John Peters (born in

Ashford, Middlesex Ashford is a town almost wholly in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, with a small area contained within the boundaries of the London Borough of Hounslow, approximately west-southwest of central London. Its name derives from a crossing point ...

) is a British disc jockey and long established personality in the

East Midlands The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It comprises the eastern half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It consists of Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Li ...

region. Known for his distinctive voice, he has presented shows on many of the region's radio stations, including

Radio Trent Trent FM was an Independent Local Radio station which broadcast to Nottinghamshire. The station merged with two other East Midlands stations, Leicester Sound and Ram FM to form Capital FM East Midlands (part of Global's Capital FM Network) on M ...

, GEM-AM,

Saga 106.6 FM Saga 106.6FM was an Independent Local Radio for the East Midlands, broadcasting to Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland. Part of the Saga Radio Group, the regional station was broadcast from the Riverside Busines ...

and

106.6 Smooth Radio Smooth East Midlands is an Independent Local Radio station for the East Midlands, 107.4 MHz, 97.2 MHz, 106.8 MHz 106.0 MHz which replaced Saga 106.6 FM at 6am on Monday 26 March 2007. It is owned by Communicorp UK and operated b ...

Radio2XS radio2XS was re-branded in 2018 a2XS Rocks It is programmed and edited in Sheffield, England and uses the on-air slogan "A.Different.Music.Mix.". Playing "New Music, Live Sessions and 60 Years of Rock’n'roll", the station was formed in 2002 i ...

and

Gravity FM Gravity FM is a community radio station based in Grantham, Lincolnshire. Broadcasting full-time since 1 December 2008 on 97.2FM and online, the station has completed its first licence period and, as a result, has obtained a further five year ex ...

Grantham Grantham () is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the Lincoln and ...

, Lincolnshire . He currently presents three shows on

Boom Radio Boom Radio (also Boom Radio UK) is an independent, commercial, national radio station in the United Kingdom. Owned by Boom Radio Ltd, the station is aimed at baby boomers, the generation of people born between 1946 and 1964, and is the first rad ...

, Fridays at 6pm, as well as a show on Saturday afternoons called John's Jukebox, between 4:00pm and & 7:00pm also The Vintage Charts on Sunday at 12 noon.

Early career

He sent a demo to Radio One in 1968 which got a very favourable response from the producers panel, although it didn't lead to a job. In 1972 he applied to Radio Luxembourg (208) and got to perform live in front of the programme director Ken Evans. It came down to two and Mark Wesley got the job.

United Biscuits Network

John got a call in 1974 from UBN's programme director

Adrian Love Adrian Love (3 August 1944 – 10 March 1999) was a British radio presenter, remembered for his ''Love in the Afternoon'' programme on BBC Radio 2. Early life Adrian Love was born in York on 3 August 1944 to Cicely Joyce (née Peters) and music ...

(son of

Geoff Love Geoffrey Love (4 September 1917 – 8 July 1991) was a prolific British arranger and composer of easy listening and pop versions of film themes. He became famous in the late 1950s, playing under the pseudonym of Manuel and The Music of The Mou ...

) while working at a Relay Station operated by the

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

through which UBN broadcast to factories in

Osterley Osterley () is an affluent district of the historic parish of Isleworth in west London approximately from Charing Cross and is part of the London Borough of Hounslow. Most of its land use is mixed agricultural and aesthetic parkland at Osterl ...

(studio base),

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, Manchester and Tollcross in Glasgow. John had already been to look around and met

Roger Day Roger "Twiggy" Day (born Roger Thomas in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire England; 29 March 1945) is a radio broadcaster and DJ who began his career in offshore radio, and was a key pioneer in commercial radio. He later presented on BBC Local Rad ...

on air and was keen to work there. All of the rules and regulations had been instilled forthrightly, by ex- Radio London favourite Dave Dennis, who would one day be John's boss. It was like a who's who of future British Broadcasting.

Roger Scott Roger Scott (23 October 1943 – 31 October 1989) was a British radio disc jockey. He was best known for presenting an afternoon radio show on London's Capital London from 1973 until 1988 and was also best known for presenting his late night ...

