Essential Mix
Encyclopedia
The Essential Mix is a weekly radio show on BBC Radio 1
currently broadcast between 03:00 and 05:00 Saturday morning. Originally broadcast on 30 October 1993, The Essential Mix features contemporary DJs and music producers of electronic dance music.
show broadcast on BBC Radio 1
and features all styles of electronic dance music
. Originally the brainchild of Eddie Gordon
, the producer of the show from the first broadcast in 1993 to 2001. In 1993, after months of receiving weekly mix shows on tape-cassette, featuring New York
DJs Tony Humphries
WRKS 98.7 Kiss FM and Frankie Knuckles
WQHT HOT 97 FM, recorded and mailed religiously by US Billboard
s Dance Editor Brian Chin, Eddie advised BBC Radio 1 that a weekly dance mix show with DJs of different genres of music would offer more variety and the chance for the ever burgeoning UK dance music scene to flourish with new emerging DJs as well as the internationally famous. Eddie further encouraged the DJs he scheduled to flex their musical knowledge as the broadcast was not essentially playing to a dance floor but to people listening in their homes all over the world and that a high number of listeners were recording the show on cassette to listen to later. Hence the need for a straight out "4 to the floor" seamless 130bpm mix for 2 hours was not totally necessary so the DJs could include more eclectic music or offer something different from their normal set. DJ Paul Oakenfold
particularly grasped the concept and after sitting with Eddie to blueprint his December 1994 Essential Mix produced the now world famous Goa Mix
which won a Silver Award in the Specialist Music Programme category at the 1998 Sony Radio Awards and in 2000 was voted the Best ever Essential Mix by the BBC Radio 1 listeners. Then DJ David Holmes
in June 1997 created another 2 legendary hours in the history of the Essential Mix: His set a surprising journey from Nancy Wilson
to Jimi Hendrix
– redefined the DJ as a collector of musical history. In May 1998, DJ Ashley Beedle, known for his House music style completed a 2 hour Reggae mix to reveal his extensive knowledge of that genre of music and is blogged as the best reggae mix ever broadcast (see link Best Foot Forward).
The show has been hosted since its conception in 1993 by DJ Pete Tong
who was also the first performer, broadcast on 30 October 1993. Every Friday late night/Saturday morning a two hour programme is broadcast, usually between the hours of 3 am and 5 am UK-time (the programme was previously broadcast between Saturday late night/Sunday morning 1 am and 3 am, and before that, between 2 am and 4 am and originally midnight and 2 am). The standard format of the show is an uninterrupted guest mix of two hours provided by an invited DJ, group or producer
, introduced by Tong. The mix is usually studio recorded in advance.
initiative was to take the show on the road with live broadcasts from clubs or festivals, particularly during the summer months (Northern Hemisphere) and at the New Year's Eve end of the calendar months. The live broadcasts started from within the UK
and soon broadened out as live
from Ibiza
, North America
, Australia
, South Africa
, Germany
, Hawaii
and other destinations in Europe
including Rome
in Italy
. One special broadcast was the BBC Radio 1 - One World Millennium
celebration starting with DJ Carl Cox
from Bondi Beach in Sydney
, Australia (more Eddie Gordon origination) before heading to Cape Town
, South Africa with DJ Danny Rampling
prior to broadcasting DJ Dave Pearce
from Glasgow
, Scotland
, DJ Pete Tong
from Liverpool
, UK then DJ Junior Vasquez
from New York
, USA before closing with DJ Carl Cox
who had flown backwards across the dateline to complete a DJ World first with two Millennium gigs by broadcasting from Honolulu, Hawaii
.
The forerunner to this mammoth New Year's Eve Essential Mix was the transatlantic three cities broadcast on the New Year's Eve of 1997 into 1998 with simultaneous broadcasts from three clubs directly to each dance floor with DJ Pete Tong at the Ministry Of Sound
, London
, UK, DJ Todd Terry
at the Nynex Arena in Manchester
, UK and finishing with DJ Eddie Baez at the Tunnel
venue in Manhattan
, New York, USA. Produced by Eddie Gordon who originated the idea of linking the three venues via ISDN broadcast.
The broadcasts from Ibiza have taken place every summer since the first Essential Mix live broadcast from Amnesia
. The first ever Essential Mix from Ibiza came in the summer of 1995 Ibiza as a pre-recorded broadcast of Nicky Holloway
playing live at Ku (today Privilege
) on 2 July 1995.
's unique ability to offer DJs the chance to play a relatively long set on radio
uninterrupted by advertisements, something which cannot be matched by the BBC
's commercial rivals (the BBC is funded through TV Licensing). The absence of any kind of interruption in music has led to the show being touted as a "two hour musical journey" rather than as simply an assortment of records. The show has been used as a platform for artists to showcase their talents, and for some is seen as a major boost to their careers.
