Radio News

New KISS Life show introduced with Swarzy Macaly

KISS is introducing a new Sunday evening show called KISS Life hosted by Swarzy Macaly. Bauer says KISS Life will be a place for reflection and discussion on the KISS Network – a weekly gathering for people to bring their authentic questions and opinions to the table, and to hear from those in power and positions of influence to help make sense of the world. Starting at 9pm on Sunday 7th March the live show will include stories from contributors and listeners from all around the UK...

Heart’s Make Me A Millionaire returns to the radio

Heart is giving away another million pounds to one listener with the return of Heart’s Make Me A Millionaire competition. Last year, hundreds of listeners won prize sums of up to £30,000 before one person won £1,000,000. Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden launched the 2021 promotion on Heart Breakfast this morning, with both of them dressing up for the occasion. Listeners are able to win a daily cash prize by listening out for when a specific artist plays on air. Selected at random, the daily winner can decide to walk away with that day’s prize fund or forgo their winnings for the chance go into the Million Pound Final to win £1 million pounds...

Eight new presenters get BBC Radio 1 opportunity

Eight of the presenters given a one-off show over the 2020 festive period at Radio 1 are returning to host a month of Early Friday Breakfast shows. Dean McCullough, Rakeem Omar, Danni Diston, Sam MacGregor, Darcy Kelly, Alex West, Numi Gildert and Robyn Richford will host the programme over the coming months. First up will be 28-year-old Dean McCullough, who will take on Friday Early Breakfast in April. Originally from Belfast and now based in Manchester, Dean started out volunteering at Wandsworth Radio in 2016 before landing a show on Gaydio, where he currently hosts the breakfast show...

Former Capital DJ Anton Powers joins KISS

KISS has hired former Radio City, Capital and Juice Liverpool DJ Anton Powers to host a series of weekend show across KISS and KISSTORY. Starting from March 5th, Anton will be kicking off the weekend every Friday with Tyler from 6pm in the mix. He’ll also be hosting KISSTORY classics on the KISSTORY station every Saturday 1pm till 5pm followed by 5pm till 7pm on KISS. Hailing from Liverpool, Anton has achieved in excess of 250 million streams and sold over 1.5 million singles in the UK alone. He has played sets at festivals including Tomorrowland and Creamfields as well as being invited to play across the world from Ibiza to the USA and Australia...

Schedule changes for Virgin Anthems, Chilled and Groove

Virgin Radio Anthems, Virgin Radio Chilled and Virgin Radio Groove are having some changes made to their schedules next month. Jez Welham, Sean Goldsmith and Matt Brown join the team whilst Chris Brooks, Rich Williams and Dave Kelly take over new slots. Sean Goldsmith joins from Bauer’s Greatest Hits Radio and will join Virgin Radio Chilled to present weekday evenings from 6pm. Children’s author Matt Brown, who previously worked for Capital, Heart and Magic, will present Virgin Radio Chilled’s weekends from 2pm- 6pm. Former KISS FM and Capital XTRA presenter Jez Welham (in the photo above) will join Virgin Radio Groove to present on Saturday and Sunday from 2pm – 6pm...

Stars line up to cover Virgin Radio Drive Time show

Giovanna Fletcher, Sharleen Spiteri and Gaby Roslin are set to become guest hosts of Kate Lawler’s Virgin Radio UK weekday Drive Time slot, whilst Kate is on maternity leave with her new baby girl Noa. I’m A Celebrity’s first ever ‘Queen of the Castle’, Giovanna Fletcher, will be covering Kate’s Drive show from the 1st to the 12th of March. As well as Giovanna, lead singer of rock band Texas, Sharleen Spiteri, will be in the hot seat for two-weeks between the 15th and the 26th of March, while TV presenter Gaby Roslin will be taking over the reins in April...

Scott Mills and Chris Stark bring back the LOLathon

Scott Mills and Chris Stark are hosting another 24 hour LOLathon on BBC Radio 1 for Red Nose Day 2021. The afternoon presenters have done it twice before, with the first one in 2017 causing a few complaints to Ofcom for the middle of the night sex hour and non-innuendo bingo. This year, Radio 1’s LOLathon kicks off on Friday 5th March at 8am and continues until Friday 12 March culminating in the 24-hour marathon show hosted by Scott Mills and Chris Stark. The marathon will commence at 9am on Thursday 11 March and will continue until 9am the following day...

BBC Radio 3 holds 24hr celebration of women composers

BBC Radio 3 will mark International Women’s Day with 24-hours of special programming which puts the work of female composers in the spotlight. As part of this, the station has commissioned two new works which receive their world premiere performances as part of the celebration. Film composer, vocalist and educator Ella Jarman-Pinto has set a text by the poet Jo Brandon for soprano Nazan Fikret and pianist Rebecca Cohen which explores the emotional impact of the pandemic on women, in a piece called Plango: A Cure Lament. It gets its world premiere performance in the drive-time programme In Tune...

BBC Asian Network hires 13 new radio presenters

BBC Asian Network is welcoming 13 brand new presenters to the station following a search for new talent. Each of the new presenters will host their own Sunday shows each between March 2021 – and February 2022 as part of the station’s New Presenter Voices initiative. BBC Asian Network launched the search for new presenter voices in December, searching for talent who have a passion for British Asian culture and the latest in music and entertainment. For several of them, hosting on the Asian Network will be their first ever role in radio, including for Serena from Birmingham, who works as a model and content creator. Serena will be the first of the new DJs to...

Penny Smith to host Drivetime on Scala Radio

Former GMTV anchor Penny Smith is taking over Drivetime on Scala Radio each weekday. In other changes following the departure of Simon Mayo from the daily schedule, Mark Forrest is to host mid-mornings permanently and Angellica Bell is to launch a new magazine style weekend show Saturday and Sunday 10am till 1pm. Simon will launch a new Saturday afternoon show from April called Simon Mayo’s Essential Albums. Jack Pepper will continue in his 3pm slot throughout March before moving to a new showtime of 6pm. Hannah Cox meanwhile moves to Saturday Breakfast at 7am, and Anne Frankenstein joins the Scala team for Sunday afternoons 1-3pm...