Graham Dene Graham Dene (born 7 April 1949) is a British radio personality. After a period as a disc jockey on Edgware General Hospital's radio, and at United Biscuits Network, he became famous in the London area as Capital Radio's breakfast presenter in th ...

and many more who would later get commercial radio off and running in Great Britain, were all there at UBN. John joined in April 1974, as a whole new team were being assembled to replace the other presenters who were moving on. In early 1975 came the news that Radio Trent were looking for presenters and Bob Snyder (Radio 270) who was also in the UBN line up, was to become Trent's programme director. John left UBN in May 1975 along with Chris Baird, Peter Quinn and Bob Snyder and headed for Nottingham.

Radio Trent

He moved to Nottingham in 1975 to help set up the area's first

commercial radio Commercial broadcasting (also called private broadcasting) is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship. It was the United States′ first model of radio (an ...

station. The station,

, was launched on Thursday 3 July 1975, and he hosted its first programme. He spent several years with Trent and hosted many shows including Trent Top 30, which was also later broadcast on

Leicester Sound Leicester Sound was an Independent Local Radio station which broadcast to Leicestershire. The station merged with two other East Midlands stations, Trent FM and Ram FM to form Capital FM East Midlands (part of Global's Capital FM Network) on Mo ...

and Derby's Trent 945 (later called

Ram FM Ram FM was an Independent Local Radio station, which broadcast to central and southern parts of Derbyshire on 102.8 FM. The station merged with two other East Midlands stations, Trent FM and Leicester Sound to form Capital FM East Midlands (p ...

) before moving to its medium wave service, GEM-AM, when this was established in 1988 as a result of

Radio Authority Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitt ...

requirements over the simulcasting of programmes on both the AM and FM frequencies. After several years with GEM, one of his Trent colleagues became involved in the management of a new station,

Century FM Century Radio was the brand name of a group of independent local radio stations in England. The brand was developed with the launch of 100-102 Century Radio in North East England in 1994, with John Myers as managing director and John Simons as ...

based in Nottingham, and he was given the chance to return to FM broadcasting. However, he maintained his links with GEM, and eventually became its sole local weekday presenter after the station's purchase by GWR Radio. At

Classic Gold Classic Gold was a network of three "Gold" music formatted stations which broadcast on AM in Bradford, Hull and Sheffield. They were the sister stations of Pennine Radio, Viking Radio and Radio Hallam respectively and they were part of the Yo ...

GEM (as it was then renamed), he presented the afternoon drivetime show and voiced local announcements.

Freelance Career and Saga 106.6 FM

In 1999, he became a freelance presenter, hosting shows for a number of stations in the East Midlands region, as well as also doing some behind the scenes engineering work. But in 2003, he made a return to regular presenting after joining

. He became Saga's breakfast presenter, and made it a hat trick by hosting the station's inaugural programme. He was with Saga throughout its time on air, and was part of the launch team of the station's replacement, 106.6 Smooth Radio. When Smooth Radio began in March 2007, he initially presented its weekday drivetime show. However, from October 2007, Tony Lyman took over the slot, and John Peters became a night time and weekend presenter. The overnight show was networked with some other Smooth stations in June 2008, although he continued to present shows on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. He left Smooth at the beginning of 2010. In 2010 he also presented a show on Saturday afternoon with

community radio Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting. Community stations serve geographic communities and communities of interest. They broadcast content that is popular ...

station

in Grantham. He also could be heard presenting '60s2XS' on

. He also presented a morning show on Radio Trent, a reformed online station, with other former Trent Presenters. It was launched on 3 July 2011 to coincide with the launch of the original Radio Trent. John made a return to breakfast programming from 3 January 2012 on community radio station

During his spare time, John Peters is involved with broadcast electronics, and has built his own station at home. He is often asked to repair equipment for other radio stations. He also enjoys restoring classic cars. In February 2021, he joined

a station aimed at the Baby Boom generation.

External links

John Peters on Boom RadioThe Vintage Charts on Boom Radio

(which includes recordings of him launching Radio Trent and GEM-AM, and presenting on the stations) {{DEFAULTSORT:Peters, John Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British radio DJs People from Ashford, Surrey British radio personalities