's dance music output, the Essential Mix is seen as significant in its contribution to the popularization of dance music in the UK
. The programme has chartered the development of the dance music genre from 1993 to the present day and shows no sign of losing its influence.
brought the programme to an international audience for the first time (the Radio 1 website launched in 1996). In 2002 the BBC
launched their 'listen again' online radio
service and the Essential Mix (along with the Essential Selection
) became consistently the most popular specialist music show of the whole BBC Radio
network amongst internet users. According to BBC server logs, the show receives around 50,000 online requests per week (though this can be significantly higher, with the 2003 Ibiza
show attracting more than 96,000 requests), which compares to the show's "live" audience of 80,000. Whilst demand for a podcast
of the show is high, the BBC has resisted in making the show available in this way due to copyright
issues. The development of peer-to-peer
internet technologies spawned a new trend in which fans of the show made recordings of mixes available to users of services such as BitTorrent and eMule
. Although illegal, the BBC has taken little action against such activity.
However in 2010, Mixriot, a website which hosted stream and download links to past Essential Mix broadcasts dating back to the first ever edition for its members, was asked to remove all its past recordings by production company Somethin' Else due to copyright infringement. The Mixriot website is still live though it has since taken down all Essential Mix broadcasts.
Still many torrent sites and internet forums continue to provide mp3 download links to past shows which can be found easily through internet search engines.
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
currently broadcast between 03:00 and 05:00 Saturday morning. Originally broadcast on 30 October 1993, The Essential Mix features contemporary DJs and music producers of electronic dance music.
Background
The Essential Mix is a weekly radioRadio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
show broadcast on BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
and features all styles of electronic dance music
Electronic dance music
Electronic dance music is electronic music produced primarily for the purposes of use within a nightclub setting, or in an environment that is centered upon dance-based entertainment...
. Originally the brainchild of Eddie Gordon
Eddie Gordon
Eddie Gordon is an English music journalist, a producer, DJ and music business personality.-Beginnings:...
, the producer of the show from the first broadcast in 1993 to 2001. In 1993, after months of receiving weekly mix shows on tape-cassette, featuring New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
DJs Tony Humphries
Tony Humphries
Tony Humphries is a former Administrator of the British Indian Ocean Territory , a British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean. Humphries was Administrator from February 2005 to December 2007.-References:...
WRKS 98.7 Kiss FM and Frankie Knuckles
Frankie Knuckles
Frankie Knuckles is an American DJ, record producer and remix artist. He played an important role in developing house music as a Chicago DJ in the 1980s and he helped to popularize house music in the 1990s, with his work as a producer and remixer...
WQHT HOT 97 FM, recorded and mailed religiously by US Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
s Dance Editor Brian Chin, Eddie advised BBC Radio 1 that a weekly dance mix show with DJs of different genres of music would offer more variety and the chance for the ever burgeoning UK dance music scene to flourish with new emerging DJs as well as the internationally famous. Eddie further encouraged the DJs he scheduled to flex their musical knowledge as the broadcast was not essentially playing to a dance floor but to people listening in their homes all over the world and that a high number of listeners were recording the show on cassette to listen to later. Hence the need for a straight out "4 to the floor" seamless 130bpm mix for 2 hours was not totally necessary so the DJs could include more eclectic music or offer something different from their normal set. DJ Paul Oakenfold
Paul Oakenfold
Paul Mark Oakenfold is a British record producer and a trance DJ.-Early Career: 1979–84:Paul Oakenfold's career was set to be a chef, after having hopes of becoming part of a band. He describes his early life as a "bedroom deejay" in a podcasted interview with Vancouver's 24 Hours, stating he grew...
particularly grasped the concept and after sitting with Eddie to blueprint his December 1994 Essential Mix produced the now world famous Goa Mix
Goa Mix
The Goa Mix is a two-hour mix by DJ Paul Oakenfold. It was originally broadcast on BBC as an Essential Mix in 1994 after the Producer of the show Eddie Gordon chose Paul as the DJ to create a ground-breaking 2 hour mix, regarded now as the famous Goa Mix, a working title Eddie Gordon gave to the...
which won a Silver Award in the Specialist Music Programme category at the 1998 Sony Radio Awards and in 2000 was voted the Best ever Essential Mix by the BBC Radio 1 listeners. Then DJ David Holmes
David Holmes (musician)
David Holmes is a Northern Irish DJ, musician and composer.-Career:Holmes began djing in Belfast from the age of 15. His first hit was the song "DeNiro", with Ashley Beedle, in 1992. In the early to mid 1990s he ran two club nights in the Belfast Art College known as Sugar Sweet and Shake Yer Brain...
in June 1997 created another 2 legendary hours in the history of the Essential Mix: His set a surprising journey from Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson (singer)
Nancy Wilson is an American singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist...
to Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
– redefined the DJ as a collector of musical history. In May 1998, DJ Ashley Beedle, known for his House music style completed a 2 hour Reggae mix to reveal his extensive knowledge of that genre of music and is blogged as the best reggae mix ever broadcast (see link Best Foot Forward).
