Matthew Bannister

Matthew Bannister is a radio broadcaster. Born in 1957, he first worked for BBC Radio 1 as a presenter of its news programme "Newsbeat" between 1983 and 1986, but established himself as a name in the radio industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s as controller of GLR (Greater London Radio), the BBC's local radio station for London. Here he worked for the first time with Chris Evans, who was pioneering many of the ideas which would later win him success at Radio 1. GLR also employed a number of the more musically credible DJs from Radio 1's past, such as Annie Nightingale, Tommy Vance, Janice Long and Johnnie Walker.

In 1993 Bannister was chosen as the new controller for BBC Radio 1, replacing Johnny Beerling who had worked at the station since its inception in 1967. The station was hugely popular, but many of its DJs, producers and other staff had been working there for decades, and it was felt that younger listeners were not being sufficiently catered for. Between 1993 and 1995 many older DJs departed, including Dave Lee Travis, Simon Bates, Alan Freeman, Bob Harris, Steve Wright, Gary Davies and Bruno Brookes. Although audiences declined dramatically, a new wave of DJs, including specialists such as Steve Lamacq (indie rock), Tim Westwood (hip-hop), Chris Goldfinger (ragga/dancehall) and Trevor Nelson (R&B), emerged and became highly popular with a new generation, who were now catered for in a way they had never been before.

By 1995 the Britpop explosion had proved the success of Bannister's strategy; the bands he had championed a year or two earlier, when they were comparatively obscure and marginal, were now part of the mainstream, and Radio 1 was booming again. Chris Evans, who had become a hugely popular national figure as breakfast presenter, was the figurehead of this boom. Eventually things went sour; in January 1997 Evans resigned after Bannister refused to allow him Fridays off to concentrate on his TV show "TFI Friday". After Mark and Lard had an unsuccessful stint on the breakfast show, the team of Kevin Greening and Zoe Ball were hosting the programme when Bannister left Radio 1 in 1998.

In the autumn of 1996 Bannister was appointed Director of Radio, a post which gave him overall responsibility over all the national BBC radio networks other than Five Live. He remained controller of Radio 1 alongside this until March 1998, when he was succeeded by Andy Parfitt. In October 2000 Matthew Bannister resigned from the BBC. After working as a journalist, notably for The Times, he returned to his broadcasting roots presenting the late-night show on BBC Radio Five Live.

For personal reasons, Bannister did his last late-night programme on BBC Radio Five Live at the end of 2004, but he is still very much involved with the station, and continues to present ad-hoc programmes.

Some or all material in this page has been adapted from the Matthew Bannister entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Bannister), or others, in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org), the free encyclopedia.