Simon was born in Birmingham and raised in Suffolk and Shropshire. He is perhaps best known for his long stint as a BBC Radio 1 DJ (1976 – 1993).
He began his international broadcasting career in America during the 1960s and continued to work abroad in New Zealand, Australia and South East Asia.
In 1971, he returned to the UK and was an in-vision continuity announcer for ATV, before joining as a presenter at the BBC’s news, arts and entertainment station, BBC Radio 4.
In January 1973, Simon joined BBC Radio 2 to present Late Night Extra. He also presented Night Ride (including the 2,000th edition on 17th April 1973), Sounds Easy and Folk 73, before leaving to present the early morning show in 1975.
He voiced presentation trails for BBC Television (1973 – 1976 and 1979).
Simon left BBC Radio 2 in January 1976 to join BBC Radio 1 in May that year, standing in for Tom Browne to host the Sunday Top 20 show, before presenting the Sunday morning show two months later.
Originally a weekend presenter who played new pop records, Bates took over the weekday mid-morning programme in November 1977. He remained for 16 years, with an audience of up to 11 million listeners.
His voice was a sped-up, slightly Americanised version of the standard received pronunciation normally associated with BBC Radio 4 and was unusual as most BBC Radio 1 DJs had a more informal ‘DJ’ voice.
Two long-running features of his programme were The Golden Hour (inherited from Tony Blackburn), in which listeners had to guess the year from records played and clues given by Bates) and Our Tune at 11am, which ran from 1980.
He read a story (which sometimes had a tragic narrative) sent by a listener, with Nino Rota’s theme to Franco Zeffirelli’s film Romeo and Juliet (1968) playing in the background, and ended with a record chosen by the correspondent.
Other features were The Birthday File, in which he played music by stars celebrating a birthday and Jonathan King commenting about music and interviewing stars at the BRIT Awards.
Bates presented the Sunday afternoon Top 40 (2nd April 1978 – 26th August 1979 and 8th January – 23rd September 1984).
He presented on the station’s summer Roadshows until 1989, when he presented a summer series called Round the World, which was broadcast from a different location each day.
He went around the world in 67 days and raised £300,000 for Oxfam. Cynics said he did it to avoid presenting the BBC Radio 1 Roadshow – a claim he effectively confirmed.
He regularly presented BBC One’s Top of the Pops (1980 – 1988) and was launch presenter, alongside Gillian Miles, on Food and Drink (BBC Two, 1982).
When Matthew Bannister arrived to update BBC Radio 1, Bates was thought to be under threat. Bannister recalled in The Nation’s Favourite, that he feared Bates’ supposed subversive influence, rather than his broadcasting style.
Bates resigned in summer 1993, before the station could sack him, playing Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me) by Reunion as his last record.
He won several Sony awards for radio programming including an in-depth look at musician Eric Clapton and for his Round the World series. In 1993, he was voted Radio Personality of the Year.
Bates has presented on all five national BBC stations. As well as his time at BBC Radios 1, 2 and 4 that we’ve covered above, he also presented a Prom concert on BBC Radio 3 (1987) and presented a digest of the daily papers on the original BBC Radio 5 (now BBC Radio 5 Live) in 1990.
After leaving BBC Radio 1, he worked for Irish-based long wave station Atlantic 252, reviving Our Tune and presented a TV version of the feature daily for BBC One’s Good Morning with Anne and Nick (1994 – 1995) and later for Sky One.
He became the face of the VSC, often seen before films that had come out on rental video, describing the classification of the movie. This was lampooned by comedians such as Harry Enfield and Ben Elton.
He presented the breakfast show on Talk Radio UK (now TalkSport) (September 1995 – April 1996) and was heard on London’s Liberty Radio as mid-morning presenter until 1997.
In 1997, he joined Classic FM, presenting the weekly Classic Romance programme and was also heard on BBC Southern Counties Radio presenting a Sunday morning show until late 1998.
Between 1996 and 1998, he presented a show on the Classic Gold Network on weekday evenings and he moved to London’s LBC as breakfast host (1999 – 2002).
In mid-2002, he was offered his first daily slot, presenting the drive-time show.
From June 2003, he hosted the Classic FM weekday breakfast show and the one-hour Classic FM at the Movies programme, discussing films and film music on Sunday evening.
In September 2006, his programme’s hours changed from 7 – 11am to 8am – 12pm.
In 2010, Simon was moved to mid-morning (9am to 1pm) and shortly afterwards it was announced he would be leaving the station (in January 2011) to present a show on Smooth Radio.
Bates, who from 2014 lived on a farm in mid-Devon, began hosting the BBC Radio Devon breakfast show (6.30am to 10am weekdays, from 12th January 2015). He featured The Golden Hour from 9am – 10am, covering the years 1956 – 2004.
Bates left BBC Radio Devon on 8th January 2017 to “move on to other things”.
In 2017, he presented a TV version of The Golden Hour on Now 80s and Chilled 90s and participated in Radio 1 Vintage, doing an interview about his time on BBC Radio 1.
Simon has broadcast from over 50 countries in the last 20 years and his interest in third world issues has led him to recently make television programmes on India and Pakistan.
In August 2023, he joined Boom Radio.
Correspondence
Paul R. Jackson corresponded with Simon in December 2017 and asked about his career.
“I have always looked forward to the next thing, whatever that may be and I readily and guiltily admit that I don’t keep records of what I have been doing and when.
“Apart from my stint as a Radio 4 presenter and newsreader, I don’t think I’ve ever been on staff. Oh, hang on – 1972 – 1973 when I was a BBC announcer – I would have been on staff.
“The job all started in San Francisco – I met someone in a bar and shouted for a bit on a public service station. I can’t remember if I got paid.
“Then I worked in New Zealand for the then NZBC and did. In Australia I worked for the ABC and re ATV – I can’t remember, but I suspect I met someone in a bar.
“Back to the UK, as you say, for the BBC as a contract announcer. I suspect that I worked for Radio 4 initially after a job offer from David Jones, whose father invented RP (there’s a good deal to learn from it by the way).
“The job was news, continuity and anything else that was going. I recall a show called Late Night Extra which was on, wait for it late at night – and there was a thing called Night Ride.
“Derek Chinnery (who invented The Golden Hour and always and unsuccessfully hunted for a better title bless him) employed me as a contract ‘dep’ for Radio 1 and Radio 2. Then pretty much as you say.
“Our Tune wasn’t necessarily sentimental. Its content was dictated by the listener.
“It was created by producer Ron Belchier (deceased) and became a success because of him and because the listener seemed to like it.
“The theme only became the Zeffirelli one after Dave Price (deceased) took over and believed a change was needed. He was right.
“Round the World wasn’t from a different country every day, but was broadcast from wherever we happened to be, including at sea, which means nothing in these days when you can use your iPhone, but was a result of carrying two 40 kg cases with us.
“Yes, the Roadshow story is true.
“Received pronunciation makes it sound contrived. That’s how I speak and with accent changes from working in other countries, how I’ve always spoken. Horrified to hear that I have an American accent – still if that’s how you judge it, hey ho.
“The TV trails were great fun, working for Pam Masters and some great subversive characters. For the truth, if anyone cares, ask David Jensen.
“I think that it’s probably worth saying that employment was more easily had in the sixties, seventies and eighties than now. You really did meet someone in a bar and they really would say, ‘fancy doing this or that?’.”
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Acknowledgements
PICTURED: Simon Bates. COPYRIGHT: Simon Bates.
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