Simon Bates (born Birmingham,
17
December 1947)
is best known for being a disc jockey in the UK
and New
Zealand. Between 1976 and 1993 he worked at BBC
Radio 1, spending the vast majority of his time at the station
presenting the weekday mid-morning show. He is now a regular on Classic
FM.
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Contents
- 1 Early
career
- 2 BBC
Radio 1
- 3 After
Radio 1
- 4 Classic
FM
- 5 A
Revival
- 6 External
links
|
Early career
Bates lived in Suffolk and Shropshire
and was educated at Adams' Grammar School before
working for radio stations in New Zealand and Australia
during his teenage years. Bates returned to the UK in 1971 to join the BBC, initially working
for BBC
Radio 4 and then joining BBC Radio 2 in 1973 presenting the Late
Night show, before presenting the Early Morning show in 1975. Bates
left BBC
Radio 2 in January 1976
and joined BBC Radio 1 in May the same year
standing in for Tom Browne
to host the Top 20 before presenting the Sunday Morning show two months
later.
BBC Radio 1
Initially a weekend presenter playing brand new pop records,
Bates took over the weekday mid-morning programme in November 1977 and
stayed there for 16 years. Arguably the most un-showbiz of Radio 1's
big-name presenters, with limited banter and avuncular appearance
(sober clothes, large glasses), Bates nevertheless became very popular,
with up to 11 million listeners. His voice — essentially a sped-up,
slightly Americanised version of the standard Received Pronunciation
associated with BBC Radio 4 — has long been one of the most recognised
in the UK, unusual in that most Radio 1 DJs of the time had a more
informal "DJ" voice, and most Radio 4 presenters did not pep up their
RP with anything like Bates' informal touch.
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 the records played and clues
given by Bates.
However, Bates is mainly remembered for Our Tune,
which, from 1980,
became a daily 11am feature of his show. Over the background score of Franco
Zeffirelli's 1968
film Romeo and Juliet,
Bates would read out a true story sent by a listener. The story
invariably had a theme of tragedy running through it, often starting
with an initially happy courtship but followed by a disaster, such as
an illness or death. The story would conclude with a record chosen by
the correspondent. Although many bemoaned the largely mawkish nature of
the feature, it was widely listened to and earned Bates much popular
acclaim. A number of spin-off albums, featuring songs chosen by
listeners, would be 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 pop guru Jonathan
King to comment about the music scene, and was always the
presenter sent by Radio 1 to interview the stars at the BRIT
Awards. In 1989 he did a summer series called Round The World
in which his show would be broadcast from a new country each day — the
idea being that he would go around the world without flying within in
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 only did it in
order to avoid being given one of the infamous 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 run-down,
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 for 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. It is safe to say that he was not the most
popular member of staff at Radio 1.John Peel was fond of repeating an
anecdote 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 elder presenters
whose position was 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 disliked his broadcasting
style.He resigned
before the station was able to sack him.
During his BBC
career Bates was heard on all five 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.
After Radio 1
After leaving Radio 1 he briefly worked for Irish-based long wave
station Atlantic
252, reviving Our Tune and then presented a TV
version of the feature daily for BBC1's Good Morning with
Anne and Nick in 1994/95 and later for Sky One.
During these few years he also became the face of the BBFC video
classification board, often seen before films that had come out on home
video, describing the nature of the classification of the movie. This
was lampooned by many comedians, such as Harry
Enfield and Ben
Elton.
From September 1995
- April 1996,
Bates went onto 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 their weekly Classic
Romance Programme & was also heard on BBC Southern Counties
Radio presenting a Sunday morning show until late 1998.
In addition to this, between 1996 & 1998, Bates was heard presenting a voicetracked
show on the Classic Gold Network on weekday
evenings.
Bates then moved to London's LBC 97.3 as Breakfast host from 1999–2002.
Classic FM
Having originally joined Classic
FM since 1997,
presenting the weekly Classic Romance show, in mid 2002, just before
leaving LBC,
he was offered his first daily show on the station, presenting the
drivetime show.
Since June 2003, Bates has presented Classic FM's breakfast
show weekdays from 7 to 11am and he continues to present the two-hour
"Classic FM at the Movies" programme discussing films and film music on
Saturday evenings. Since September 2006, his show has been broadcast from
8am-12noon.
A Revival
In addition to his Classic FM shows, Bates can also be heard
presenting a revival of his classic feature from Radio 1 Our
Tune. Our Tune at Noon can be heard every
Monday–Friday at 12.00 Midday, which is syndicated on various
commercial stations across the UK.
External links
