Mike Powell is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

former

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

and

radio 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 transmit ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

who hosted shows on several UK

music radio Music radio is a radio format in which music is the main broadcast content. After television replaced old time radio's dramatic content, music formats became dominant in many countries. Radio drama and comedy continue, often on public radio. Mu ...

stations before transitioning to station management. After working in provincial newspapers in the Westcountry, Powell joined

DevonAir DevonAir Radio was the independent local radio station serving East Devon, Exeter and Torbay. History On 27 March 1978, the Independent Broadcasting Authority invited applicants for the licence to serve the Exeter and Torbay area. Three appli ...

Radio (Exeter and Torbay) at its launch in 1980 as a senior journalist, then Head of News and Current Affairs. He later jointly hosted the breakfast show. Powell moved to

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

in 1983 as launch News Editor of

County Sound County Sound Radio was an analogue commercial radio station covering Surrey and north-east Hampshire in the United Kingdom. One of its closing forms in 2012-2014 formed Eagle Extra occupying 1566 MW following an internal split between older an ...

Radio. He was promoted to Program Director from 1984 to 1986 and then CEO from 1986 to 1991 - growing the group to four radio stations. His innovations at

included being the first UK radio station to use RCS (

Radio Computing Services RCS, originally Radio Computing Services, is a provider of scheduling and broadcast software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built an ...

) Selector music-scheduling software 24 hours a day and introducing the UK's first gold format radio station (County Sound Gold). Powell designed the programming for award-winning station, Fox FM - a joint venture with

Capital Radio Capital London is a radio station owned and operated by the Global media company as part of its national Capital FM Network. As Capital Radio it was launched in the London area in 1973 as one of Britain's first two commercial radio stations. I ...

(London). After taking County Sound to a UK

stock market A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include ''securities'' listed on a public stock exchange, as ...

listing, he departed to form radio investment, research and management company, Infinity Radio, which set up

Pirate FM Pirate FM is an Independent Local Radio station owned and operated by Bauer and based in Cornwall. The station forms part of the Hits Radio network, although its entire output and playlist is locally produced and takes no network programming. ...

(Cornwall) with Powell as launch CEO. Pirate FM was featured on the BBC technology programme, Tomorrow's World, for its pioneering use of computerised music playout. Shortly after the launch of Pirate FM, Infinity Radio merged with

UKRD Group The UKRD Group Ltd was a British media company that owned 15 commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom. The name originates from UK Radio Developments. Since its acquisition in March 2019, it has been run as a subsidiary of Bauer Radio. H ...

where Powell became CEO - eventually building the group to over 20 radio stations and associated companies. While running UKRD, Powell played a key role in launching

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

Kiss 102 Kiss 102 was a dance music radio station based in Manchester, England. History The frequency was originally issued to Sunset 102 Radio - The Kickin FM but that suffered some financial problems. In May 1993, the Radio Authority made a decisio ...

and served as launch CEO of

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

's Star FM, which was joint launch customer in the UK for the computerised RCS

Master Control Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as switc ...

studio automation system. In 1995, he launched the new County Sound Radio Network consisting of County Sound Radio, 96.4 The Eagle and

Delta Radio delta radio is a radio station from Kiel, Germany. It is a branch of Mach3 Broadcasting along with Radio Schleswig-Holstein (RS-H) and Radio Nora (all of Kiel). The French Lagardère Group holds shares in the company. Delta radio prides itself f ...

. In 2001 Powell became Chairman of Infinity Media which then separated from UKRD to concentrate on digital platform technologies. In October 2002, he joined RCS as Vice President of its International division, based at its World Headquarters in White Plains,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

.RCS Mike Powell Bio
In October 2014 he was promoted to Senior Vice President International Operations and Chief Compliance Officer.

References

County Sound history

Infinity demerger from UKRD

RCS executive profile page {{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, Mike English radio presenters British radio DJs Living people Year of birth missing (living people)