3 January –
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme launches a Saturday edition. The Saturday programme begins at 7 am, 30 minutes later than the weekday editions.
17 January –
Johnnie Walker returns to
BBC Radio 1 to present a new Saturday afternoon programme The Stereo Sequence. The programme, which runs for 5½ hours, incorporates the previous stand-alone Saturday afternoon shows, including the weekly look at the American charts.
February
9 February –
BBC Radio 3 launches a twice daily news bulletin from the
BBC World Service. The bulletins last for less than a year and are scrapped at the start of 1988.
March
3 March –
Radio Trent's broadcast area expands when it starts broadcasting to
Derbyshire.
April
No events.
May
18 May – The
Yorkshire Radio Network launches. It is a networked service of evening and overnight programming, broadcast on three commercial radio stations in Yorkshire –
Pennine Radio in
Bradford,
Viking Radio in
Hull and
Radio Hallam in
Sheffield – providing programming every night between 8 pm, starting slightly earlier at weekends, and 6 am.
22 May –
GWR's broadcast area expands when it launches in
Bath.
June
No events.
July
July – The European-wide re-organisation of band 2 of the VHF band comes into effect. It allows the full broadcasting spectrum to be available for broadcasting.
September – Just over a year after the BBC's four local radio stations in Yorkshire launched an early evening series of specialist music programmes, the service is expanded. Programmes are broadcast on six nights a week (Wednesday to Monday) and the length of each programme is increased by 30 minutes. Consequently, the four stations now stay on air into the mid evening as the programmes are transmitted between 7 pm and 9 pm.
4 October – From this day, the new
UK Singles Chart is released on
BBC Radio 1's Sunday afternoon chart show. Previously, the programme had played songs from the chart which had been released the previous Tuesday.
5 October –
Manx Radio completes a deal with
United Christian Broadcasters (UCB) which sees UCB broadcast via Manx Radio for an hour on Sunday evenings on Manx Radio's AM transmitter.[4][5]
9 October – Radio 1 launches a new weekly Friday evening dance music programme, presented by Jeff Young.
6–8 November – Radio 1 hosts a Birthday Weekender at Pontins Prestatyn in North Wales to mark its 20th anniversary. The event features various DJs presenting their programme from the venue across the weekend[8][9] The event concludes with a special live performance by
The Communards[10]
6 December –
Ocean Sound launches on a new frequency to cover
Winchester and the north of its region, as reception in this area is rather poor from the 103.2 FM transmitter on Chillerton Down on the
Isle of Wight. Ocean Sound North on 96.7 FM shares much of its programming with Ocean Sound West, except for a local breakfast show.
Late in 1987,
Downtown Radio begins broadcasting to the
Enniskillen and
Omagh areas of
Northern Ireland and to coincide with its expanded broadcast area, the station briefly rebrands itself as 'DTRFM'.