Richard Skinner (broadcaster) - Radio 1

Radio 1

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 started presenting music programmes for Radio 1, taking over the Monday-Thursday evening show from Mike Read. At the same time Richard continued with Newsbeat as a studio producer and also worked as an in-vision continuity announcer for Thames Television.

In late 1981, Skinner became presenter of Radio 1's Rock On magazine show on Saturday afternoons and Roundtable on Friday evenings, on which he and guests would review the week's new releases. He continued with this until late 1985.

In addition to Roundtable, from 1983 Skinner presented the Saturday Live show from 4 - 6.30pm alongside Andy Batten-Foster.

On 30 September 1984, 17 years to the day after Radio 1 began, Richard 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, started presenting The Network Chart Show 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 phenomenon of the 1980s.

Instead of publicising new Boomtown Rats release as planned, Bob Geldof announced the creation of the Band Aid project on Skinner's Radio 1 show in 1984.

Then on 13 July 1985, Skinner made the opening announcement at Live Aid ("It's twelve noon in London ...") as the event got underway. He also fronted the first hours of BBC TV's Bafta Award winning coverage.