Terry Christian
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Terry Christian (born 8 May 1963) is a British radio and former TV presenter, notable for presenting Channel 4's controversial and ground breaking television arts and culture show The Word.
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[edit] Early life
One of six children to Dublin-born parents Daniel Christian January 1925 - 20th December 1996 and Margaret Josephine Christian nee Cullen 6th September 1926 - 1st April 2008 . Terry Christian was born in and grew up in Brooks's Bar in Old Trafford[citation needed], and was taught at St. Alphonsus primary school, and, after passing his eleven plus, at St Bede's College, Manchester in Alexandra Park. His father was a shop steward in the TGWU for twenty-five years. Christian was spotted in 1981 on Devil's Advocate, a programme made by Granada TV about youngsters on the dole, presented by former World In Action editor Gus Macdonald. Amongst the other kids on the dole alongside Terry on Devil's Advocate was Johnny Marr of The Smiths. As a result of his appearances on the programme, Terry was offered his own radio show on BBC Radio Derby called Barbed Wireless.
[edit] Radio
Christian gained plaudits and honours for his radio work for BBC local radio stations in the 1980s, with his Barbed Wireless programme winning Sony Awards in the specialist music category in 1985 and again in 1986. He also presented WPFM on Radio 4 for two years, and contributed regularly to Saturday Live on BBC Radio One.
He managed twelve-piece Reggae band, from the Nottingham / Derby area, Junior C Reaction, who received airplay on John Peel and Janice Long's show on BBC Radio 1 for their first independent release on Centurion Records, a double A Side, "CryJahoviah", and "Love & Emotion". They were signed to Cooltempo, a Chrysalis subsidiary, and enjoyed a modicum of success with their first release, a version of the Delroy Wilson classic, "'Better Must Come", which was C listed on Radio One and Capital Radio at the time as well as playing a live session on Radio One's Saturday live. Terry also promoted regular gigs around the Derby and Nottingham area, promoting concerts by Pop Will Eat Itself, The Jazz Defektors, Nico (of Velvet Underground fame) Misty In Roots, The Naturalites, The Fall, and regular house nights at Derby's Twentieth Century club, where the resident Saturday night DJ was Graham Park, who left to join Mike Pickering at the legendary Hacienda Nude night.
In late Autumn 1988, he joined Piccadilly Radio's Key 103 FM presenting from 6-9pm weekday evenings and 2pm-5pm Sunday afternoon. Terry immediately started filling Manchester's airwaves with the City's new breed [The Stone Roses],[The Happy Mondays], [Inspiral Carpets] [808 State] as well as a mixture of classics by everyone from The Beatles, Love, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, classic soul and funk, plus Manchester favourites like The Buzzcocks, The Smiths, The Fall, New Order and Joy Division. Terry also wrote The Word page in the Manchester Evening News from September 1989, a page dedicated to the Manchester music scene, and gave the first press to a host of Manchester luminaries including The Charlatans, Oasis, The Doves (then called Sub Sub).
Christian currently presents the Manchester Music show every Saturday night BBC Radio Manchester 9pm-midnight.Still on the cutting edge music wise , he's been responsible for first airplays for Cherry Ghost from Bolton, who after one play on Terry's show three years ago were immediately signed up by Doves manager Dave Rofe and then landed a recording contract with Heavenly records and Liam Fray who then formed the Courteeners who's album debuted in the UK album Charts at number 4 in April 2008, as well mas first radio plays for the best of the rest in Manchester music like The Ting Tings and T%he Whip. He is also the presenter of The Final Whistle on talkSPORT every Saturday between 5pm and 8pm, now officially Britain's most listened to after match football phone-in, alongside ex footballer Micky Quinn.
[edit] Television
Christian shot to national fame and notoriety in 1990, when he was recruited to host the controversial Channel 4 youth show The Word, named after his column in the Manchester Evening News and based on the format of his pioneering music magazine radio shows. The show was a groundbreaking mayhemic mixture of pop music and teen attitude, a Friday night out brought into your living room which attracted up to a 495 audience share in its Friday night slot. Christian remained its only continuous presenter until it finished its run in 1995.
He went on to present Carlton TV's The Big City, Sky One's pop music show The Hitmix and The Football Show for Tyne Tees TV. He also presented two series of late night TV review programme Turn On Terry for ITV and five series of youth issues talkshow It's My Life(2003-2007)produced by former World In action Editor and Tony Wilson 's So It Goes Series producer Geoff Moore for ITV which was nominated for two St Martin's Trusts Awards.
He has starred as himself in the young Wakefield band The Cribs' video for the standalone single "You're Gonna Lose Us", which was made to look like an episode of The Word.And also played the part of Ross Peagrum , despotic Tv presenter in series 2 and 4 of the popular BBC TV drama series Cutting It as well appearing as a guest on numerous TV shows in the UK and The Republic Of Ireland
[edit] Writing
Christian has written numerous articles for newspapers and magazines including The daily Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Express, Manchester Evening News , Observer, The Times, The Guardian ,The Sundau Times . He's also written three very well received books: Brothers - from Childhood to Oasis (virgin publishers) - about Oasis, and Reds In The Hood'(Andre Deutsch 1999)' - about growing up in a huge Irish community in Old Trafford and supporting Manchester United covering the sixties up to 1977. Both of which are now sought after collectors items . A third book, My Word' a rather cynical yet funny look at the world of television in the 1990's , was published by Orion books June 2007 to favourable reviews and comes out in Paperback in May 2008
