Tommy Boyd
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Born: | December 14, 1952 |
|---|---|
| Occupation: | Broadcaster |
Timothy Leslie Boyd (born December 14, 1952), better known as Tommy Boyd, is a radio presenter and former children's television presenter who now lives in Chichester, West Sussex.
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[edit] Early Career
Boyd grew up in Ashford in Surrey before going to school in the English town of Staines. While at school, he worked part-time at a Debenhams store in Staines. From there, Boyd went on to study at the University of Sussex. After his studies, Boyd became a so-called red coat entetainer at a Butlins holiday camp in Bognor Regis.
[edit] Children's TV
From 1977 to 1980, he was co-presenter of the ITV children's magazine programme Magpie, but he is perhaps better known for having presented the Saturday TV-am show Wide Awake Club (called WAC '90 for the 1989 series) and its Sunday spin-off WAC Extra throughout the 1980s. Between 1982 and 1984 he also presented Central Television's flagship Saturday morning kids TV show The Saturday Show alongside Isla St Clair and followed this with Saturday Starship in 1985 (co presented by Bonnie Langford). From 1991–2 he spent a period as anchorman for ITV's children's strand, Children's ITV. He also served as a "space Jock" on the "Ratkan", a space ship which beamed programing to viewers of The Children's Channel, a satellite television channel, in 1993 and 1994.
[edit] Talk Radio
He was a radio presenter on the British AM station Talk Radio UK (later Talk Radio) from its inception in February 1995 until November 1998, when he lost his job in a reshuffle at the station after it was taken over by a consortium led by former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie.
[edit] Five Live & LBC
He subsequently worked for BBC Radio Five Live, before being sacked for his argumentative and controversial style of broadcasting. He also spent some time at the local station LBC in London, leaving in 1999.
[edit] talkSPORT
In January 2000, Talk Radio was rebranded as talkSPORT, but with part of its schedules being retained for talk and non-sport phone in. After covering for absent presenters on several occasions, Boyd took up a permanent position in April 2000. He was also one of the original presenters of MLB on five in 1997. However, he left a few weeks later when he phoned in sick before a show and never came back.
In May 2000, he began an experiment on his Sunday night slot whereby calls would go straight to air unscreened. This later evolved into the Human Zoo. Boyd presented the show with Asher Gould, originally just the engineer on the show. This style of programme came to light again in May 2006 when the LBC presenter Iain Lee started a show called Triple M.
Boyd would also go on to host a professional wrestling radio show on talkSPORT. Boyd was soon joined by professional wrestler Alex Shane who became a regular co host and with his knowledge of wrestling soon making the previously loosely based wrestling show the UK's first fully fledged national wrestling radio show which often saw Boyd introduce wrestling storylines into the actual radio show. This is common in US wrestling, and one storyline involved Shane attacking Boyd and being forcefully removed from the show.
Boyd also worked along side Shane and the wrestling promotion Frontier Wrestling Alliance to help produce and promote one of its largest early shows, FWA Revival in 2002, which was broadcasted on national TV. However, a falling out with Boyd would see Shane leave the radio show and Boyd attempt to buy out 75% of the shares of the FWA. However, before the sale could go through Boyd was relieved from his Talksport radio duties in March 2002, when he was dismissed over an outburst by a caller, saying the Royal Family should be shot, which he failed to 'dump' from broadcast. With out this major platform to promote FWA the sale to Boyd was put on hold. Due to popular demand, Shane was soon brought into to replace the radio programme with a brand new show, Wrestle-Talk. It wasn't long before Shane used this new position and power to buy out his former business partners and become the majority share holder of FWA, ending Boyd's attempt to own the company.
[edit] Current Work
In Early 2004, Tommy joined BBC Southern Counties Radio, where he presented a Saturday Night slot from 9pm-1am, and since April 2006 presents a daily afternoon show from 1pm to 4pm Monday to Friday with co-presenter Allison Ferns on the same station.
Boyd would once again enter into the world of professional wrestling when he was called up by LDN Wrestling to debut soon as some sort of authority figure.
[edit] External links
- BBC Southern Counties Radio
- Tommy Boyd Archive
- Tommy Boyd Forum - Forum for Tommy Boyd fans
- The Tommy Boyd Shrine - Fan site
- Tommy Boyd's ExperimentX- Interactive Website with Boyd's Saturday 'Internet Hour' (9PM - 10PM)
- Biography at Aircheck Tracker
