99: Steve Collins - Programmer, presenter, Voice of Peace, Capital, Smooth, County Sound, Top Shop, Red Rose

Having helped to establish one of the leading in-store stations in London’s Top Shop, he rose to lay the foundations of the mighty Smooth brand.

In this hour of ‘Radio Moments – Conversations’, Steve Collins tells of growing up and the keen pirate radio influences which led him to answer a press ad leading to an enlightening journey to Tel Aviv - and then offers fascinating insight into life on-board the Voice of Peace.

Back on land, he walked into Top Shop and established a radio station proper, before Red Rose Radio eventually beckoned - where he was surprised to end up promptly presenting the breakfast show. When Capital offered a role, he hurried back to London where he spent 6 years on-air before moving across to County Sound, where life was not all he’d wished for.

After Jazz and Chiltern, he arrived in a Manchester he instantly came to love, to play a part of the management team of Key and Gold and then crossed to start up Wish FM.

Assuming control of programming Jazz in the North West, he worked within a challenging format to deliver, with huge success, the beginnings of the new Smooth brand, which he was then to manage across the UK.

Steve speaks candidly about the influences he witnessed on how not to manage; the way it feels when the station you care for is taken over; how it feels to end up on the dole; and shares the things he feels he got right – and wrong in over 40 years in radio.

In his own words, this is the Steve Collins story.

Hear the whole ‘Radio Moments Conversations’ series here – and sign up for the regular podcast for this ongoing series. Music by Larry Bryant.