01 811 8055

01 811 8055 was a telephone number first introduced in 1977 by the BBC for viewers to make contact with the television programme Multi-Coloured Swap Shop.

This number replaced the original telephone number for the programme, 01 288 8055, for the start of the second series of the programme and was designed by the Post Office engineers as a number that would be totally dissimilar to any other in existence at the time. The reason behind this was to reduce the confusion that the huge number of phone calls being made to 01 288 8055 was causing.

The number was not exclusively used by Swap Shop, also being used for programmes such as Lucky Numbers, Nationwide, Breakfast Time, Children in Need and Crimewatch UK. The number was subsequently used by BBC Saturday morning programmes Saturday Superstore and Going Live.

The number survived until 1990 when BT introduced new dialling codes for inner and outer London resulting in the STD code being changed to 081. At this time the opportunity was taken to change the number completely and it was replaced with 081 811 8181.

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