The show has been hosted since its conception in 1993 by DJ Pete Tong
Pete Tong
Peter "Pete" Tong is an English DJ who works for BBC Radio 1. He is known worldwide by fans of electronic music for hosting programmes such as Essential Mix and Essential Selection on the radio service, which can be heard through Internet radio streams, for his record label FFRR Records, and for...
who was also the first performer, broadcast on 30 October 1993. Every Friday late night/Saturday morning a two hour programme is broadcast, usually between the hours of 3 am and 5 am UK-time (the programme was previously broadcast between Saturday late night/Sunday morning 1 am and 3 am, and before that, between 2 am and 4 am and originally midnight and 2 am). The standard format of the show is an uninterrupted guest mix of two hours provided by an invited DJ, group or producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, introduced by Tong. The mix is usually studio recorded in advance.
Special events
Another Eddie GordonEddie Gordon
Eddie Gordon is an English music journalist, a producer, DJ and music business personality.-Beginnings:...
initiative was to take the show on the road with live broadcasts from clubs or festivals, particularly during the summer months (Northern Hemisphere) and at the New Year's Eve end of the calendar months. The live broadcasts started from within the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and soon broadened out as live
Live radio
Live radio is radio broadcast without delay. Before the days of television, audiences listened to live dramas, comedies, quiz shows, and concerts on the radio much the same way that they now do on TV. Most talk radio is live radio where people can speak about their opinions/lives....
from Ibiza
Ibiza
Ibiza or Eivissa is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea 79 km off the coast of the city of Valencia in Spain. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. With Formentera, it is one of the two Pine Islands or Pityuses. Its largest cities are Ibiza...
, North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
and other destinations in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
including Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. One special broadcast was the BBC Radio 1 - One World Millennium
Millennium
A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years —from the Latin phrase , thousand, and , year—often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system....
celebration starting with DJ Carl Cox
Carl Cox
Carl Cox is a British techno and house music DJ.-Biography:Cox grew up in Oldham, Lancashire, before attending Glastonbury High Boys secondary modern school on Glastonbury Road in Morden. Cox began his career as a hardcore and rave DJ in the mid 1980s...
from Bondi Beach in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia (more Eddie Gordon origination) before heading to Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
, South Africa with DJ Danny Rampling
Danny Rampling
Danny Rampling is a British House Music DJ and is widely credited as one of the original founders of the UK's rave/club scene. His long career began in the early 1980s playing hip-hop, soul and funk around numerous bars and clubs in London.-Ibiza:...
prior to broadcasting DJ Dave Pearce
Dave Pearce
Dave Pearce is a British dance DJ and record producer, who has played gigs across the UK and the world, although he is perhaps best known for his work in radio. He currently works for the BBC 6 Music...
from Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, DJ Pete Tong
Pete Tong
Peter "Pete" Tong is an English DJ who works for BBC Radio 1. He is known worldwide by fans of electronic music for hosting programmes such as Essential Mix and Essential Selection on the radio service, which can be heard through Internet radio streams, for his record label FFRR Records, and for...
from Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, UK then DJ Junior Vasquez
Junior Vasquez
Junior Vasquez, , is an American club DJ and remixer/producer.-Career:...
from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, USA before closing with DJ Carl Cox
Carl Cox
Carl Cox is a British techno and house music DJ.-Biography:Cox grew up in Oldham, Lancashire, before attending Glastonbury High Boys secondary modern school on Glastonbury Road in Morden. Cox began his career as a hardcore and rave DJ in the mid 1980s...
who had flown backwards across the dateline to complete a DJ World first with two Millennium gigs by broadcasting from Honolulu, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
.
