4 February – After broadcasting off and on since 1969, Radio Jackie's time as a pirate station ends. It returns 18 years later as a legal station, broadcasting to the same area of south west London that it had served as a pirate.
13 February – Financial difficulties force South Wales station Gwent Broadcasting to close down after less than two years on air.[2]
March
31 March – Ranking Miss P becomes BBC Radio 1's first black female DJ when she begins presenting the station's first reggae programme. This was not her first appearance on the station, however, as she had been sitting in for other presenters for the past year.
April
April – Following the closure of Gwent Broadcasting, CBC expands its broadcast area to cover the Newport area of South Wales.
May
No events.
June
29 June – BBC Radio's adult educational strand Study on 4 is renamed Options. All programming now broadcast on weekend afternoons. The programmes continues to be broadcast only on BBC Radio 4's FM frequencies.[3]
July
13 July – BBC Radio 1 broadcasts full, live coverage of the Live Aid pop concerts. This gives people the ability to hear the concerts in stereo.
August
During the 1985 school summer holidays, BBC Radio 4 broadcasts an all-morning children's programme called Pirate Radio 4 on Thursday mornings. Three editions of the programme are aired. It is broadcast on VHF/FM only with the usual Radio 4 schedule continuing on long wave.
September
September – Wiltshire Radio buys struggling Radio West and on 1 October a merged station, GWR, launches.
14 October – CBC is relaunched as Red Dragon Radio. The station also covers the Newport area, offering a replacement service to Gwent Broadcasting and provides separate breakfast shows for Cardiff and Newport until the early 1990s.[4]
October – Plymouth Sound launches an opt-out service for Tavistock. The service operates on weekday breakfast and drive time and weekend mid-mornings.
October – Kiss makes its first broadcasts as a pirate station.