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At 7am on Saturday 30 September 1967, in a windowless studio in London, a pop revolution was ignited. Watched by his producer, the 24-year-old disc-jockey Tony Blackburn switched on his microphone, welcomed listeners across Britain to \u201cthe exciting new sound of Radio 1\u201d and placed onto his turntable Flowers in the Rain<\/em>, the latest single from The Move. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t one of my favourite records,\u201d Blackburn later confessed, but \u201cI wanted something nice and happy, something that reflected that era.\u201d<\/p>\n As the \u201cSummer of Love\u201d \u2013 a season of flower-power, love-ins and teach-ins \u2013 reached its psychedelic close, the BBC unveiled a new radio station dedicated to the latest tunes. The newspapers were agog. The Sunday Telegraph<\/em> talked of a \u201cgimmick ridden\u201d corporation sending the nation\u2019s teenagers into orbit. The Observer<\/em> declared it \u201cAuntie\u2019s first freak-out\u201d.<\/p>\n Never had a freak-out been so widely advertised in advance or so meticulously prepared for. Back in 1964, the fleet of unlicensed \u201cpirate\u201d radio ships that suddenly began beaming non-stop chart hits to mainland Britain from just outside its territorial waters had prompted a flurry of activity both within the BBC, understandably anxious about losing millions of listeners, and in the corridors of government, which worried about copyright and its obligation to enforce international laws over wavelengths.<\/p>\n This is part 5 in a 13-part series by David Hendy that charts how the BBC shaped the nation. Read more about the history of the BBC:<\/strong><\/p>\n Part 1 | The BBC begins: how a group of radio pioneers launched one of Britain\u2019s most famous institutions<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Part 2 | Broadcasting House: a new home for the BBC<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Part 3 | Andy Pandy to Blue Peter: how the BBC captivated little citizens<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Part 4 | From \u201cexotic\u201d attractions to changing racial attitudes: the BBC\u2019s slow progress to mirror multicultural Britain<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> By August 1967, legislation initiated by Tony Benn in his previous role as postmaster general had effectively sunk Radio Caroline, Radio London and the rest, paving the way for the BBC to provide a replacement service.<\/p>\n For months the BBC had been eavesdropping on the pirates, despatching staff on clandestine missions to recruit their best disc jockeys, copying their studio designs and jingles, and conducting dummy-runs of their own new shows. But handing responsibility to the corporation seemed to many observers an unlikely solution to the public\u2019s insatiable desire for more pop music.<\/p>\n When Benn first floated the idea of a new service, the BBC\u2019s chairman is reported to have replied: \u201cYou can\u2019t have popular music all the time \u2013 it would be like having the pubs open all day.\u201d<\/p>\n Nor, apparently, were such attitudes confined to the BBC\u2019s uppermost ranks. Terry Wogan, who had recently joined from the Irish broadcaster RTE, found a corporation acting like \u201cthe British empire under Queen Victoria<\/a> \u2013 incredibly self-confident, indeed probably complacent\u2026 entirely convinced of its own rectitude, of its own brilliance, of its own status in the world\u201d. It was a self-confidence that Wogan admired, but it had clearly left Britain\u2019s national broadcaster floundering to keep pace with musical tastes mutating at lightning speed.<\/p>\n The BBC offered listeners to the Light Programme \u201cthe best of today\u2019s \u2018pop\u2019 entertainment\u201d on shows such as Saturday Club<\/em> and Pick of the Pops<\/em>; TV viewers could watch the latest hits on Top of the Pops<\/em>. Yet as far as the young music journalist Annie Nightingale was concerned, the rest of its output remained \u201cutterly atrocious\u201d, with presenters \u201ctalking down\u201d to listeners and playing hours of middle-of-the-road records including Twenty Tiny Fingers, Twenty Tiny Toes<\/em> or Tulips from Amsterdam<\/em>.<\/p>\n On the podcast | Historian, author and broadcaster Dominic Sandbrook answers popular search queries and questions about Britain in the 1960s:<\/strong><\/p>\nExplore the history of the BBC<\/h4>\n