January 1994 highlights The anniversaries were coming thick and fast. One week before our featured day, Top of the Pops celebrated its 30th anniversary with a special show, Smashie and Nicey's Top of the Pops Party. As TOTP2 would not begin until the autumn of this year, this was a rare opportunity to see clips from past performances (although UK Gold viewers were currently able to watch complete editions of TOTP from the 1970s). Then one hour earlier Holiday had marked its 25th birthday with the return of Cliff Michelmore to join regular presenter Jill Dando in Torremolinos, the location of Cliff's first ever report in Holiday 69. This week, it was the weather's turn. On the exact 40th anniversary of the first in-vision forecaster, BBC1 took a look behind the scenes of the BBC weather forecast. BBC2 - which itself was on the verge of celebrating its 30th birthday - was still showing old films at teatime, a staple of the channel for many years; the 6.00 unofficial 'cult zone' had still yet to emerge five days a week. The long-running Welsh soap opera Pobol y Cwm was beginning a daily run in the afternoon, under the English title People of the Valley. Luckily, subtitles were provided. There was still some five hours of schools programmes dominating BBC2 daytime, including the chance for lucky viewers to watch Thunderbirds in Hindi. At the other end of the day, BBC1 was transmitting BBC Select, which was an overnight subscription service offering education and training programmes. This output would later be incorporated (free-to-air) into BBC2's Learning Zone. Smashie and Nicey may have been more than a year away from being resigned from Radio FAB FM, but over at rival Radio 1 FM, there were further sweeping changes this week, following on from the radical revamp bestowed on the station by Matthew Bannister in October 1993. After more than 12 years in the afternoon, Steve Wright took over the breakfast show (although just five years later he would find himself back in his traditional slot, this time on Radio 2), while Mark Goodier moved to afternoons after a brief two-month tenure on breakfast. Nicky Campbell, having been absent for the same period, returned to host Drivetime, and Emma Freud joined to present the lunchtime show. As part of John Birt's attempt to move Radio 1 upmarket, these latter two shows promised to include topical features such as interviews with names in the news on Campbell's show, and listeners' chance to quiz the Newsbeat team on the issues of the day in Freud's. It wouldn't last.
 And in Radio Times 8-14 January 1994 Price 65p
Fresh from its 70th birthday the previous September, Radio Times had received a minor revamp, although it wasn't long before there'd be yet another one... The cover was shared by Zoe Wanamaker, starring in the third series of Love Hurts on BBC1, and a new adaptation of George Eliot's Middlemarch on BBC2. Although RT was now carrying details of commercial television, it would be a further seven years before non-BBC programmes would feature on the cover. Steve Wright, who, along with his 'posse', was beginning his stint on the Radio 1 breakfast show, appeared in the My Kind of Day feature (right) - he claimed that he had always wanted to work for Radio 4, but sadly his name isn't Charlotte! 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1997 1999 Radio Times Covers | 
