The Golden Hour (radio feature)
long-standing radio program in the United Kingdom
The Golden Hour is a long-standing radio feature in the United Kingdom, in which records are played that all charted in the UK Top 40 in a certain year and listeners are invited to guess the year. First broadcast on BBC Radio in 1973 during Tony Blackburn's mid-morning show, the Golden Hour segment was continued for many years on BBC Radio 1 by Simon Bates, Simon Mayo and Chris Moyles, with Bates currently presenting the feature as a programme on Universal Music's range of Now Music television channels.
History
In June 1973, Noel Edmonds took over presenting the breakfast slot on BBC Radio 1 and Tony Blackburn moved to present the mid-morning slot (9–12 am). One of the features Blackburn started on this show was the Golden Hour. This was originally an hour of records that had all charted in a specified year, using a different year each weekday.
Blackburn continued this feature until he vacated the weekday mid-morning slot in Autumn 1977. He was replaced by Simon Bates, who continued the feature at the top of the show between 9 and 10 am. Bates amended the format, however, turning it into a game for the audience to participate in. Records were played, sometimes interspersed with clues, so listeners could 'play along at home' and work out what the year was. The year would be revealed by Simon near the end of the hour.
The public source identifies “The Golden Hour (radio feature)” as long-standing radio program in the United Kingdom. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Golden, Hour and radio.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Golden Hour (radio feature)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.