The forerunner to this mammoth New Year's Eve Essential Mix was the transatlantic three cities broadcast on the New Year's Eve of 1997 into 1998 with simultaneous broadcasts from three clubs directly to each dance floor with DJ Pete Tong at the Ministry Of Sound
Ministry of Sound
Ministry of Sound London, commonly referred to as simply Ministry of Sound or MoS, is a nightclub based in London, United Kingdom and an associated record label. It was ranked fourth in the 2010 DJ Magazine top 100 clubs poll 2010. As well as the nightclub in London, there is another in Egypt and...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, UK, DJ Todd Terry
Todd Terry
Todd N. Terry is an American DJ, producer, and remixer.-Career:Terry's productions extensively used samples blending the sounds of classic disco, the Chicago sound, and elements of hip-hop....
at the Nynex Arena in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, UK and finishing with DJ Eddie Baez at the Tunnel
Tunnel (New York nightclub)
Tunnel was a nightclub in New York City, located at 220 Twelfth Avenue, in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, New York City, in the Terminal Warehouse Company Central Stores Building, which is now part of the West Chelsea Historic District. Tunnel was opened in early 1987 by Peter Gatien, in a...
venue in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, New York, USA. Produced by Eddie Gordon who originated the idea of linking the three venues via ISDN broadcast.
The broadcasts from Ibiza have taken place every summer since the first Essential Mix live broadcast from Amnesia
Amnesia (nightclub)
Amnesia is one of several internationally renowned clubs in Ibiza due to Joseph Murphy who created Cream in 1996 and was awarded Best Global Club in the 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 International Dance Music Awards for the respective previous year at the Winter Music Conference in Miami...
. The first ever Essential Mix from Ibiza came in the summer of 1995 Ibiza as a pre-recorded broadcast of Nicky Holloway
Nicky Holloway
Nicky Holloway is an English DJ who rose to fame in the 1980s and 1990s, and has been called "a prototype of the superstar DJ".-Biography:He was born in London. He began playing records in the Disco Pub scene around the Old Kent Road in 1980...
playing live at Ku (today Privilege
Privilege Ibiza
Privilege Ibiza is the "world's largest nightclub" according to the Guinness Book of Records, with a capacity of 10,000 people. It is located not far from San Rafael, Ibiza, less than 1 km from the nightclub Amnesia. For fourteen years, Privilege hosted Manumission, one of the island's most famous...
) on 2 July 1995.
Overview
The Essential Mix quickly established a strong reputation within the dance music community and has gained prestige both in the UK and internationally. Although Eddie Gordon originally had his work cut out attracting big names to the program due to their busy DJ schedules, he was with determination and a broad knowledge of the big name DJs dance music styles, and the hugely successful live Essential Mix the list of performers now essentially reads as a "who's who of dance music". The shows success can perhaps be partly attributed to Radio 1BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
's unique ability to offer DJs the chance to play a relatively long set on radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
uninterrupted by advertisements, something which cannot be matched by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's commercial rivals (the BBC is funded through TV Licensing). The absence of any kind of interruption in music has led to the show being touted as a "two hour musical journey" rather than as simply an assortment of records. The show has been used as a platform for artists to showcase their talents, and for some is seen as a major boost to their careers.
Significance
Like all of Radio 1BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
's dance music output, the Essential Mix is seen as significant in its contribution to the popularization of dance music in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. The programme has chartered the development of the dance music genre from 1993 to the present day and shows no sign of losing its influence.
New technologies
The advent of the internetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
brought the programme to an international audience for the first time (the Radio 1 website launched in 1996). In 2002 the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
launched their 'listen again' online radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
service and the Essential Mix (along with the Essential Selection
Essential Selection
The Essential Selection was a radio show on Friday evenings on BBC Radio 1, hosted by Pete Tong. It started in early 1991 and showcased the latest electronic dance music, with an emphasis on house...
) became consistently the most popular specialist music show of the whole BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
network amongst internet users. According to BBC server logs, the show receives around 50,000 online requests per week (though this can be significantly higher, with the 2003 Ibiza
Ibiza
Ibiza or Eivissa is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea 79 km off the coast of the city of Valencia in Spain. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, an autonomous community of Spain. With Formentera, it is one of the two Pine Islands or Pityuses. Its largest cities are Ibiza...
show attracting more than 96,000 requests), which compares to the show's "live" audience of 80,000. Whilst demand for a podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
of the show is high, the BBC has resisted in making the show available in this way due to copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
issues. The development of peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
internet technologies spawned a new trend in which fans of the show made recordings of mixes available to users of services such as BitTorrent and eMule
EMule
eMule is a free peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. Started in May 2002 as an alternative to eDonkey2000, eMule now connects to both the eDonkey network and the Kad network...
. Although illegal, the BBC has taken little action against such activity.
However in 2010, Mixriot, a website which hosted stream and download links to past Essential Mix broadcasts dating back to the first ever edition for its members, was asked to remove all its past recordings by production company Somethin' Else due to copyright infringement. The Mixriot website is still live though it has since taken down all Essential Mix broadcasts.
Still many torrent sites and internet forums continue to provide mp3 download links to past shows which can be found easily through internet search engines.