Richard Skinner (broadcaster)
| Richard Skinner | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Richard Skinner |
| Born |
26 December 1951 Portsmouth, Hampshire, England |
| Occupation(s) | Presenter and radio DJ |
| Years active | 1970–present |
Richard Skinner (born 26 December 1951 in Portsmouth, Hampshire) is a British broadcaster.
He was the opening announcer and TV anchor at the Live Aid concert in 1985, and is the only presenter to have fronted all three of the BBC's leading pop music programmes, The Old Grey Whistle Test and Top of the Pops on television and the Radio One Top 40 show.
Skinner grew up in Portsmouth where he attended Portsmouth Grammar School. He was a founder member of Portsmouth Hospital Broadcasting, which first went on air in April 1970. After studying newspaper journalism at Highbury Technical College. he began his career at the local paper The News. He then moved to the Erith Observer newspaper in Kent and at the same time appeared briefly on BBC Radio Medway, before joining the staff of BBC Radio Solent in October 1971 as a presenter of music programmes (including the weekly pop show Beat 'n Track) and as a newsreader.
Skinner joined BBC Radio 1 in the autumn of 1973 as one of the original presenters of Newsbeat. He continued in this role until 1980, when he became a regular presenter of music programmes for Radio 1, taking over the Monday-Thursday evening show from Mike Read in the December. At the same time Skinner continued with Newsbeat as a studio producer and also worked as an in-vision continuity announcer for Thames Television. According to Skinner, during his time working on Newsbeat he broke the news of the death of John Lennon to Paul McCartney's household by phone in the early hours of 9 December 1980.
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