Colin Berry
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| Colin Berry | |
|---|---|
| Born | 29 January 1946 Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom |
| Residence | Hertfordshire, England |
| Nationality | British  |
| Occupation | Radio Presenter |
| Employer | Various till 1973; BBC Radio 2 (1973-2006); Freelance (2006 onwards) |
Colin Berry is a British radio disc jockey/presenter and newsreader, best known for his many years at BBC Radio 2.
Colin started his radio career reading news on Radio Caroline in 1965. Before that he had performed administrative duties at Granada Television and Westward Television and went on to do similar for Radio Caroline. After the Marine Offences Bill came into force Colin spent time with more administrative duties for the newly opened Yorkshire Television while working as a club D-J, moving on to work in record promotion, and BBC Radio Medway as a Saturday afternoon presenter. He also spent the summer of 1971 as an announcer for HTV.
Colin had a brief stint with BBC Radio 1 writing and presenting programme trails, before joining BBC Radio 2 as an announcer/presenter in 1973, where he stayed on the staff for thirty-three years, presenting such shows as Night Ride, The Late Show, Music Through Midnight, European Pop Jury, Band Parade, The Early Show, You & The Night & The Music and countless other shows and concerts. He also deputised for most of the main daytime presenters, including Terry Wogan, Jimmy Young and David Hamilton. During this lengthy period Colin presented programmes for BFBS, and also Inflight Productions for which he remains on their list of presenters. He has also taken part in various TV programmes over the years.
He was the UK spokesman for the Eurovision Song Contest for 25 years reading out their country's voting results between 1977 and 2002 (only missing out on the 1980 and 1998 contests). He also appeared on the following shows: The Generation Game, Blankety Blank, Top Of The Pops, Going Live, Supermarket Sweep and Bargain Hunt, to name but a few. The BBC has a policy of generally retiring all staff at sixty,[citation needed] so Colin is now freelance and has continued reading the news on Radio Two up until September 2012 when big changes occurred resulting in the majority of Radio Two news summaries being read by journalists or 6Music readers, as part of the BBC's effort to save money. Having presented late night Saturdays on BBC Three Counties from 2004, during 2009 & 2010 Colin presented a weekly show for BBC Local Radio across the Eastern Counties - The Saturday Club: 6 to 9pm, playing music from the 1960s and 1970s. He still has an occasional series for BBC Three Counties Radio - A Little Light Music, a rare find on today's radio stations, along with other music shows on or around Bank Holidays. In recent times he has been heard on The Vintage Top 40 Show periodically on various BBC Local Stations at 5pm on Sundays.
Colin remains the regular cover for Richard Spendlove on BBC Local Radio in the east and south east of England.
He is represented by BigFish Media for his voiceover work.
References
Listen Again to Colin Berry at BBC Three Counties Radio here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/bbc_three_counties_radio
Colin's Profile at BBC Three Counties Radio here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/content/articles/2005/09/30/local_radio_colin_berry_profile_feature.shtml
Colin's voiceover agent is here: http://www.bigfishmedia.co.uk/cgi-bin/page.pl?p=Colin%20B
