It's a very minor thing, but does anyone know why the Steve Wright show on Radio 2 runs from 14:00 - 17:05 according to various EPG listings and the schedule?

All the other weekday programmes run from and to the top of the hour. (Except those that don't start on the hour, obviously).
The only other programmes I can see that do the same are Anneka Rice on Saturday and Good Morning Sunday.

Why doesn't Simon Mayo start at 5pm?
Does anyone know?

Radio 2's drivetime show has started at 17:05 for a long time, I think it's down to a slightly longer news bulletin at 5pm.

Maybe there is a historic requirement for a five minute bulletin at 5pm, some sort of hangover from a previous format or even an agreement with one of the unions.

So it does!
I've just looked back at Genome, and John Dunn started at 17:05 from the 7th April 1986.
I hadn't spotted that it is such a long running start time.

For the same reasons Chris Evans' breakfast show started at 7:05am (before it got an extra half hour).

If I remember correctly, that is...

So in theory if the EPG doesn't change until 17.05 then the 17.00 news bulletin is actually part of Steve's show rather than Simon's even though Steve's show finishes bang on 5pm as confirmed by the pips.

On Derby Day 1 June 1977, John Dunn started at 17.02. Normal start time around then was 16.50 so the length of the 5 O'clock news isn't indicated.

From 9th July 1979 Wagonner's Walk started at 17.05. Seems to be the first indication of 5 minute news at 17.00

Wagoners Walk always seemed to go on forever especially when i was waiting for the sports news on Radio 2 back in the day- can still remember the theme tune so clearly

It's the same on Radio 1, the breakfast show starts at 6.33 and Huw Stephens show starts 2202.

I've always found this very strange. The only possible reason I can think of is that it's a kind of 'warning' about the extended news bulletin for people who aren't interested in the news.

No good reason why they should treat a 5-minute bulletin as separate to a show, but not a 3-minute one.

To me this seems to be a hangover from when Radio 2 had team of continuity announcers who would read the news bulletins and link between programmes and that the 5pm was slightly extended.

It’s strange the timing still exists though. I suppose it doesn’t really matter as to the average listener - Steve Wright will be 2-5 and Simon Mayo will be 5-7. In fact I imagine the exact timings was never a concern to most of the listeners.

Indeed, that's why I asked the question, it is an unusual time nowadays as most programmes are listed at the top of the hour.

In the 1970s (for example) there were an awful lot of programmes listed as starting at odd times, such as 16:47. When there were lots of shorter programmes it made sense, but as we now have generally longer programmes, it doesn't seem worthwhile doing an odd time such as 17:05.

Why doesn't someone submit this question to Homework Sucks?

Great idea!

It would suit me if it only went on until 14.05.....
Hate the show Steve.

Radio Times listings back in the 1960s and 70s always used to give programme start times to take account of the news bulletins, and rather bizarrely they did not use a zero in the start time when it was a few minutes past the top of the hour - e.g. on Sunday morning the start time for Junior Choice would be written as 9.2 - not the more conventional 9.02.

Remember when Steve was on Radio 1 his show used to run from 3.5.30pm then newsbear at 5.30-5.45pm then Bruno Brooke's at 5.45pm.

Could be for iPlayer purposes? How ever Radio Ulster count each bulletin as a separate show so don't know if radio 2 can do the same

It was the convention since the beginning of Radio Times and TV Times

A convention that seems to go back to the start of newspaper printing and certainly to the start of train timetables - which probably affirmed the convention. Although in timetables it wasn't really a time format, there was an hours column and a minutes column - the single digits were aligned to the units column of the minutes.