Ralph Mitchell Bernard (born 11 February 1953) is a British journalist, and a former chief executive of commercial radio group

GCap Media GCap Media was a British commercial radio company formed from the merger of the Capital Radio Group and GWR Group. The merger was completed in May 2005. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. O ...

Early life

He attended Caterham High School in north-east London.

Career

He started his career as a journalist at Sheffield's

Radio Hallam Hallam FM is an Independent Local Radio station based in Sheffield, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to South Yorkshire. As of September 2022, the station has a weekly audience of 283,00 ...

in 1975,http://www.mediacsrforum.org/_media/documents/gcap_media_AR_07.pdf before moving to

Hereward Radio Heart Peterborough (formerly Hereward FM) was an Independent Local Radio station serving Cambridgeshire, south Lincolnshire and west Norfolk. Launched on 10 July 1980 as Hereward Radio 225, the station was the first local service in the area, wi ...

in Peterborough. In 1982 he moved south to launch

Wiltshire Radio Heart Wiltshire (formerly GWR FM Wiltshire) was a local radio station owned and operated by Global Radio as part of the Heart network. It broadcast to north and west Wiltshire. The station was rebranded to Heart in March 2009 in line with Globa ...

as programme director, becoming managing director in 1983. From here, he helped develop the GWR radio group which later merged 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. ...

to form the biggest commercial radio company in the UK, GCap Media. He was chief executive of GWR Group PLC between 1987 and 2001, when he was appointed Executive Chairman. GCap Media's portfolio includes Classic FM and London's Capital Radio. He was appointed a Fellow of The

Radio Academy The Radio Academy is a registered charity dedicated to "the encouragement, recognition and promotion of excellence in UK broadcasting and audio production". It was formed in 1983 and is run via a board of trustees, with a chair and a deputy chair ...

in 1998. , he won the Sony Gold Award in 2000 for his contribution to the radio industryhttp://www.bbccharterreview.org.uk/seminars/bios.pdf and was appointed a CBE for his services to broadcasting in 2002. He left GCap in March 2008 to be replaced by Fru Hazlitt. He is chair of the

Broadcast Journalism Training Council The Broadcast Journalism Training Council (BJTC) is an industry-led body offering accreditation to courses for aspiring journalists. History In the late 1970s, the National Union of Journalists was pushing for a more structured approach to trainin ...

(BJTC), a partnership between the major broadcasters, th
National Union of Journalists (NUJ)
and academics who teach broadcast and multimedia journalism.

Personal life

He is married with four children and lives in Wiltshire. He was awarded the CBE in the

2002 Birthday Honours Queen's Birthday Honours are announced on or around the date of the Queen's Official Birthday in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The dates vary, both from year to year and from country to country. All are published in su ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bernard, Ralph 1953 births British chief executives British company founders British radio executives British radio journalists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire GCap Media Living people