Read's professional broadcasting career began in March 1976 at
Reading's Radio 210, where he co-hosted a slot with
Steve Wright – entitled
Read and Wright – before joining
Radio Luxembourg late in 1977. Read joined Radio 1 in November 1978 and was soon presenting the night-time programme before the slot fronted by
John Peel; here, Read championed new groups and featured live sessions. On 5 January 1981, he took over
Radio 1 Breakfast. On 11 January 1984, Read suddenly interrupted broadcasting the
Frankie Goes to Hollywood song "
Relax", halfway through playing the single, denouncing the lyrics as 'obscene'. Read has said this account of his intervention is a myth; the interruption of the record was solely for timing reasons, as he only had access in the studio to the longer 12" version. The BBC had already decided to ban the record from
Top of the Pops, even though it subsequently reached No. 1 in the
UK singles chart. Following on from his five-year stint on Radio 1's breakfast slot, Read took over a Sunday morning programme in 1986. A year later, he moved to Saturday mornings, and also to a Sunday afternoon series, where he played classic tracks. In addition, he hosted
Round Table and later went back to it as the renamed
Singled Out on Friday evenings, in which musicians and disc jockeys would review new single releases. Read's Saturday morning slot ended in September 1988, and his Sunday afternoon oldies series finished in January 1989, when
Alan Freeman re-joined the station to host an oldies version of
Pick of the Pops, which Read covered in November that year when Freeman was ill. From January 1989 to September 1990, Read presented a weekly series,
The Mike Read Collection, (which was broadcast on Monday evenings) and remained on the Friday panel show
Singled Out (which by then had gone back to its original name of
Round Table); he remained in this slot until 1991.
After Radio 1 Read left Radio 1 in 1991 and moved to Capital Gold in London, presenting his
Mike Read Collection, which went out on a Sunday night, before taking on the weekday 'drive-time' show in mid-1992, where he remained until he left the station in late 1995. Read was heard on
BBC Radio 2 in 1992 presenting special shows looking back at the career of
Cliff Richard and playing his music. Read then joined
Classic FM, where he presented a weekend series, and had a stint as weekday breakfast presenter starting in March 1996. The following year, he presented the networked 'breakfast show' on
Classic Gold stations around the UK. From September 1999, Read presented the breakfast show on
Jazz FM in the north of England; then, in 2001, he joined
Spirit FM in
Chichester, initially presenting a Sunday slot from 10am to 1pm before moving to a weekday afternoon slot from 2pm to 3pm, playing music from various featured years. Between 2003 and 2004, Read presented a Saturday morning slot on the
Magic network around the UK. In May 2005, he became the weekday morning presenter on Big L 1395, a station modelled on the 1960s pirate radio station; he has also done occasional stints on
Talksport. In November 2008, he took time out from Big L to present the 3pm7pm 'drive-time' show on
KCFM (based in
Hull) for a week (10–14 November), as cover for
Shaun Tilley. Read became the third former Radio 1 disc jockey to broadcast on the station, along with
Tony Blackburn and
Paul Burnett. In November 2009, Read began hosting a mid-morning slot on
TotalStar in the
West of England. Exactly a year later, Read had returned to Big L with a daily slot from 8am to 12pm, Monday-Friday. From July 2011, he hosted the Golden Hour on
More Radio (
Swindon and
Wiltshire), formerly Total Star Wiltshire. Read was heard on
Magic 1548 in the north of England, where he presented their weekend breakfast series, on Saturdays and Sundays from 7am10am, starting in April 2012. He also presented the afternoon slot on Monday to Friday on
BBC Radio Berkshire between 1:00/3:00pm and 4pm until March 2015, and continued to host programmes for the station, including a Saturday afternoon slot during the summer of 2015. In April 2018, Read was the first voice heard on the new internet radio station United DJs, where he hosted the station's breakfast slot on weekdays from 7-9am. He also hosted an additional weekly series for the station, entitled
I Write the Songs. From November 2019, he hosted the weekday breakfast slot, from 7-10am, on London and south-east DAB station Vintage Music Radio for several months, but still presented occasional shows on United DJs and returned to the breakfast show there the following spring, staying until November 2020. Read left to join the new line-up of
Nation Radio UK from 4 January 2021, and was replaced by
Neil Fox in April.
Heritage Chart show Since 15 November 2020, Read has hosted
The Heritage Chart on Sunday afternoons on the Nation Radio network in the UK. The programme was on originally on United DJs Radio from 26 July to 8 November 2020. Dr Fox (Neil Fox) replaced Read on the United DJs version of the show after Read joined Nation Radio.
The Heritage Chart Show is syndicated on other selected radio stations across the UK and around the world. One such example is Enjoy Radio, an online station based in Greater Manchester who started carrying
The Heritage Chart Show in early 2022. In January 2023, Regency Radio, an
OFCOM-licensed station on the south coast broadcasting on DAB in the
Brighton area, as well on app, online and on smart speaker took the Chart Show on Sunday nights from 5-7pm, the traditional time of the
BBC Radio 1 and
ILR chart shows.
Heritage Chart Radio The Heritage Chart Show expanded from a weekly chart show to a full-time radio service, with presenters including former
Yell! singer
Daniel James, who has a show called
Bangers and Chat, and rockabilly guitarist
Darrel Higham. The station also picked up the radio broadcasts of Rewind TV's
Stereo Underground programme, a show Richard Latto used to present on various BBC Local Radio stations and hired
Dave Lee Travis for a weekly Sunday morning show starting in March 2025.
