Matthew Bannister

For the New Zealand musician see Matthew Bannister (musician)

Richard Matthew Bannister (born March 16 1957) is a British radio administrator and broadcaster. After attending King Edward VII School (Sheffield), he graduated in law at Nottingham University in 1978, and joined BBC Radio Nottingham as a Station Assistant and subsequently the presenter of its speech-based breakfast show, Morning Report. It was here that he first met Trevor Dann, whom he subsequently worked with at BBC Radio 1.

He first worked for Radio 1 as a presenter of its news programme Newsbeat between 1983 and 1986 and subsequently as co-presenter with Anna Raeburn of Capital Radio's The Way Ahead. He first established himself as a 'name' in the radio industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s as controller of GLR (Greater London Radio), the BBC's local radio station for London. Here he worked for the first time with Chris Evans, who was pioneering many of the ideas which would later win him equal success and controversy at Radio 1, and also employed a number of the more musically credible DJs from Radio 1's past, such as Annie Nightingale, Tommy Vance, Janice Long and Johnnie Walker.

In 1993 Bannister was chosen as the new controller for BBC Radio 1, replacing Johnny Beerling who had worked at the station since its inception in 1967. The station was hugely popular, but many of its DJs, producers and other staff had been working there for decades, and it was felt that younger listeners were not being sufficiently catered for. Between 1993 and 1995 many older DJs departed, including Dave Lee Travis, Simon Bates, Alan Freeman, Bob Harris, Johnnie Walker (DJ), Steve Wright, Gary Davies and Bruno Brookes. Although audiences declined dramatically, a new wave of DJs, including specialists such as Steve Lamacq (indie rock), Tim Westwood (hip-hop), Chris Goldfinger (ragga/dancehall) and Trevor Nelson (R&B), emerged and became highly popular with a new generation, who were now catered for in a way they had never been before. Other Bannister imports Emma Freud and Danny Baker proved less popular and were soon dropped from the schedules.

By 1995 the Britpop explosion had proved the success of Bannister's strategy; the bands he had championed a year or two earlier, when they were comparatively obscure and marginal, were now part of the mainstream, and Radio 1 was booming again. Chris Evans, who had become a hugely popular national figure as breakfast DJ, was the figurehead of this boom, but eventually things went sour; by late 1996 Evans' show contained more criticisms of BBC executives than actual music, and in January 1997 Evans resigned after Bannister refused to allow him Fridays off to concentrate on his TV show TFI Friday. After Mark Radcliffe and Marc 'Lard' Riley had an unsuccessful stint on the breakfast show, the team of Kevin Greening and Zoe Ball were hosting the breakfast show when Bannister left Radio 1 in 1998 (Ball would subsequently host the show on her own).

In the autumn of 1996 Bannister was appointed Director of Radio, a post which gave him overall responsibility over all the national BBC radio networks other than Five Live. He remained controller of Radio 1 alongside this until March 1998, when he was succeeded by Andy Parfitt. In October 2000 Matthew Bannister resigned from the BBC. Since then he has worked as a journalist, notably for The Times, and has presented the late-night show on BBC Radio Five Live.

Since early 2005, he has worked on a freelance basis, following the death of his wife. He still crops up at Five Live and also occasionally presents shows on BBC Radio 4.