The station broadcasts mainly in English, but has retained Sunday evening shows in South Asian languages.

[7] By 1949, the BBC had introduced their first weekly Bengali language programme, Anjuman, through the efforts of Nazir Ahmed and Nurul Momen.

[10] In August 2007, the Asian Network received a new logo as part of a general re-brand of all national BBC stations.

Following the reduction of episode lengths to five minutes per day and continued falling listenership, on 16 November 2009 the BBC announced they would be cancelling Silver Street.

[13] In March 2022, BBC Introducing on Asian Network with Jasmine Takhar was nominated for Best Radio Show at the Music Week Awards.

In February 2023, the network launched their first tour with Nikita Kanda's breakfast show visiting Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow.

[15] Listeners writing on the official Asian Network message boards advocated keeping their station at the expense of 6 Music,[16] and letter was written to the BBC Trust and had been signed by people, with the actual number of signatories was artificially boosted with some signing their name more than once (as both a single name and as part of different collectives).

[12] In 2011, the BBC ruled there would be a 46% reduction in the Asian Network's budget and a declared target of 600,000 listeners a week; with actual audience numbers only peaking at 507,000.

[22] RAJAR's figures in 2014 showed that the Asian Network had at last briefly met the target set four years earlier, finally peaking at 619,000 listeners in Q4.

[23] However, the Asian Network was noted as being the BBC's only station – across both television and radio – whose Appreciation Index measurably fell in 2014.

The audience Appreciation Index figure did not increase, remaining at 80.3; and the average length of time spent on the channel dramatically fell from 06:11 to 05:19 – the biggest fall of all of the BBC's radio stations.

[34][35] In January 2019, he was cleared when a judge ruled that Ansari was not at fault and had been incorrectly told the name of the victim was a pseudonym.