The Greenwich Time Signal (GTS), popularly known as the pips, is a series of six short tones (or "pips") broadcast at one-second intervals by many BBC Radio stations to mark the precise start of each hour. The pips were introduced in 1924, generated by the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and from 1990 were generated by the BBC in London. The broadcast pips replaced an electrical time coordination system based on the railway telegraph network, which itself was an extension of the mechanical time balls in Portsmouth (1829) and later Greenwich (1833), which enabled navigators aboard ships moored in those places to set their chronometers for the determination of longitude on voyages.
Structure
There are six pips (short beeps) in total, which occur on each of the 5 seconds leading up to the hour and on the hour itself. Each pip is a 1 kHz tone (about a fifth of a semitone above musical B5) the first five of which last a tenth of a second each, while the final pip lasts half a second. The actual moment when the hour changes—the "on-time marker"—is at the very beginning of the last pip. When a leap second occurs (exactly one second before midnight UTC), it is indicated by a seventh pip. In this case the first pip occurs at 23:59:55 (as usual) and there is a sixth short pip at 23:59:60 (the leap second) followed by the long pip at 00:00:00. The possibility of an extra pip for the leap second thus justifies the final pip being longer than the others, so that it is always clear which pip is on the hour. Before leap seconds were conceived in 1972, the final pip was the same length as the others. Although "negative" leap seconds can also be used to make the year shorter, this has never happened in practice. Although normally broadcast only on the hour by BBC domestic radio, BBC World Service uses the signal at other times as well. The signal is generated at each quarter-hour and has on occasion been broadcast in error.
Usage The pips are available to BBC radio stations every fifteen minutes, but, except in rare cases, they are only broadcast on the hour, usually before news bulletins or news programmes. Normally, BBC Radio 4 broadcast the pips every hour except at 18:00 and 00:00 (at the start of the Six O'Clock News and Midnight News respectively), and at 22:00 on Sundays (at the start of the Westminster Hour) when they are replaced by the striking of Big Ben at the Palace of Westminster. On BBC Radio 2, the pips are used at 07:00, 08:00 and 17:00 on weekdays, at 07:00 and 08:00 on Saturdays and at 08:00 and 09:00 on Sundays. The pips were used on BBC Radio 1 during The Chris Moyles Show at 06:30 just after the news, 09:00 as part of the "Tedious Link" feature, 10:00 (at the end of the show) and often before Newsbeat. As most stations only air the pips on the hour, The Chris Moyles Show was the only show where the pips were broadcast on the half-hour. Chris Moyles continues to use the pips at the beginning of his show on Radio X. The pips were previously used at 19:00 on Saturday evenings at the start of Radio 1's 12-hour simulcast with digital station BBC Radio 1Xtra, which broadcasts the remixed version of the pips at the start of David Rodigan's show. The pips were also used on Radio 6 Music for a rare occurrence. It took place between 2009 and 2011 on weekdays and the pips were played at 10:00 (end of the breakfast show) and at 19:00 (end of the drive show). BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 5 Live do not broadcast the pips, though Radio 5 Live did do so at 06:00 between 2000 and 2008. The BBC World Service broadcasts the pips every hour. Pips were also heard on many BBC Local Radio stations until the introduction of a new presentation package in 2020. A rare quarter-hour Greenwich Time Signal was heard at 05:15 weekdays on Wally Webb's programme on local radio in the east of England until it ended in March 2020, as part of his "synchronised cup of tea" feature. In 1999, pip-like sounds were incorporated into the themes written by composer David Lowe to introduce BBC Television News programmes. They are still widely used today over theme music of many programmes in BBC One, BBC Two, BBC World News and BBC News. The BBC does not allow the pips to be broadcast except as a time signal. Radio plays and comedies which have fictional news programmes use various methods to avoid playing the full six pips, ranging from simply fading in the pips to a version played on On the Hour in which the sound was made into a small tune between the pips. The News Quiz also featured a special Christmas pantomime edition where the pips went "missing", and the problem was avoided there by only playing individual pips. The 2012 project Radio Reunited used the pips to commemorate 90 years of BBC Radio.
Cultural references Bill Bailey's BBC Rave includes the BBC News theme, which incorporates a variant of the pips (though not actually broadcast exactly on the hour). The footage can be seen on his DVD Part Troll. As a contribution to Comic Relief's 2005 Red Nose Day, the BBC developed a "pips" ringtone which could be downloaded.
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