the same day it was replaced by Radio 1 on its mediumwave frequencies, and by Radio 2 (the renamed Light Programme) on its longwave frequency. The FM frequencies were mainly used by Radio 2 but sometimes leased to Radio 1 until that station acquired its own FM frequencies in the late 1980s.

The long-running "soap opera" The Archers was first heard nationally on the Light Programme, on 1 January 1951, although it had previously been broadcast in the Midlands Home Service in 1950.