Coordinates | 12°56′23″N74°14′51″N |
---|---|
Name | Simon Bates |
Birth date | December 17, 1947 |
Birth place | Birmingham |
Employer | Smooth Radio |
Occupation | Radio DJ }} |
Simon Bates (born 17 December 1947, Birmingham) is a UK disc jockey and radio presenter. Between 1976 and 1993 he worked at BBC Radio 1, presenting the station's weekday mid-morning show for most of this period. He later became a regular presenter on Classic FM. In January 2011, he took over as host of "The Breakfast Show" on Smooth Radio.
Two long-running features of his programme were particularly well known: "The Golden Hour" and "Our Tune". Bates inherited "The Golden Hour" from his predecessor, Tony Blackburn. The listener had to guess the year from records played and clues given by Bates.
However, the "Our Tune" feature, which ran from 1980, became a daily 11am fixture of his Radio 1 show, and is the element for which it is best remembered. Over the background of Nino Rota's theme to Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film Romeo and Juliet, Bates would read a story sent by a listener. The story invariably had a theme of tragedy, often starting with a happy courtship but followed by a disaster such as illness or death. The story would conclude with a record chosen by the correspondent. Although some bemoaned the feature's mawkish nature, a number of spin-off albums, featuring songs chosen by listeners, were released.
A third, less well-remembered feature was "The Birthday File", in which Bates would play music by stars celebrating a birthday.
Bates afforded regular airtime to Jonathan King to comment about the music scene, and was always the presenter sent by Radio 1 to interview stars at the BRIT Awards. In 1989 he did a summer series called "Round The World" in which his show broadcast from a new country each day — the idea being that he would go round the world without flying within 67 days, an aim in which he was ultimately unsuccessful (he had to fly over Saudi Arabia) although he did raise £300,000 for Oxfam and it did only take 78 days. This won him awards, though cynics claimed he did it to avoid being given one of the BBC Radio 1 roadshows, and Bates himself has since effectively confirmed that suggestion. Bates' daily reports ran for only half an hour — Mike Read stepped in to present The Golden Hour during this period while the rest of the morning was taken up by the roadshow.
Bates also had two runs presenting the Sunday afternoon Top 40, from 2 April 1978 to 26 August 1979 (during which time the Top 20 was extended to the Top 40 on 12 November 1978) and 8 January 1984 to 23 September 1984. He presented BBC TVs Top of the Pops regularly from 1980 to 1988, and presented the roadshow — which he came to despise — every summer for many years until 1988, on one occasion insisting on wearing long trousers when it was compulsory to wear shorts. After his round-the-world trip in 1989, he was exempted roadshow duties during his last four summers at the station.
Bates worked on the mid-morning slot until 1993, seeing breakfast-show presenters like Noel Edmonds, Dave Lee Travis, Mike Read, Mike Smith and Simon Mayo come and go. He was not the most popular member of staff at Radio 1. John Peel was fond of repeating that he formed a posse with David Jensen and Paul Burnett to attack him in the car park but admitted they never actually confronted him.
When new controller Matthew Bannister arrived at the station intending to shake-up its safe feel and modernise it, Bates was one of the presenters thought to be under threat. Bannister's comments in the book The Nation's Favourite indicate that he feared Bates's supposed subversive influence rather than his broadcasting style. Bates resigned before the station was able to sack him.
Bates was heard on all five national BBC stations — apart from his stint at BBC Radio 1 and his broadcasts for BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4 (unusually before he joined the pop network), he also presented a Prom concert on BBC Radio 3 in 1987 and presented a digest of the daily papers on the original version of BBC Radio 5 (now BBC Radio Five Live) in 1990.
During these few years he also became the face of the VSC often seen before films that had come out on rental video, describing the classification of the movie. This was lampooned by comedians such as Harry Enfield and Ben Elton.
From September 1995 - April 1996, Bates broadcast for Talk Radio UK (now TalkSport) as the breakfast show presenter. He was then heard on London's Liberty Radio as mid-morning presenter until 1997.
In 1997, Bates joined Classic FM, presenting the weekly Classic Romance programme and was also heard on BBC Southern Counties Radio presenting a Sunday morning show until late 1998. In addition, between 1996 and 1998, Bates presented a show on the Classic Gold Network on weekday evenings. He then moved to London's LBC as breakfast host from 1999–2002.
Category:1947 births Category:British radio DJs Category:British radio personalities Category:Classical music radio personnel Category:Living people Category:People from Birmingham, West Midlands Category:People from Newport, Shropshire Category:Smooth Network presenters Category:People educated at Adams' Grammar School
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