Greenwich Time Signal 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 and not the whole set. The 2012 project "Radio Reunited", however, did use the pips
Greenwich Time Signal local radio stations also play the pips over the station's jingle. BBC Radio 4 is stricter. It is an almost entirely speech-based network; incidents at the end of the "Today" programme regularly cause listeners' complaints. As a contribution to Comic Relief's 2005 Red Nose Day, the BBC developed a "pips" ring-tone which can be downloaded. 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". In the late 1980s Radio 1 featured the pips played over