Aircheck Tracker
Photo: Taken from www.thevoiceworks.com
Profile: Peter Holmes: Born in Leigh-On-Sea in Essex in 1954, as he grew up, Peter always had the desire to be a broadcast, but his school careers advisor at Westcliff High School thought differently and the budding DJ ended up taking an engineering degree course at Nottingham University, later taking a move into the tourism industry working as a travel rep with jobs around Europe and even as far away as North Africa and later still, a post in the marketing side of the travel business.
In 1984, he heard that two presenters at Essex Radio had given their notice. Peter put together a demo and sent it in. Shortly afterwards, he was given a Saturday morning slot as a freelance, becoming a full-time presenter on the mid-morning show in 1987, later taking the Breakfast Show seat at Essex FM. 1990 saw Peter move behind the scenes at the station, taking the position of Programme Director, however, presentation was always in his blood and he returned to the microphone in 1996. There was another triumph to his return to the airwaves that year - as Peter had survived illness in the form of meningitis - something he once described as '...the headache from hell'. On his return, he moved to the Breakfast slot on new Essex FM sister station Breeze AM. At the time, the FM station appealed to listeners under 30 whilst AM was targeted at people aged 30-50. Aged 45, the move was a good one for Peter, with the bulk of the station output being made up of tracks from the 70s and 80s
His radio shows have been renowned for many on-air characters created within them - his popular status and on-air talent has led to three major world radio awards. Listeners once remarked on Peter's ability to talk about the issues they were talking about and his popularity was to such an extent, he was regularly stopped whilst carrying out his weekly shop, but always gave the public his time. Talking to the local Essex press at the time of his 1999 pantomime appearance (see below) he said: "I was washing my car outside my house and a bus full of people pulled up. The driver shouted 'Hello Holmesy! I just wanted to stop and say hello'. It can be difficult to have a quiet family outing.
In August 2000, Essex Radio Group's parent company DMG Radio Ltd, was acquired for £146m by GWR Radio Group. GWR had spent most of the 1990s making efforts to buy practically any radio station that broadcast at the time. At this point, Peter was Breakfast Show presenter from Monday to Friday and also one half of the Sunday 'Ray & Pete' show, alongside Ray Clark, on Essex FM's sister station Breeze AM. On 1st August 2000, GWR announced presenter line-up changes at the station which would see the station take on the Classic Gold name. Both Peter and Ray's slots would be replaced by nationally networked shows hosted by Dave Lee Travis and Paul Burnett. Peter would continue to work at the station but in a different slot, but Ray's future was uncertain, despite him being at the station since its birth in 1989. Peter was set to be the only survivor from the Breeze presenter line-up, purely so that he could present the small local output on the two station frequencies.
Having made the acquisition, Breeze AM was reported by the local Evening Echo as having been sold for the second time in two months in what was claimed to have been a 'surprise deal which could safeguard presenters jobs' GWR sold the station along with 11 other AM stations to UBC Media Group - this was done as part of the radio industry points system whereby radio groups are allocated points for each station that they own and are not allowed to exceed that figure. With the fierce programme of purchases carried out by GWR, they'd exceeded this figure hence the 'sell-off' to UBC. Ironically, GWR own a portion of UBC anyway, and part of the sale included an option to buy back the stations 'when regulation allowed'. Breeze presenters were told it would be 'business as usual for now' by the new owners.
In 2002, Peter's breakfast show was broadcast live for a few months across the whole national Classic Gold AM network until the arrival of Tony Blackburn and Laura Pittson in February 2003 ending 9 years in the Breakfast show seat. As had been previously suggested, Peter moved to Drivetime following the departure of the only other ex-Breeze presenter David Hoffman to Norwich's Classic Gold Amber, which was closer to David's home. His show was one of only a few locally-driven programmes, with the rest networked from elsewhere.
If you're an Essex resident, you may
have seen Peter on-stage in your local theatre. He has carved out quite a
reputation for his Pantomime work including parts as the Town Crier in The
Pied Piper of Hamlin alongside Wayne Sleep, King Crumble in Jack &
The Beanstalk with John Inman, Vogue from TV show 'Gladiators' and
Glenn Murphy from ITV's 'London's Burning', and also Pirate Starkey in 'Peter
Pan'.
Peter lives in Southend-On-Sea with his wife Barbara and three daughters, Lucy,
born 1986, Anna, born 1989 and Sophie born 1991. Sophie inherited Cystic
Fibrosis - a condition which has meant 2-hours worth of physiotherapy and doses
of pancreatic enzymes daily. As a result, Peter has assisted in many
fund-raising initiatives which have helped sufferers around the UK as well as
closer to home. Peter is a local school governor and regular church go-er.
Whereabouts: Peter remained at Classic Gold Breeze until October 2003, when he left the radio industry all together having completed 20 years in the business. He then took on a job with the Highways Department of Southend Borough Council. Recent AIRCHECK research (2005) showed that Peter is now working as a Community Project Co-ordinator for a Southend-based Medical and Industrial Equipment supplier called KeyMed Ltd. Additionally, Peter is available for voiceover work through www.thevoiceworks.com where a piece of sample audio can be heard.