Howard Hughes has been on air from the age of 16 – when he won a disc jockey contest organised by Liverpool playwright Alan Bleasdale. The prize was 15 minutes on Radio City, from that moment he was hooked by the medium.
A few years later, Howard became Radio City’s first Graduate News Trainee – the station gave him the finest grounding anyone could have. Building on that training, Howard has gone on to work as a journalist and presenter at stations as diverse as BBC Berkshire, BRMB, County Sound and Power FM, where he devised the UK’s first musicradio “short form” news format.
Howard spent two great years at Independent Radio News and a decade as part of the on air team at Capital FM’s Chris Tarrant Breakfast Show. He travelled the world with Chris and the team broadcasting from places like Maui, Mauritius, Monaco, the Great Barrier Reef, Perth, and Cape Town. He’s also covered the death of Princess Diana and broadcast live from Ground Zero.
Howard has also worked at LBC - where he presented a phone-in with the Prime Minister, anchored news on the Nick Ferrari Breakfast Show and devised a programme about radio across the globe called “Howard’s World.” - He’s also worked for Kelvin Mackenzie at talkSPORT, where he created and presented the UK’s first national show on the paranormal, “The Unexplained.”
During his two and a half years at GMG Radio Howard pioneered the news format for the Smooth stations – and spent 13 hours on air anchoring coverage of “7/7.” He was one of the first to break news of the London terror attacks.
In 2007 Howard was presented with the IRN Special Award for Contribution to Commercial Radio – his eighth radio Award. He has also been a Judge for the Sony and Arqiva Awards. Howard has trained news broadcasters for GMG, UKRD, Capital Radio Group, SRH, SABC South Africa and others. In 2007 Howard decided after many, many years of 4am starts all over the UK to take a career break.
In 2008 he returned to the airwaves as a freelance presenter at stations like Liverpool’s CityTalk (where he has filled in on most shows including the legendary Pete Price Phone-in) and BBC Three Counties Radio (including the Jonathan Vernon Smith Consumer Show). He also helped Steve Penk launch his Manchester station, 96.2 The Revolution.
Howard’s interviewed celebrities and newsmakers including Tony Blair, David Bowie, Prince Albert of Monaco, Lionel Richie, Paul McCartney, The Pet Shop Boys and Liverpool’s own Atomic Kitten!
The Howard Hughes voiceover credits include the annual British Comedy Awards (live v/o and commentary), ITV shows including Denis Norden’s Laughter Files, Cilla’s Moment of Truth , Simply the Best and The South Bank Show. He’s also done trailers for the likes of CNN and he’s station voice for County Sound Radio/UKRD.
Howard can produce voice material by Mp3 using either a smooth tube or gritty dynamic broadcast mic. In 2006, he took “The Unexplained” to the internet – it now has listeners from New Zealand to Newcastle and from San Diego to Southampton!! |
