From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gary King (born Stevenage, England, 4 August 1963) is a British radio presenter who has worked for most of the country's best-known stations.

King began his career as a mobile DJ after giving up plans to be an actor and quickly progressed to the London training ground of Radio TopShop. He then joined Radio Luxembourg before becoming the inaugural presenter on the newly-launched Atlantic 252 in 1989 - in a parody of the four-minute warning, his opening words were "mine is the first voice you will ever hear - on Atlantic 252". Within less than a year, he had been poached by BBC Radio 1.

He presented the weekend early show on Radio 1, progressing eventually to the weekday equivalent and becoming a frequent stand-in for presenters on higher profile shows when they took holidays. In 1991, King spent a number of weeks hosting the prestigious Radio 1 breakfast show when regular DJ Simon Mayo took a period of extended paternity leave.

King left Radio 1 in March 1992 and joined Key 103 in Manchester. He then started a round-robin of stations in London - a spell at Virgin Radio (which re-introduced him to a national audience for a third time) made him the first DJ to work for all three national pop and rock stations - Atlantic 252, Radio 1 and Virgin.

This was followed by a spell at Heart 106.2 in London. He then joined Capital FM - achieving a lifetime's ambition - to host the weekend breakfast show and memorably carded a million London listeners on a number of occasions.

King then worked for Magic 105.4 in London, before leaving at the end of 2005. He then presented a weekly hour-long quiz on London's LBC 97.3, with substantial prizes, which was a success. At the same time he started presenting an 80s show for commercial radio stations around the UK, entitled Totally 80s. The show is produced by Blue Revolution (which is owned by Paul Hollins). In 2006 Totally 80s won the New York Festival's Gold Medal for Best Regularly Scheduled Music Programme, followed by a Silver Award in 2007 for Best Oldies/Nostalgia Format, and was also named 'European Radio Show Of 2007' at a ceremony held in Barcelona in November 2007.

Moves into television have been infrequent for King, although he was the voiceover artist on the UK version of 1990s children's gameshow Fun House and currently appears on a sporadic basis as an expert in "consumer electronics" for shopping channel QVC. He also occasionally appears on Sky News to comment on showbiz stories currently announces the new version of Dale's Supermarket Sweep for ITV1. Gary was covering for regular hosts Salty and Danny Matthews on the North West's Feel Good Breakfast Show on 105.4 Century Radio in March 2008.

Gary final Big Quiz show on London's LBC 97.3 was on Saturday 10 May 2008. On 15 September 2008, King returned to the airwaves of the North West, hooking up with erstwhile Key 103 colleague Steve Penk at The Revolution in Oldham to present the weekday 11am-3pm show. Gary will also be joining to present on the all new look Jazz FM from Monday October 6 2008.

King is married to Sue and has a son and daughter.

References

External links

• The Official Totally 80s site.
• Gary King and The Big Quiz on LBC 97.3
• Gary King on Radio Rewind - the Radio 1 nostalgia site
• King speaks the first words on Atlantic 252 via the official tribute site
• Capital Radio 88.7 (Malta)