Name Paul Hollingdale | Role Radio presenter | |
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BBC Radio 2 at 50
Paul Hollingdale (born Paul Wynn; 30 March 1938 – 5 July 2017) was a British radio presenter who presented the first programme broadcast on BBC Radio 2, Breakfast Special, from 5.30am on Saturday 30 September 1967. He stayed with Radio 2 until 1970.
Hollingdale had presented a show on CNBC in 1962, and may have been Britain's first ever pirate radio disc jockey.
He joined the Presentation team at the BBC in 1964, introducing concerts and gramophone record shows as well as reading news bulletins. Hollingdale announced the death of Sir Winston Churchill on 24 January 1965.
Hollingdale was also the first presenter on Radio 210 in Reading, launching the station in 1976 with The Breakfast Show, which ran from 6.00 am to 10.00 am. For a spell, he also presented an evening show, between 9.00pm and midnight two days a week, giving him just six hours from the finish of one show to the start of the next.
He returned to BBC Radio 2 for a special show to mark the 40th anniversary of the station on 30 September 2007.
In 1979, he opened Blue Danube Radio, an English language station in Vienna, Austria, and contributed to the station until it closed in 2000. He later moved to Vienna, where he worked as a broadcaster and film commentator.
He died in Brighton on 5 July 2017.