BBC Radio presenter Sara Cox has recalled an unusual problem from her years broadcasting the Radio 1 Breakfast Show from Ibiza: the Balearic heat was so intense that some of the MiniDiscs used by the production team began to melt.

Speaking about the early days of her broadcasting career, Cox said the incident happened around 2000 or 2001, when Radio 1 was broadcasting its Breakfast Show from Ibiza.

MiniDiscs melted in the Ibiza sunshine

Cox explained that the technology available to radio presenters at the time was very different from today.

“We did the Radio 1 Breakfast Show back in the day, I think like in the year 2000, 2001, and I was using minidiscs back then,” she recalled.

According to Cox, some of the MiniDiscs could not cope with the heat.

“And some of them melted in the Balearic sunshine,” she said, adding that the programme came close to going off air because of the problem.

The incident highlights just how different live outside broadcasts were before the widespread use of modern digital systems and portable broadcast technology.

Cox and Radio 1's Ibiza years

Cox was part of Radio 1's Ibiza broadcasts during an era when the station's annual island trips had become an important part of its summer programming.

In a BBC Radio 1 anniversary interview, Cox recalled the Ibiza weekends as a particularly memorable part of her time at the station. She described being excited to join the station's Ibiza broadcasts and remembered live shows from Café Mambo alongside presenters and DJs including Pete Tong and Judge Jules.

She also recalled the more chaotic side of the trips, including being taken out of DC-10 by security with her on-air sidekick Sazzle because they needed to catch their flight.

From Ibiza broadcasts to Radio 2

Cox has remained closely associated with BBC radio since those early Radio 1 years and now presents the Sara Cox Breakfast Show on Radio 2.

Her latest recollection offers a glimpse of the practical challenges behind the Ibiza broadcasts of the early 2000s, when presenters and production teams were working with technology that was considerably more vulnerable to the island's summer temperatures.

For Cox, the experience remains one of the memorable stories from Radio 1's long relationship with Ibiza.