Radio 4 celebrates 100th anniversary of the Shipping Forecast with a reading by Jarvis Cocker

04 July 2025, 11:49 | Written by Tyler Damara Kelly

(News)

(Jarvis Cocker)

Marking 100 years since the first broadcast of the Shipping Forecast on BBC radio on 4 July 1925, Jarvis Cocker has recorded an episode to be broadcast at Crossed Wires Podcast Festival, Sheffield.

The festival will welcome ‘ships’ fans to a special 100th anniversary programme with Radio 4 announcers Lisa Costello and Viji Alles, hosted by Chris Mason. The session is part of BBC Sounds’ free Fringe festival with live podcast recordings and exclusive sessions, open to the public.

“The Shipping Forecast is something you absorb unconsciously if you live in the UK. It's been on the airwaves for over 100 years…Now technically speaking, it's a weather guide designed to help sailors on the high seas. But it helps people navigate in other ways than that. For instance, for insomniacs, it's a mantra that hopefully helps them drift finally off to sleep,” Jarvis Cocker explains. “I think it's known around the world as a go-to chill-out thing — before chill-out things were invented, probably.”

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The Shipping Forecast is produced by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) as part of the UK's statutory obligations to provide Maritime Safety Information to seafarers via approved broadcasting methods. The Shipping Forecast is also shared with the BBC for its own broadcast.

Crossed Wires: The Podcast Festival takes place from 4-6 July in Sheffield. An online journey through the one-hundred-year history of the Shipping Forecast can be found on the BBC History website.