Richard Skinner (born 26 December 1951) is a British radio and television broadcaster. He is the only presenter to have fronted the three BBC 'flagship' programmes Whistle Test, Top of the Pops and Top 40 show. [1] [2] [3]
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Early career
He grew up in Portsmouth where he began his career as a newspaper journalist. He worked for a newspaper in Kent and BBC Radio Medway, before joining BBC Radio Solent as a presenter of music programmes (Beat 'n Track) and news reader.
Radio 1
He joined BBC Radio 1 in 1973 as one of the original presenters of Newsbeat[4]. He continued in this role for some years, also working as an in-vision continuity announcer for Thames Television.
In 1980, he went on to present music shows for Radio 1, in early 1981 taking over the Monday-Thursday evening show from Mike Read, who moved to the breakfast show.
In late 1981, Skinner moved to the Rock On show on Saturday afternoons and Roundtable on Friday evenings, where he and guests would review new releases. He continued with this until late 1985.
In addition to Roundtable, in 1983, Skinner presented the Saturday Live show from 4-6.30pm alongside Andy Batten-Foster and on 30 September 1984, 17 years to the day after Radio 1 began, he took over the Sunday afternoon Top 40 show, also broadcast on FM, on the same day that David Jensen, who had just left Radio 1, started presenting The Network Chart Show on commercial radio in competition.
He presented the year-end Top 40 of the year countdown on Radio 1 for both 1984 and 1985, including playing the previously banned Frankie Goes to Hollywood track Relax during the 1984 countdown.
On BBC television, he presented Top of the Pops and Whistle Test, and also played two roles in the Band Aid and Live Aid phenomenon of the 1980s - Bob Geldof announced the Band Aid project on Skinner's Radio 1 show in 1984 instead of publicising new Boomtown Rats material as planned.
On 13 July 1985, Skinner made the opening announcement at Live Aid ("it's 12 o'clock in London...") as the event got underway. He fronted the first stint of BBC TV's coverage [5].
Capital FM
In 1986, Skinner left Radio 1 to join Capital Radio, and was replaced on the chart show by Bruno Brookes. At Capital, he presented its FM Album Rock station "CFM" and hosted The Way It Is - Capital's equivalent of Radio 1's Newsbeat.
Return to Radio 1
In October 1988, when Radio 1 - which had acquired its own FM transmitters - extended its hours, Skinner rejoined the station to host a midnight show to play adult rock music. He presented Top of the Pops around this time. In late 1989, Skinner took over the Saturday afternoon Radio 1 show the 'Saturday Sequence' from Roger Scott following the latter's untimely death from cancer. In 1991 Skinner also took over the helming of Scott's series Classic Albums.
In April 1990, he was replaced on the midnight show by Bob Harris, but continued with the Saturday Sequence, where he remained until 1991, when Johnnie Walker took over.
GLR
From the turn of the 1990s, while he was still at Radio 1, Skinner also presented a daily show on BBC GLR, a mix of music, recorded and live, and live interviews from pop to politics. This continued until January 1993.
Virgin Radio
In January 1993, he joined the launch team at Virgin Radio, working as joint programme director and head of music and presenting the weekday morning show until autumn 1996.
Magic
After a short spell at London's Liberty Radio as breakfast presenter alongside Carol McGiffin, in 1997 Skinner joined London's Melody FM, which later became Magic 105.4, presenting the mid-morning show until September 2003.
Virgin Radio Classic Rock
In late 2003, Skinner was freelancing at the south-coast station Wave 105. Then in early 2004 he rejoined Virgin Radio on the London digital station Virgin Radio Classic Rock, where he hosted the mid-morning show, which was initially recorded, but broadcast live from mid-2005. During this period, he provided holiday cover on Virgin Radio. He left when live programming on Virgin Radio Classic Rock was abandoned in December 2005.
Classic Gold/BBC Radio Berkshire
After freelancing on the Classic Gold network, in April 2006, Skinner joined BBC Radio Berkshire to host the Saturday and Sunday mid-morning programmes. During this time he also covered for holidaying presenters. He left on 6 January 2008.
Original 106
Skinner joined Original 106 as mid-morning presenter in January 2008, and remained in the slot until the station was rebranded as The Coast by its new owners Celador that autumn. He moved to weekend afternoons before leaving the station in December 2008.
XFM
Skinner joined XFM in January 2009 to present the station's mid-morning show, networked to London and Manchester, and broadcasts Monday to Friday, from 11am to 3pm.[6]
References
- ^ "TOTP Archive of Presenters". BBC TOTP. 2009-01-31. http://www.bbc.co.uk/totp2/trivia/presenters/list5.shtml. Retrieved 2009-01-31.
- ^ "Radio Rewind - Richard Skinner". Radio Rewind. 2009-01-31. http://www.radiorewind.co.uk/radio1/richard_skinner_page.htm. Retrieved 2009-01-31.
- ^ "Old Grey Whistle Test - Wikipedia". Wikipedia. 2009-01-31. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Grey_Whistle_Test. Retrieved 2009-01-31.
- ^ http://www.radiorewind.co.uk/radio1/richard_skinner_page.htm
- ^ http://liveaid.free.fr/rewind/complete/pages/richardskinner.html
- ^ http://www.xfm.co.uk/onair/djs/richard-skinner
| Media offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Simon Bates |
BBC Radio One chart show presenter 1984 - 1986 |
Succeeded by Bruno Brookes |
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