Annie Nightingale: Radio 1’s first female DJ and champion of new music dies aged 83

Annie Nightingale, the first female presenter on BBC Radio 1 and the station’s longest-serving DJ, has died aged 83, the BBC has confirmed.

Her family said that she died on 11 January at home in London following a short illness. In a statement they described her as a “pioneer, trailblazer and inspiration to many. Her impulse to share that enthusiasm with audiences remained undimmed after six decades of broadcasting on BBC TV and radio globally.

“Never underestimate the role model she became. Breaking down doors by refusing to bow down to sexual prejudice and male fear gave encouragement to generations of young women who, like Annie, only wanted to tell you about an amazing tune they had just heard.

“Watching Annie do this on television in the 1970s, most famously as a presenter on the BBC music show The Old Grey Whistle Test, or hearing her play the latest breakbeat techno on Radio 1 is testimony to someone who never stopped believing in the magic of rock’n’roll.”

Nightingale joined Radio 1 in 1970 and never left, and holds the world record for having the longest career as a female radio presenter. Her programme Annie Nightingale Presents featured the famed dance music fan’s “biggest bass bangers”: her most recent show, broadcast on 9 January, featured songs by Deadmau5 and remixes of songs by AJ Tracey and Jorja Smith and US rapper Ice Spice.

BBC director general Tim Davie called Nightingale “a uniquely gifted broadcaster who blessed us with her love of music and passion for journalism, for over 50 years. As well as being a trailblazer for new music, she was a champion for female broadcasters, supporting and encouraging other women to enter the industry.”

BBC Radio 1 head Aled Haydn Jones said that the station was “devastated” to lose Nightingale. “Annie was a world class DJ, broadcaster and journalist, and throughout her entire career was a champion of new music and new artists,” he said. “She was the first female DJ on Radio 1 and over her 50 years on the station was a pioneer for women in the industry and in dance music. We have lost a broadcasting legend and, thanks to Annie, things will never be the same.”

Breakfast show presenter Greg James paid tribute on X: “It was such a treat if you happened to be in the building at the same time as her. She was always so interested in what everyone else was up to.” BBC Radio 2 host Zoe Ball said that Nightingale “could outlast any of us at the party”.

Annie Mac, who held a long stint at Radio 1, wrote on Instagram: “She smashed through all the sexist stereotypes of what kind of broadcaster a woman should be. And she didn’t stop. She kept going, her very existence as an older woman playing underground music on Radio 1 was subversive.”

Nightingale was born in Middlesex on 1 April 1940. She started her career working in television and newspapers, and became the host of the 1960s TV pop show That’s for Me. She continued working in television while running a chain of fashion shops and modelling. In the late 1960s, inspired by the advent of pop pirate radio, she lobbied for a job on the BBC’s nascent Radio 1, which at the time had banned female presenters. “When the pirates and then Radio 1 came along, I was very keen to get involved,” she told NME in 1978. “I seemed to find that broadcasting came easy – certainly easier than writing. But nobody wanted to know.” By 1970 she was successful – thanks in part to support from the Beatles’ press officer Derek Taylor – and a trial run led to an afternoon presenting job.

She was the only female DJ at the station for 12 years, until Janice Long joined in 1982. By that time Nightingale had transferred to an evening slot, which gave her greater freedom over the style of music she played. “From day one, I chose the records I wanted to play, and stuck to it ever since,” she wrote in her 2020 memoir, Hey Hi Hello: Five Decades of Pop Culture From Britain’s First Female DJ. “I wasn’t there for the ‘exposure’. I preferred the evenings, where I wouldn’t have to introduce playlist tunes I didn’t like. That would have been like lying to me.”

Annie Nightingale in 1970. Photograph: Mirrorpix

She presented various music and discussion shows on the station and joined The Old Grey Whistle Test as co-host in 1978 following the departure of Bob Harris, and notably helmed an episode broadcast in the wake of John Lennon’s murder.

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Nightingale commanded a loyal listenership. In the early 80s, journalist Mark Ellen recalled standing in for her on her Radio 1 Sunday night request show and noting the extent of her listeners’ devotion. “They thought of Annie as an eternally sympathetic figurehead who understood what they were going through, a sort of fabulous and unreconstructed goth auntie,” he told the Observer in 2020. “They absolutely adored her.”

In the late 80s, she became a pioneer of dance music at the station, exposing the then-underground acid house scene to the mainstream. Nightingale also became an in-demand DJ herself, playing clubs and festivals around the world.

In 2002 she was awarded an OBE for services to radio broadcasting. In 2020, she was appointed CBE. Nightingale published three memoirs: Chase the Fade in 1981, Wicked Speed in 1999, and Hey Hi Hello. She was close with Paul McCartney, who commissioned her to write a book to accompany the re-releases of his albums Tug of War and Pipes of Peace.

Rather than move to the likes of BBC Radio 2 and play music aimed at older people, Nightingale maintained her youth focus as a presenter into her 80s. “If I can play what I like and say what I like and encourage the young to do the same, then that’s the dream to me,” she told the Observer in 2020.

She was also a noted supporter of young broadcasting talent. In 2021, she launched the Radio 1 scholarships to help discover female and non-binary DJs, and she spoke passionately of the importance of believing in younger generations. “We should trust young people, because when we have done in the past, like in the 1960s and the 1990s … well, we’ve all reaped the benefits. I experienced the attitude of those times, that feeling that young people could create this fabulous new world together. They still can, if we help them.”

Nightingale had two children, Alex and Lucy, by her first husband, writer Gordon Thomas, whom she had divorced by 1970. A second marriage, to actor Binky Baker in the late 70s, also ended in divorce.