'Gary King' (born
Stevenage,
England,
August 4 1963) is a British radio presenter who has worked for most of the country's best-known stations.
King began his career as a mobile
DJ after giving up plans to be an
actor and quickly progressed to the London training ground of Radio
TopShop. He then joined
Radio Luxembourg before becoming the inaugural presenter on the newly-launched
Atlantic 252 in
1989 - in a
parody of the four-minute warning, his opening words were ''"mine is the first voice you will ever hear - on Atlantic 252".'' Within less than a year, he had been poached by
BBC Radio 1.
He presented the weekend early show on Radio 1, progressing eventually to the weekday equivalent and becoming a frequent stand-in for presenters on higher profile shows when they took holidays. In
1991, King spent a number of weeks hosting the prestigious Radio 1 breakfast show - the biggest show in UK radio - when regular DJ
Simon Mayo took a period of extended
paternity leave.
King left Radio 1 in March
1992 and joined
Key 103 in
Manchester. He then started a round-robin of stations in London - a spell at
Virgin Radio (which re-introduced him to a national audience for a third time) made him the first DJ to work for all three national pop and rock stations - Atlantic 252, Radio 1 and Virgin.
This was followed by a spell at
Heart 106.2 in London. He then joined
Capital FM - achieving a lifetime's ambition - to host the weekend breakfast show and memorably carded a million London listeners on a number of occasions.
King then worked for
Magic 105.4 in London, before leaving at the end of 2005. He then presented a weekly hour-long quiz on London's
LBC 97.3, with substantial prizes, which was a success. At the same time he was co-producing a networked 1980s show for
commercial radio stations around the UK, entitled ''Totally 80s'', and in 2006 it won the New York Festival's Gold Medal for Best Regularly Scheduled Music Programme.
Moves into television have been infrequent for King, although he was the voiceover artist on the UK version of 1990s children's gameshow ''
Fun House'' and currently appears on a sporadic basis as an expert in "consumer electronics" for shopping channel
QVC. He also occasionally appears on
Sky News to comment on
showbiz stories and currently announces the new version of ''Dale's
Supermarket Sweep'' for
ITV1.
King is married to Sue and has a son and daughter.
References
Blue Revolution is delighted to announce that for the 2nd year running, 'Totally 80s With Gary King' has picked up an award at the Annual New York Festival Of International Radio Programming & Promotion.
After winning Gold at the 2006 ceremony in the 'Best Regularly Scheduled Music Programme' category, this year the show has won Silver for 'Best Oldies/Nostalgia Format' at a lavish ceremony held at The Tribeca Rooftop in Lower Manhattan.
"It's an amazing achievement to get such a prestigious award not just once but twice," said Blue Revolution's Managing Director Paul Hollins.
Gary King, the show's presenter added, "Wow, so lightning does strike twice. I'm delighted our hard work has been recognised again. I'd also like to take a moment to congratulate all the other winners."
Totally 80s, which recently celebrated it's 6th year on air, is a weekly 2-hour programme produced and syndicated by Blue Revolution. It airs on over 25 stations in the UK, Spain and the Middle East.
External links
★
The Official Totally 80s site.
★
Gary King and ''The Big Quiz'' on LBC 97.3
★
Gary King on Radio Rewind - the Radio 1 nostalgia site
★
Gary King speaks the first words on Atlantic 252 via the official tribute site