Paul Burnett

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Paul Burnett (IPA: [bɜ:nɛt], born 1943) is a British radio disc jockey, who began his radio career while in the Royal Air Force in the Persian Gulf in 1964. In 1966 he joined offshore radio station Radio 270, broadcasting from off Scarborough and aiming at Yorkshire. After the banning of the offshore stations he moved in 1967 to Manx Radio on the Isle of Man, but he soon joined Radio Luxembourg, where he hosted the chart show and discovered many recordings, which had been thought lost, of William Joyce's propaganda broadcasts to Britain, made from the Luxembourg stations during the Nazi occupation of the Grand Duchy.

In 1974 Burnett joined BBC Radio 1 hosting a Sunday morning show and sitting in on the station's Top 20 show. From July 5, 1976 he hosted the weekday lunchtime show after Johnnie Walker left the station and moved to California. Here he had the responsibility of revealing the new singles chart every Tuesday lunchtime. He became a regular presenter of Top of the Pops and presented the Radio 1 Roadshow during the summer. In 1981 he moved from lunchtimes to later in the afternoons, but his daily show ended in 1982 to allow Steve Wright's show to be extended. He briefly presented a Saturday morning show before leaving Radio 1 altogether.

In 1978, an on-air parody of the US hit "Convoy", Convoy GB (by Laurie Lingo & The Dipsticks) led to a release of the song as a single along with fellow DJ Dave Lee Travis. The song reached No.4 in the charts and Paul Burnett appeared dressed as a chicken on Top Of The Pops.

During the 1980s Burnett was heard on BBC Radio 2, Pennine Radio (now The Pulse of West Yorkshire) in Bradford, Southern Sound (now Southern FM) in Sussex, and Capital Radio. In 1988 Capital split its frequencies and he joined Capital Gold.

Burnett was also the long-time host of 'The Vintage Chart Show' on the BBC World Service.

He later moved to Classic Gold, but left in 2002. He has since rejoined the station and is currently (2005) once again presenting Classic Gold's weekday lunchtime / early afternoon show (12.00 noon to 3.00 pm).