Bill Steel
Bill Steel is a television and radio broadcaster from North East England. He has also acted, briefly appearing in Coronation Street.
He began his working life at the General Electric as a trainee accountant, and moved into television in the 1960s, first working in the Tyne Tees Television Presentation Department as an assistant Transmission controller and at the age of 23, a presentation director. Later he progressed into the advertising section, which involved doing voice over work for over 10,000 local adverts produced by Tyne Tees.[1]
In 1967 he left his native North East England and moved to Manchester where he presented the ABC Weekend News. Bill later moved to ABC's Midlands operation and became its chief announcer until 1968 when the station's staff were redeployed to the company's brand new London broadcaster Thames Television. There, Steel worked in various departments, most of which he had previous experience, such as commercial voice overs, newsreading and transmission control. Bill, also through the voice overs, ended up doing a short spell of continuity announcing for Thames, before returning to the north in 1971.
Employed once again by Tyne Tees, Bill worked as one of a number of presenters on Tyne Tees News and also the evening 20-minute round-up, Today At Six.
Today At Six was axed, however Bill was kept on, this time as sole presenter of the station's new flagship news programme, Northern Life. Bill hosted this nightly news programme from 1976 until 1980. He then switched back to continuity announcing, taking over as Chief Announcer and Head of Presentation in 1988 when he inherited that role from Neville Wanless. Despite the switch back to announcing, Bill continued to read regular local news bulletins until the late '80s. He remained as the senior continuity announcer until March 1996 when the stations owners, Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television, moved the department to their own studios in Leeds. Bill signed off from continuity announcing on 16 March 1996 - one of his colleagues, the late Allan Cartner made the final announcement from Newcastle later that night.
At Tyne Tees he had also presented many programmes including Songs of the Sixties and Lookaround. He also appeared on many local programmes as a features reporter during the late 1980s and 1990s; including the regional magazine shows Tyne Tees Weekend and Tonight. Bill continued to work for the company as a features reporter until the end of 1996, when his contract with Tyne Tees wasn't renewed.
In 1997 he returned to television with an eight-month stint as Bernard McKenna in the ITV soap Coronation Street.
Bill Steel has also had plenty of experience as a radio presenter. He was the first breakfast show DJ for the North East's first commercial radio station, Metro Radio in 1973. He worked for Metro and Tyne Tees at the same time until he quit Metro in the early 1980s.
Before knowing his time at Tyne Tees was drawing to a close, Bill accepted an offer to present a once-a-week Sunday afternoon request programme for Gateshead-based Century FM in 1994. Once his television presenting ended, his role at Century was increased; with Bill moving onto other weekend and evening programmes.[2] Bill continued to present overnight shows at the weekend for Century until these were replaced with networked material from Real Radio North West in 2008. He still enjoys occasional work as an actor.[3]