The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the long wave frequency which had earlier been used – prior to the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939 – by the BBC National Programme.

Pick of the Pops is a long-running BBC Radio programme; it was based originally on the Top 20 from the UK Singles Chart and was first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme on 4 October 1955. It transferred to BBC Radio 1 from 1967 to 1972. The show returned to the BBC in 1989 and its current production run started on BBC Radio 2 in 1997.