The show ran six days a week until February 1968 (see BBC Genome Project), then five days a week until June 2018, when the Friday show was dropped and incorporated into the station's weekend schedule, hosted by former Weekend Breakfast hosts Matt & Mollie.
[1] The first breakfast show presenter was Tony Blackburn, who spoke the first words on Radio 1 and remained in the slot for nearly six years.
[3] Other segments included The Nixtape, which saw Grimshaw select 30 minutes of party-oriented music before a DJ came in to mix listener requests to close the week on Friday mornings, Happy Monday, a half-hour of uplifting songs on Monday mornings, Showquizness, an irreverent daily quiz based around pop culture, Happy Hardcore FM, which saw listeners phone into the show to scream over happy hardcore beats, and the daily Waking Up Song, which featured celebrities encouraging listeners to get out of bed to the sound of Pharoahe Monch.
Roisin Hastie read the bulletins for Newsbeat every half-hour except at 09:00 until her departure from the show in 2022 for maternity leave, when she was replaced by Calum Leslie.
The measures took place in order to help BBC Radio 1 promote social distancing and to limit the number of staff allowed in the studio.
[10] In November 2020, Radio 1 announced that James's Breakfast show be broadcast five days a week from the start of January 2021.