In June 2005, the capacity formerly used by the speech services, and later by the birdsong, was given over to a test transmission of video to mobile phones known as BT Movio.
The dawn birdsong was recorded in autumn of 1991, on the edge of Salisbury Plain in the Wiltshire garden of Quentin Howard, the chairman of Digital One.
[9] The tape was originally made for an amateur dramatics production of When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs, which was in need of countryside sound effects, and was first heard on-air during test transmissions between July and September 1992 prior to the launch of Classic FM.
[3] Quentin Howard was quoted in several newspaper articles, including The Guardian,[14] that he did not know why "the birds have been killed", but he suspected it might be to create publicity for the new channel.
[15] Without prior notice Birdsong returned to digital radio on 27 December 2019 on the Portsmouth small scale DAB multiplex as a DAB+ service.