Steve Penk

Steve Penk is a British radio and TV presenter. He was born in Rusholme, Manchester and is renowned for his wind-up calls. Penk has worked for various national and local UK radio stations. Aged just 16 he started his radio career at Piccadilly Radio in 1978 (subsequently rebranded Key 103), where his breakfast show delivered record ratings, the highest in the stations history to this day.

In 1997 Penk moved on to work at Capital Radio London presenting the mid-morning show. On his programme he regularly did his famous radio wind ups. It was during one of these "wind-up" calls that Penk had the idea to call the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. He was able to get through the No.10 switchboard and managed to get Blair on the air for a few minutes. Blair later mentioned during Prime Ministers Questions that Penk had prank called him that morning and at that point it became a global media story.

In 2000, Penk moved to Virgin Radio Virgin Radio where he replaced Chris Evans on the breakfast show and increased the audience by 300,000 listeners in the first 3 months. Penk then returned to Capital FM in 2002 to present a networked late show. In the interim, he appeared on Lily Savage's Blankety Blank.

After a year presenting the late show on Capital Radio networked to a number of other stations, Penk returned to Manchester's Key 103, however, he left at the end of 2006. Penk returned to the airwaves on Fox FM in Oxfordshire in March 2007 as its new breakfast show presenter. It was effectively a return to the station as his late show for Capital was simulcast on Fox. However, he announced on 15 January 2008 he would be leaving the station by March 2008 due to 'internal politics'.

He also presented TV Nightmares, The Way They Were When Athletes Attack and made guest appearances on Blankety Blank and a few series of TV's Naughtiest Blunders on ITV1.

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