Aircheck Tracker
Profile: Ian Rufus: Ian is one of the longest serving individuals in UK commercial radio. He was a member of the team that launched the country's first commercial radio station, LBC, in 1973. In 1974 he joined Radio Hallam in Sheffield as Head of News and Sport and in 1979 was appointed the first Programme Director of Coventry's Mercia FM. He was promoted to the post of Managing Director of Mercia in 1983 before moving to the MD's position at BRMB in 1986.
In 1994 he joined the GWR Group from BRMB in Birmingham where he was Managing Director, to take up the role of Special Projects Director. His first job was to oversee the relaunch of Q103, which was then the Group's newly acquired station in Cambridge.
In 1996 he was appointed GWR's
Midlands Managing Director to look after stations in Nottingham, Derby,
Leicester, Wolverhampton, Coventry, Worcester and Northampton. In 1998 he
took up the post of Group Development Director, responsible for 'strengthening
links between GWR's local stations and the communities they serve'. He
was also a key member of the GWR project group established to apply for new
radio licences, including the Digital One national multiplex and local
multiplexes around the GWR Group.
Whereabouts: In October 2002, after eight years, Ian left his post as
GWR's Group Development Director, to launch a number of new business ventures
both within the radio industry and outside of it.