Mike Mendoza

Radio career

Mendoza has worked around the world within the radio industry, getting his start at Radio I in Auckland, New Zealand. He has also worked in Australia, the United States, the French Riviera, Italy and Monaco for an English language radio station. He returned to UK in his late 30s, and has worked for the BBC, Radio Mercury, Southern Sound, and LBC. He joined talkSPORT in 2004, from which he parted company in 2008. Mendoza presented on internet station Play Radio UK, initially for eight hours a week; this was reduced to two hours a week until he left in 2009. He then joined talkradioOne, a Los Angeles-based internet radio station, presenting a three-hour weekly show. From September 2009 the LA show was also heard on Radio Glastonbury, a UK internet station.

Mendoza is Jewish although an atheist, and co-founded a London-based Jewish radio station, Shalom FM, since "We are one of the few ethnic groups in London without a radio voice, and it would be nice to hear some balanced reporting about the community and Israel." Mendoza's former talkSPORT colleague Charlie Wolf presented a twice-weekly show on the station, which ceased broadcasting in October 2007,

Political career

A former member of the Conservative Party, Mendoza was a councillor for the party on Hove Borough Council (now part of Brighton and Hove City Council) and nearby Adur District Council. Mendoza represented the Peverel Ward for the Conservatives in the May 2002 elections. He resigned from the Conservative Party in 2004, and stood in the June 2004 elections for the Marine Ward on Adur District Council. He won the seat as an independent, a week before it was announced that he would be joining talkSPORT. He stood down as a councillor in May 2005. In the June 2009 local elections he was as a candidate for UKIP in the Saltings ward of West Sussex County Council. He re-joined the Conservative Party in December 2009 and was elected to Adur District Council in May 2010 as a councillor in St Mary's ward. In 2012 Mendoza became deputy chairman (deputy mayor) of Adur District Council and vice-chairman of planning. In May 2013 he was elected chairman of Adur District Council, but resigned as a councillor in October 2014.

Personal life

Mendoza is married to Jennifer, his third wife, and they live in Shoreham-by-Sea near Brighton. He has two children and four grandchildren. He is a relative of comedian and actor Peter Sellers, and descends from the same family as British boxing legend Daniel Mendoza. He also has a 'long and close friendship' with the New Zealand actor Alan Dale.

Controversies

Ofcom received a complaint about a show that aired on talkSPORT on 11 May 2006, although Mendoza was subsequently cleared of "Crime Incitement".

On 20 August 2007, the BBC reported that the British radio station talkSPORT had been censured by regulator Ofcom because Mendoza and another presenter, Garry Bushell, made derogatory comments about gay people. Commenting on the search for Madeleine McCann, Mendoza was heard to say "paedophiles in general are the type of people that surely would not follow football... not many gay people to the best of my knowledge are great football fans", comparing homosexuals to paedophiles.