Showreel

Continuity Announcer

Austin, Craig

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Craig Austin combines roles as a broadcaster, writer and producer. He started his media career in radio and moved on to television, dipping his toes in ink along the way.

Craig is from Uddingston, on the outskirts of Glasgow, and is the youngest of four boys. He started a career in medical laboratory sciences but after three years he returned to student life to study media. He does miss the white coat though!

It was during his final year as a student that he got his first professional broadcasting gigs, writing and presenting travel and traffic reports on a number of Scotland’s radio stations, as well as doing commercial voiceovers. A short spell hosting his own shows on Radio Tay in Dundee followed, before Craig found himself in Carlisle, working as an announcer, presenter and producer for Border Television.

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Webb, Gillian

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Gillian was a BBC TV in-vision network announcer (1946 – 1947). Born in Leicester, in 1926, Gillian became a student at RADA soon after she left school in 1943. When she was called up for National Service she enlisted in ENSA and began touring England with Twelfth Night. She then toured the Middle East with the play Nine to Six, in which her part was of a mannequin with a few lines, but it took her to Cairo, Alexandra, Basra, Damascus, Aleppo, Beirut and Jerusalem.

It was at Habbaniya Airport in Iraq that she met her future husband, Lieutenant Wilson of the United States Army Air Force and, in the course of just seven days, got engaged to him. Upon returning to England in May 1946, Gillian began to see agents and film directors. It was after little success she was given an introduction to the BBC and she got the job of female television announcer. She began her new job on 17th July 1946.

Gillian never saw her announcing job as long term. In an interview published in December 1946 she stated that she was currently reading all she could about America and “has all the states off by heart and can point them out on the map.” In between reading about the US, Gillian also listed her interests as “reads thrillers, plays tennis, and waits for her visa to the United States which in any case won’t be of any use before January when she is twenty-one.” Gillian finally left Alexandra Palace and her announcing job on 20th March 1947 and never returned to television again. Her vacancy was filled by Sylvia Peters after an extensive search for a new female announcer. Sylvia was the youngest of the entrants at 21 years of age.

Gillian’s whereabouts at the current time are not known. Thanks to Simon Vaughan of the APTS for the background information above.

Gower, Mike

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Mike started his broadcasting career as a radio presenter on Radio Forth in 1974. In 1979, he joined BBC Scotland as a continuity announcer. The following year, he moved over to STV where he was a continuity announcer, newsreader and sub-editor, until 1990. Mike then moved into production for STV, working as a producer/director until 1999, when he went freelance.

Mike also lectures at Napier University and Glasgow Metropolitan College.

Vance, Simon

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Simon served an attachment as a BBC TV network announcer (1984 – 1985). He worked as a freelance presenter for BBC Radio Brighton (1976 – TBC), joining the staff there in 1980, until he moved to BBC Radio 4 (1983). He was there until early 1992 when he emigrated to San Francisco.

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Kennedy, Sheila

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Sheila Kennedy, who later made a name for herself as an announcer on ABC Television and then Thames, landed her first television job with Westward. Hotfooting it straight from a career as a theatre actress, Sheila was the first female presenter on the new Westward Television, and proved a real hit with viewers. She became very closely associated with Gus Honeybun, and also contributed articles to Westward’s own local television listings magazine, Look Westward.