Richard Skinner (broadcaster)

Richard Skinner (born December 26, 1951) is a British radio and television broadcaster. The only presenter to have fronted the three BBC 'flagship' programmes "Whistle Test", "Top Of The Pops" and Radio 1's Top 40.

Early career

He grew up in Portsmouth where he began his career as a newspaper journalist, before joining BBC Radio Solent as a presenter of music programmes and news reader.

Radio 1

He joined BBC Radio 1 in 1973 as one of the original presenters of "Newsbeat". He continued in this role for some years, also working as an in-vision continuity announcer for Thames Television.

He then went on to present music shows for Radio 1 in early 1981 taking over the Monday-Thursday evening show from Mike Read, who had taken over 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 moved to the "Saturday Live" show from 4-6.30pm alongside Andy Batton-Foster and on September 30 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 at the time, started presenting the Network Chart 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 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.

Then, on July 13 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. [http://liveaid.free.fr/rewind/complete/pages/richardskinner.html]

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 the late Roger Scott.

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 McGiffen, 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 ir at Wave 105 on the Solent and in early 2004 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 6th January 2008.

Original 106

Skinner joined Original 106 as mid-morning presenter on 14 January 2008. He also presents the Original Album Chart on three Original stations in the Solent area, Bristol and Aberdeen.

Miscellaneous

Skinner is married to 'Delightful' Deborah, who was part of Steve Wright's 'posse' on BBC Radio One in the 1980s. He has two sons, Christopher, born 1977 and Jamie, born 1996.