Nick Margerrison

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nick Paul Margerrison is a radio presenter on Kerrang! Radio, a radio station based in Birmingham.

1 Earlier career
2 Current show
3 Milgram Experiment
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Earlier career

According to Nick, one of his early jobs was cleaning the toilets in Morrisons.

He started his career in radio at University Radio Essex where he rose to the position of head of music^[1], securing the station's first FM licence. He then skipped around the fringes of local radio before moving on to Hallam FM in South Yorkshire where he made his name between September 2003 and May 2007. Until 2006 he presented 'Nick at Night' - a topical late night talk show that regularly received successful RAJAR listening figures.

Nick at Night deviated from traditional radio phone-in's in that it operated an almost exclusive "no-screening" policy on callers. Thus a wide variety of viewpoints were given air-time, highlighting issues that would otherwise have been ignored. Nick regularly challenged callers to reconsider their viewpoints, and offered his own thoughts on the subjects of the day.

Nick is from Sheffield, yet does not have the normal regional accent that accompanies most in that area. His explanation for this on "Nick at Night" was that talking in a regional accent makes you sound 'thick', so he had deliberately trained his accent to be 'posher'.

[edit] Current show

In October 2007 he was appointed as the Late Night Presenter for Kerrang! Radio in place of Tim Shaw who moved to present the station's breakfast show^[2]. The Kerrang! radio show is called "The Night Before"^[3], and he presents it with his produecrs, Amy Jones and Alex Baker. The show has a similar structure to "Nick at Night".

On the show Nick has interviewed (amongst others) Howard Bloom, Mark Thomas, David Shayler, Alex Jones, Michelle McManus, Emma Thompson and David Icke.^{[citation needed]}

Nick often claims on the show that he attended the "University of Hard Knocks" or the "University of Life". He never elaborates on this, but the clear implication is that he didn't go to University. This goes hand in hand with his views that many University subjects are not worth studying ^[4]. However, Nick did go to University. He studied English Literature at the University of Essex.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Milgram Experiment

On the 20th December 2007 Nick Margerrison and his two producers Alex Baker and Amy Jones did an on air experiment based on the The Milgram Experiment. This was to celebrate the 20th anniversary when Dr. Milgram first did this experiment.

The experiment was done live on air. The listeners were told that when they texted in the name of one of the presenenters that presenter would be given a mild electric shock. During this experiment, it gradually became more obvious that something had gone wrong. Amy stopped talking, Nick and Alex asked everyone to stop texting, and Nick told Alex that Amy had "bit her tongue and passed out".

The experiment was designed to find out at what point listeners would stop texting, after something had clearly gone wrong. Around 370 texts where received after they were told Amy had hurt herself.^[5]