Steve Wright, who has died aged 69, hosted an anarchic breakfast show on Radio 1 for a year before moving to Radio 2, where he became a chatty fixture on weekday afternoons with middling pop songs, interviews and a medley of features. with interventions from his regular on-air crew of equally chatty underlings, a format known as “zoo” radio.
When he suddenly left Radio 1 in January 1995, Wright was rumored to be heading to Talk Radio, Britain’s first national, all-talk commercial station, and was expected to be followed out the door by Matthew Bannister, controller of the BBC pop network. the station had lost 4.5 million listeners the previous year.
Wright’s unhappy year on the breakfast show was considered a casualty of the changes Bannister made at Radio 1 when he took over the station in 1993 and introduced more talk content at the behest of reclusive chief executive John Birt.
The Telegraph’s radio critic Gillian Reynolds complained: “Steve Wright stopped having fun when he brought his team onto the breakfast show and talked to them more than us.” “Radio 1 allowed him to riot. “It’s such a shame, such a waste.”
Wright was widely acknowledged to be a smart operator on the microphone, the most creative since his idol Kenny Everett. “But he’s not smart enough to stop reminding us how smart he is,” he added.
While Bannister survived, Wright’s sudden departure caused a shock to Radio 1. He had been placed on the breakfast show in early 1994 to help revive falling ratings following the removal of aging disc jockeys such as Dave Lee Travis and Dave Lee Travis. Simon Bates.
Wright, who was replaced by Chris Evans on the breakfast show after just over a year, was indeed lured to Talk Radio, but listeners did not accept him and he left after a few months, returning to the BBC with two weekends in 1996. Programs on Radio 2 featured “incredible” facts (later renamed “facts”), celebrity gossip, royal gossip, TV soap stars, horoscopes and travel news.
His hugely popular Sunday morning show, Steve Wright’s Sunday Love Songs, featured such classics, dedications, and real-life love stories.
He took over from Ed “Stewpot” Stewart on the weekday afternoon show, which was relaunched in 1999 as The Big Show. Along with him were the zoo crew and a host of characters played by Wright himself, especially Mr. Angry, who was screaming on the phone from Purley.
Like Kenny Everett, Wright had an abiding obsession with radio and constantly listened to other shows for ideas. In the pre-internet age, no one would think of flying to New York and checking into a hotel room to tune in to the radio dial for the weekend.
At the height of his success, he lived in a mansion in Henley-on-Thames with his American-born wife and two children. But when his wife suddenly left him, Wright became known as an eccentric loner, sleeping in a small flat around the corner from Broadcasting House during the week and living meagerly on a diet whose salary reportedly exceeded £500,000. microwave TV dinners, mini bottles of white wine, chips and chocolates.
Sometimes he would instruct staff to book themselves into a luxury hotel across the road to spend the night. In the office, he would send an assistant to the line to buy a train ticket to Surrey to visit his mother for the weekend, while other subordinates were sent to buy sandwiches and snacks from local cafes. Over the years, he had difficulty controlling his weight, sometimes reaching as much as 18 kilos.
The eldest son of a tailor who ran Burton’s clothing workshop in Trafalgar Square, Stephen Richard Wright was born in Greenwich on 26 August 1954 and grew up in New Cross. When the family moved to Essex, he attended Eastwood High School near Southend-on-Sea, from which he left with just three O-levels, but after working in marine insurance and as a local newspaper reporter, he fulfilled his wish to join the BBC, fulfilling his dream of joining the BBC. carried out. Getting a job in the gramophone library at Radio 2.
His first appearance behind the microphone was in 1976 at Radio 210 in Reading (now Heart Thames Valley) alongside Mike Read on The Read and Wright Show.
After a dismal period at Radio Luxembourg, he joined Radio 1 in 1980, presenting a Saturday evening programme, followed by a Saturday morning programme, and moving to afternoons from 1981. He launched a Sunday morning program in 1984 and returned to weekdays two years later with Steve Wright in the Afternoon.
The program became an institution known for its wacky cast of telephone characters, but these were later abandoned in favor of a “zoo” format of fake guests and comedy skits, producers and producers new to British radio. Radio staff join in the banter.
As well as Mr Angry, Wright’s broadcast team included hairdresser Gervase, social worker Damian and Watford elderly lifestyle guru Barry, mostly played by actors.
In 1994, having been persuaded by Radio 1’s controller Matthew Bannister about breakfast at the Savoy, Wright and his team moved to the breakfast programme. It soon became clear that the format did not work according to the time of day; Wright’s voice sounded stale and he habitually ignored the computer-generated music playlist. With his audience in freefall, he feared for his own reputation and told Bannister he wanted to quit.
His afternoon program on Radio 2 featured a steady stream of oldies, celebrity interviews (usually a television or film star or an author reading a new book) and various snippets of information he preferred to call “facts”.
Wright pre-recorded Sunday Love Songs on a Friday, which included traditional dedications, requests for partners in both homosexual and heterosexual relationships, and various letters or emails from listeners, always including the mantra “I love the show, Steve.”
He announced his retirement from the weekday show in July 2022, aged 67, with the slot being taken over by former Radio 1’s Scott Mills, who then took over as host of Pick of the Pops from Paul Gambaccini in October last year.
With his bespectacled and nerdy appearance, Wright looked uncomfortable on television, but he hosted Home Truths, The Steve Wright People Show (both 1994) and Auntie’s TV Favorites (1997), as well as Top of the Pops and retro TOTP2 (1997-2009). .
He was appointed MBE for services to radio in the 2024 New Year Honors.
Steve Wright married Cyndi Robinson in 1985; They had a daughter and son but divorced in 1999.
Steve Wright born August 26, 1954, died February 12, 2024