Richard Skinner

Absolute Radio 70s presenter

Richard Skinner presents on Absolute Radio 70s, which launched on November 29th 2011, hosting his own show on weekday afternoons between 2pm and 6pm.

The station emulates the UK radio of the '70s, which raised no barriers to any music genre and where Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Slade, T Rex, Jackson 5, Blondie and Sweet create a kaleidoscope of classic songs for a forty-something generation and for everyone who just loves great songs.

In the 1970s we discovered the pure pop genius of Abba, met reggae's first global superstar - Bob Marley, saw the charts dominated by disco, and enjoyed the startling arrival of punk which was a musical explosion that inspired a whole new wave of performers. Along the way, Queen turned rock into 'Rhapsody', Elton John walked the 'Yellow Brick Road', Rod Stewart made an 'Atlantic Crossing' and David Bowie found his inspiration in 'Berlin'. It was a tumultuous ten years that opened with the break-up of The Beatles and closed with so called 'rock dinosaurs' Pink Floyd at Number 1 with 'Another Brick In The Wall'. But most of all it was a fun decade packed with memorable hits.

Richard Skinner started out as a newspaper journalist in Kent before BBC local radio came calling, joining Radio Medway and then Radio Solent as a music presenter and news reader. One of the original journalists on Newsbeat Richard joined Radio 1 in 1973, and in 1980 moved to the evening weekday slot presenting a music show. A year later Skinner moved to head up the Rock On Show and Roundtable reviewing new releases.

Richard presented one of the most talked about shows of the 80s - the Sunday afternoon Top 40 on Radio 1, which included playing the previously banned Frankie Goes to Hollywood track 'Relax.'

Richard was also a familiar face on TV at the same time, appearing on Top of the Pops and Whistle Test and he played a significant role in the Band Aid and Live Aid phenomenon. The first project was unveiled on Skinner's Radio 1 show with Bob Geldof, and a year later he fronted the BBC's award-winning coverage of Live Aid. He also presented the Nelson Mandela Tributes at Wembley and interviewed stars such as Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell and Bryan Ferry for BBC 2.

He made his commercial radio debut on Capital Radio before returning to Radio 1 two years later to host an overnight show, Saturday afternoons and the Classic Albums series. He also mixed pop and politics on BBC GLR before joining Virgin Radio in 1993 as joint programme director and presenter. After freelancing, for several years Richard rejoined Virgin on the digital station Classic Rock. Since then he has working on Classic Gold, BBC Radio Berkshire, Original 106 and XFM.