5IT was a British Broadcasting Company (later BBC) radio station which broadcast from Birmingham, England, between 1922 and 1927.
Birmingham was the first British city outside London to have a radio service from the newly formed British Broadcasting Company, with 5IT starting regular broadcasting from its Witton base at 17:00 on 15 November 1922, [1]: 207 one day after 2LO started daily BBC broadcasting from London [1]: 157 and one hour before the 18:00 launch of Manchester's 2ZY. [1]: 161 5IT pioneered many innovations in early broadcasting, launching Children's Hour in 1922, [2] developing sophisticated methods of programme control and employing the first full-time announcers in 1923. [3] The station's first announcer on its opening night was its general manager Percy Edgar, [3] who was to be the dominant figure in Birmingham broadcasting and the BBC's most influential regional director until his retirement in 1948. [4]: 311
5IT moved its studios from Witton to a former cinema in New Street in 1923, moving again in 1926 to a completely new building in Broad Street with two studios – one of the largest the country, [5] if not Europe. The Broad Street studios now controlled and made programmes for a region stretching across central England from The Potteries to Norfolk.
From 21 August 1927 the low-powered city station 5IT was replaced by the 5GB (the BBC Midland Region) – the first of the BBC's regional services [6] – broadcast from the new high powered Daventry transmitting station at Borough Hill near Daventry. [4]: 282