[1] The Britpop explosion proved the success of Bannister's strategy: the bands he had championed a year or two earlier, when they were comparatively obscure and marginal, were now part of the mainstream, and Radio 1 was booming again.

Chris Evans, who had become a hugely popular national figure as breakfast DJ, was the figurehead of this boom, but eventually things went sour; in January 1997 Evans resigned after Bannister refused to allow him to waive his Friday show, to concentrate on his TV show TFI Friday.

[3] In 1999, Bannister was appointed chief executive of BBC Production, responsible for all non-news programme-making on English television, radio and online.

[4] When John Birt announced he was stepping down as BBC director general, Bannister lost out to Greg Dyke.

Since 2006 he has presented an obituary programme on Radio 4 called Last Word[6] and between 2008 and 2018 also hosted Outlook on the BBC World Service.

[8] During the Covid pandemic lockdowns, the podcast staged four online Front Room Festivals which raised £327,000 for musicians who had lost their livelihoods.

In 2023, Bannister walked 186 miles in two weeks[9] from the Wickham Festival in Hampshire to FolkEast in Suffolk, raising nearly £18,000 for the charity Help Musicians.

[1] In 1989, Bannister married Shelagh Macleod, who later became senior vice-president of legal and business affairs at the record company EMI.