Paul Chantler
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Paul Chantler (born 12 October 1959) is a radio programming consultant based in the United Kingdom. He has been involved in the radio industry for nearly 25 years as a journalist, presenter, producer and programmer.
He is currently senior partner at United Radio in London and works with clients including GMG Radio, Emap Radio, UTV Radio, Premier Christian Radio and the RadioCentre in the UK, Communicorp in Ireland and Europe, and Radio City in India. He has also worked for Macquarie in Australia and Emmis in the USA. His current assignment is working for GMG Radio revamping Smooth Radio in London.
Paul is co-author with Peter Stewart of the textbook Basic Radio Journalism[1], published by Focal Press (a division of Elsevier) in 2002, which has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Russian. The book was originally published in 1992 as Local Radio Journalism and became a best-seller. It has been re-written under the new title Essential Radio Journalism to be published by A&C Black in January 2009. The Foreword is by Jon Snow of Channel 4 News, who started his journalistic career in radio.
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[edit] Career
Paul started his career in local newspapers in Kent (Kent and Sussex Courier, Kent Messenger, Kent Evening Post) before joining Invicta Radio as a journalist and news presenter in 1984. During his four years at Invicta, he also became the presenter of the station’s lunchtime show and regularly broadcast roadshows from around the Kent coast resorts.
After leaving Invicta, he joined Southern FM in Brighton as news editor and helped launch the new East Sussex service from Eastbourne.
He was then recruited to the BBC working as breakfast show presenter for the new station in Swindon, BBC Wiltshire Sound, where he was the first voice on air at the station’s launch in 1989.
Paul then went into radio management, firstly as head of news at the Chiltern Radio Group. He became group programme director in 1991, just as the group expanded into owning 11 stations. During his time at Chiltern, Paul helped launch one of the UK’s first regional stations, Galaxy 101, covering Bristol and South Wales where he became managing director. Galaxy 101's format was groundbreaking in the UK mixing mainstream old and new dance music, playing Motown next to contemporary dance hits. In its first year, the station achieved a weekly reach of 13%, at the time the highest ever launch audience figure for a regional radio station. Paul was also a founder and managing director of Network News, a small-scale rival to IRN.
He left Chiltern in 1996 and became group programme director of the Essex Radio Group. During his four years at Essex, he was responsible for the audience success of flagship station Essex FM, the highly-praised anti-drugs roadshow for schools called 2 Smart 4 Drugs, and the launch of the East of England regional dance station Vibe FM.
In 1997, he was named UK Commercial Radio Programmer of the Year and in 1999 won the UK Commercial Radio Social Action Award[2].
Former editor of The Sun newspaper Kelvin MacKenzie headhunted Paul to become group programme director of The Wireless Group in 2000. Apart from running the group’s 18 local stations, Paul was also programme director of national speech station talkSPORT.
Two years later he started his own radio programming consultancy business. During this time, he undertook interim management assignments for Hallam FM in Sheffield, Metro Radio in Newcastle upon Tyne and Century FM in North West England as well as numerous projects for radio groups in the UK, Europe and Asia.
In 2005, Paul joined international programming consultancy United Radio as Senior Partner and a director, where he worked on various projects both in the UK and worldwide.
He is a shareholder and non-executive director of Planet Broadcasting Co Ltd, the company which owns and operates KCFM, the radio station for Hull which started broadcasting on 1st August 2007.
Paul is working on an exclusive assignment with GMG Radio as full-time Programme Consultant to Smooth Radio London from January 2008. He is working with the existing programming team to develop and revamp the sound of the station. This is an exclusive arrangement with GMG Radio, although Paul retains his links as a shareholder and director of both United Radio and KCFM.
[edit] Lakesiders
In 1997, Paul was one of the characters featured in the TV docu-soap Lakesiders, shown on BBC One. The programme featured his often fractious working relationship with Essex FM breakfast DJ Martin Day. Lakesiders was scheduled after EastEnders and was watched by a regular audience of up to 9 million viewers. A new series, called Return To Lakesiders, has been filmed featuring Paul and Martin and will be shown on BBC Two during 2008. [3].
[edit] Notes
- ^ Basic Radio Journalism - Elsevier
- ^ The Radio Magazine Past Radio News : June 2000
- ^ Radio Today with United Radio..: Essex FM TV show returns
