4 March - London's Jazz FM, a station playing mainly soul and jazz music, launches with an Ella Fitzgerald concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
27 August - The BBC's long awaited fifth national radio station, BBC Radio 5 is launched on the old Radio 2 mediumwave frequency. The station mainly carries sports, children's and educational programmes. It was closed and replaced by the national news station BBC Radio 5 Live in 1994.
1 September - Official launch of Kiss FM. The station had previously operated as a pirate broadcaster.
Unknown - Red Rose Radio, which was transmitted on 97.4 MHz and 999 kHz, is split into two stations - Red Rose Rock FM using the FM frequency and Red Rose Gold on the medium wave frequency.
Unknown - Frances Line replaces Bryant Marriott as controller of BBC Radio 2.
