''Simon Bates at Breakfast'' was the flagship show on Smooth Radio in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

from January 2011 to March 2014. It was presented by

Simon Bates Simon Philip Bates (born 17 December 1946) is an English disc jockey and radio presenter. Between 1976 and 1993 he worked at BBC Radio 1, presenting the station's weekday mid-morning show for most of this period. He later became a regular pres ...

, who took on the role of the station's breakfast show presenter on 4 January 2011, having left his long-term show at Classic FM in order to take up the position. The programme aired on weekdays from 6.00am to 10.00am, and included ''

Our Tune ''Our Tune'' is a long-standing feature/segment on British radio presented by broadcaster Simon Bates. Having begun by at least 1979 it was originally part of his mid-morning show on BBC Radio 1, where it aired daily throughout the 1980s and ear ...

'' and '' The Golden Hour'', two features Bates had previously presented on

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

. Bates occasionally took the show out on location for special editions, such as a week-long broadcast from Camp Bastion in December 2011 and the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...

in June 2012.

History

In 2010 Smooth Radio had announced its intention to create a quasi-national station from its existing local stations, and in August 2010 it was confirmed that Simon Bates would leave Classic FM after 13 years of broadcasting, to join Smooth Radio as its new weekday breakfast presenter from January 2011. The station went national from October, at which point

Lynn Parsons Lynn Margaret Parsons (born 27 June 1961) is a British disc jockey. Career Having graduated from college with an OND in electronic principles, Parsons started her career working in the television industry, where she was a sound engineer and l ...

became the programme's temporary presenter until Bates could take up the role. Bates, a former Radio 1 presenter, fronted his first breakfast show for Smooth on 4 January 2011, and revived some of his popular features from his Radio 1 days, which included The Golden Hour and

. The programme had a number of sponsors during its time on air, including Redspottedhanky.com,

Direct Line Direct Line is an insurance company based in Bromley, England. Founded in 1985, as the country's first direct car insurance company, it has since expanded to offer a range of general insurance products. Its policies are underwritten by the regul ...

, PG Tips, SouthAustralia.com, and Škoda Rapid. ''Simon Bates at Breakfast'' aired on the FM frequency in England, and nationally on DAB, as well as through

Freeview Freeview may refer to: * Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia * Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), ...

Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Digital UK. The service was formed as a memorandum in 2007 and has been marketed since 6 May 2008. Free ...

and Sky Digital. In July 2012 Smooth Radio announced it had hired sports media specialist

Jonny Gould Jonny Gould is a British media presenter, sports journalist, and political commentator. He has formerly broadcast on Sky News, Smooth Radio, and Talksport among others. Gould has commented on antisemitism, conservative politics, and the s ...

to anchor its extended breakfast sports bulletins during the 2012 Summer Olympics. Bates and Gould had previously worked together on

Talk Radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featu ...

some years earlier. Gould proved to be popular with listeners and continued to present sports updates after the Olympics ended. In September 2012 the radio industry news website ''

Radio Today Radio Today is a 24 hours radio station in Bangladesh that started airing in May 2006. It is currently available in Dhaka, Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Khulna, Bogra, Sylhet, Mymensingh, Barishal, Kushtia, Comilla Comilla (; bn, কুমি ...

'' reported that Bates had started to present a separate breakfast show for Smooth Radio's sister station,

Smooth 70s Smooth 70s was a British radio station dedicated to music from the 1970s. Launched by GMG Radio as a sister station to Smooth Radio, it first aired on 27 December 2011, replacing a temporary station GMG had launched for the Christmas period. Th ...

. Smooth Radio did not publicise the show, but confirmed Bates was providing "a little content" when asked about the programme. The content was " voice tracked" from the main breakfast show. In February 2013 Bates began playing a special daily song for Yang Guang, one of two giant pandas on loan from China to

Edinburgh Zoo Edinburgh Zoo, formerly the Scottish National Zoological Park, is an non-profit zoological park in the Corstorphine area of Edinburgh, Scotland. The land lies on the south facing slopes of Corstorphine Hill, from which it provides extensive v ...

, after learning staff at the zoo were playing Smooth Radio to the bear in his enclosure to encourage him to mate with Tian Tian. In February 2014 it was announced that Bates would leave Smooth Radio after 3 years of broadcasting, as the station prepared to relaunch with a new schedule in March. Bates presented his last breakfast show for Smooth on 21 March.

