Liz Kershaw
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| Liz Kershaw | |
 Godiva Festival 2007, Coventry.
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| Born | 30 July 1958 Rochdale, Lancashire, England. |
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| Occupation | Broadcaster and journalist |
| Relatives | Andy Kershaw (brother) |
Liz Kershaw (born 30 July 1958, in Rochdale, Lancashire) is one of the UK's most high-profile female music broadcasters.
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[edit] Early career
The older sister of fellow broadcaster and world music obsessive Andy Kershaw, she began her career as a pop journalist for the Yorkshire Post before joining Leeds station Radio Aire, where her brother also worked for a time.
While in Leeds, she recorded a version of The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks" under the name of Dawn Chorus & The Blue Tits. Liz was Dawn Chorus and TV presenter Carol Vorderman was briefly one of The Blue Tits. Andy Kershaw was also an occasional member of the group, who recorded a session for John Peel in 1985 [1].
In the late 80s Kershaw worked for British Telecom helping to produce the telephone music line service called Livewire. This was part of BT's Talkabout service, the world's first telephone chat service[2], run by Gordon Robson. Kershaw helped produce Radio 1 DJ Mike Smith, who recorded introductions to the records in a similar fashion to Dial-a-disc from some years earlier.
Her next move was to the BBC and local station Radio Leeds before the call came from BBC Radio 1 to present a music magazine show called Backchat. After winning a number of awards, she progressed to the evening show and then her best known slot, the weekend breakfast show which she co-hosted with Bruno Brookes. The two projected a 'love-hate' relationship on-air, and got their fair share of PR in the tabloids as a result, including Kershaw smashing a turntable live on air because she hated a Wet Wet Wet record being played on it; and the two pulling a stunt of getting married as an April Fool. During this period they also made a charity record for the BBC's Children in Need campaign; a version of It Takes Two. They later made two more fundraising records featuring their Radio 1 colleagues and guest vocalists Frank Bruno and Samantha Fox, though only one charted.
She left Radio 1 in 1992 to present a weekly phone-in on BBC Radio 5 in its original form. She was part of the team which would later relaunch the station and give it its current name of BBC Radio 5 Live. At the same time she also went back to local radio for a spell, presenting BBC Radio Northampton's breakfast programme, and presented documentaries for the other 4 BBC national networks - Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3 and Radio 4.
[edit] Recent career
In 2002, she was one of the original presenters on the newly launched, digital station BBC 6 Music where she presented the weekday afternoon show from 1-4pm, before taking over the weekend mid-morning slot in April 2004, from 10am-1pm.
In September 2005 Liz became a presenter on the BBC's BBC Coventry & Warwickshire radio station, where she took over the Drivetime show. She now presents the Breakfast Show for the station and continued to present her show on BBC 6 Music, but on Saturdays only. She can currently be heard on Saturday Lunchtimes 12-2pm.
Liz and Bruno re-united for a one-off special on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire on Christmas Morning 2006.
In July 2007 her show was cited in a BBC phone-in competition scandal, with pre-recorded shows being aired as live, and members of the production team pretending to be members of the public ringing in to a competition which did not exist.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ BBC John Peel Sessions
- ^ BT Talkabout service
- ^ Pierce, Andrew, "BBC staff suspended over phone-in scandal", The Telegraph (London), July 23, 2007
[edit] External links
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kershaw, Liz |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Broadcaster and journalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 30 July 1958 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rochdale, Lancashire, England. |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