Show format

The show began each weekday at 6.00am when Simon Bates took over from overnight presenter Derek Webster, and aired for four hours until he handed over to

Mark Goodier Mark Goodier (born 9 June 1961) is a British radio disc jockey best known for his time on BBC Radio 1 between 1987 and 2002. He had two spells presenting the station's Top 40 singles chart, from 1990 to 1992 and from 1995 until 2002. He also h ...

at 10.00am. The programme featured music, news and talk, with very occasional on-air guests. News updates were aired half-hourly from 6.30 to 9.00, the on-the-hour updates being a full bulletin fronted by a news presenter, and the others a headline summary read by Bates. In addition, travel updates aired every 30 minutes throughout the show, and a sports news update, presented by Jonny Gould followed the 6.30, 7.30 and 8.30 summaries. The show also had a number of regular features, which included: *Newspaper review – A summary of the day's leading headlines and stories, presented in the first hour of the show. *The Thousand Pound Minute – A quiz where a contestant had to correctly answer ten questions in 60 seconds to win £1,000. Bates asked the questions after which his producer, Seb Sears went through any answers the listener had either got wrong or passed on. This segment was aired at 7.45am. *''

'' – Aired daily at 8.40am, Bates read out a personal story submitted by a listener, accompanied by a song that had significance to the person or situation. * The Golden Hour – Featuring hits and headlines from a particular year which listeners were invited to guess via text, email or

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. Beginning at 9.00am there were two 30 minute sections to this, each featuring a different year. *Film review – A summary of the week's new cinema releases, presented on Fridays at 8.10am. Some of these features disappeared when Smooth underwent a relaunch in October 2013. ''The Thousand Pound Minute'' and ''Our Tune'' were dropped from 27 September, while changes were made to ''The Golden Hour'' a few days later. When Bates was away on holiday the show was usually covered by another Smooth presenter. These include

Pat Sharp Patrick Sharpin, known professionally as Pat Sharp (born 25 October 1961), is an English radio presenter, television presenter and DJ. In the UK, he is known mainly for his work on the children's ITV programme ''Fun House'', and his extensiv ...

Daryl Denham Daryl Denham is a British disc jockey, radio presenter and songwriter. Early career Denham's career started at school, where he was active in producing pop music productions in school concerts, organizing pop quizzes and writing and performing p ...

and David Prever.

Special editions and features

In September 2011 Simon Bates travelled to

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

to broadcast a week of programmes as part of a promotion to give away a holiday to the country, while in December he visited

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

for a series of shows with British troops from Camp Bastion. The programmes featured Christmas messages to loved ones from soldiers serving in Afghanistan, while Bates – who had previously presented shows from Iraq – explored the future of Afghanistan as coalition forces prepared to hand over control to the Afghan National Army. To coincide with the 30th anniversary of the end of the 1982 Falklands War Bates took the breakfast show to the

for a week-long series of specials in which he explored the lives and experiences of Islanders as well as reflecting on the conflict. An edition of the show was presented from the observation platform on the roof of London's

O2 Arena O2 Arena may refer to: *The O2 Arena (London) *O2 Arena (Prague) *The 3Arena The 3Arena (originally The O2) is an indoor amphitheatre located at North Wall Quay in the Dublin Docklands in Dublin, Ireland. The venue opened as The O2 on 16 Decem ...

on Friday 10 August 2012. In September 2012 two one-off editions of the show were presented from

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

and

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

as part of a sponsorship deal between Smooth Radio and

Tourism Ireland Tourism Ireland (Irish: ''Turasóireacht Éireann''; Ulster-Scots: ''Tourism Airlan'' or ''Reengin Airlann'') is the marketing body responsible for marketing the island of Ireland overseas. Tourism Ireland was established as one of "six areas o ...

aimed at promoting the two cities. The programme is credited with discovering the American Country singer-songwriter

Jenn Bostic Jenn Bostic (born January 3, 1986 as Jennifer Christiana Bostic) is an American country music and Christian music singer-songwriter, based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2012, her song " Jealous of the Angels" was released. Her album, ''Jealous'' ...

after Bates played her song "Jealous of the Angels" on the show, and it became popular with listeners. The song was released as Bostic's debut single in the United Kingdom on 17 December 2012, and went on to top the UK singer-songwriter charts.

Notes

References

{{British radio breakfast shows GMG Radio British radio breakfast shows 2011 radio programme debuts 2014 radio programme endings Smooth Radio