Other radio shows On 12 April 2021, Read started hosting the breakfast show on Downforce Radio, broadcasting from 7-10am. In 2022, Read started presenting his
Afternoon Delight show on the
Sussex station V2 Radio. From 1 August 2022, Read continued his breakfast show, but also with an audience from Sunshine Radio Online, with a dual broadcast-type arrangement. From 22 April 2024, Read started presenting the breakfast show on Regency Radio.
Television Read combined his radio work with a second career as a television presenter. He hosted the
Yorkshire Television children's series
Pop Quest from 1977 to 1979; then, on
BBC1, Read presented or co-presented 65 editions of the music chart series
Top of the Pops from 9 November 1978 to 28 December 1989. From 1982 to 1987, Read presented the BBC's Saturday morning children's programme
Saturday Superstore, as well as the Saturday night music game show
Pop Quiz, which regularly got audiences of 10 million and featured rock and pop stars answering music
trivia questions; the series spawned
board game and computer game spin-offs. The penultimate episode of
Pop Quiz, in 1984, featured a face-off between pop bands
Spandau Ballet and
Duran Duran. The format was revived twice: firstly in 1994 by the BBC with
Chris Tarrant as the host; and then in June 2008, a revamped
Pop Quiz recorded without a studio audience and in a pub (rather than a television studio) in which the participants were members of the public, aired on
Red TV; this was again hosted by Read. In 1994, he returned to
Top of the Pops to host a one-off special for its anniversary. Later, in 1997, he presented the
UK Gold television genre quiz
Goldmaster in 1997. In 2004, Read was one of the contestants recruited for the jungle-based
ITV reality series ''
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, though his stay in the Australian outback was short-lived, as he was the first celebrity to be evicted by the viewing public. Read was among 10 former presenters who returned as guest co-presenters for the final edition of Top of the Pops'', broadcast 30 July 2006 on
BBC Two. Read has also appeared as a regular newspaper reviewer for
Sky News. In 2014, he appeared as himself in
BBC Four spoof docudrama
The Life of Rock with Brian Pern. In 2021, he joined
Talking Pictures TV founder Noel Cronin on the channel's archive programme
The Footage Detectives, a series which discusses forgotten films and lost TV shows such as
The Barnstormers from 1964. ,
The Heritage Chart Show with Mike Read is broadcast on Sundays, first by the
Local TV network of channels at 7pm, and then by Talking Pictures TV as a late-night repeat. The programme is a pop music countdown of videos and live performances from veteran acts, such as
Chesney Hawkes and
Tight Fit, based on the chart broadcast on a number of community radio stations in the UK and abroad.
Song-writing In 1979, Read wrote and performed the pop-punk song "High Rise" (upon which his Radio 1 intro jingle was subsequently based) under the guise of The Trainspotters, following this in 1980 with "My Town", by his next studio group, The Ghosts. Read then wrote lyrics to the theme (composed by
Simon May) for the
TRIC Award-winning
Trainer; the resulting
UK Top 30 single, "
More to Life", was performed by
Cliff Richard. In 1991, Read also provided a guest
rap on "
Radio Wall of Sound", UK Top 30 hit for
Slade. After his appearance on ''I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!
, Read recorded a charity single when he lyrically re-worked the Hank Mizell hit "Jungle Rock" and – as the Jungle Boys (with fellow I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!'' contestants
Neil 'Razor' Ruddock and
Lord Brocket) – had a UK Top 30 hit single. The follow-up, which made the Top 75, was a new version of
Mungo Jerry classic "
In the Summertime". In 2005, Read's song "Grief Never Grows Old" featured on a charity recording in aid of victims of the
2004 tsunami. Performed by an ensemble of artists named
One World Project, the single reached No. 4 in the UK singles chart. Read has written music to accompany many poems written by
John Betjeman. Thirty of these songs were recorded by artists including Cliff Richard,
David Essex,
Gene Pitney and
Marc Almond for the 2006 various artists' album
Words/Music, and subsequently re-released in 2008 as a double CD titled
Sound of Poetry. On 19 October 2011, Read was presented with a
BASCA Gold Badge Award in recognition of his contribution to music.
Musicals Read has staged a number of musicals, including
Young Apollo (a musical about the life of
Rupert Brooke);
Oscar (a 2004 production about
Oscar Wilde, which was derided by critics and closed after one performance);
Great Expectations;
A Christmas Carol;
Cliff - The Musical (which closed after three months) and
Ricky Nelson...Teenage Idol. Read took one of the lead roles in the
Cliff musical, touring with it and appearing for a three-month run in the
West End at the
Prince of Wales Theatre. His production
Betjeman (based on his musical settings of poems by Sir
John Betjeman) has occasionally been staged for charities, including the
Royal Marsden Hospital and
Children With Leukaemia. Actors appearing in his musicals and shows have included
Nyree Dawn Porter,
Brian Glover,
Colin Baker,
Anton Rogers,
Jeremy Irons,
Alvin Stardust and
Bernard Cribbins. Read's poetry books include
The Aldermoor Poems,
Elizabethan Dragonflies,
A Room With Books and the latest,
New Poems for Old Paintings. He has edited and supplied biographies for the two best-selling poetry books,
100 Favourite Poems and
100 Favourite Humorous Poems, and contributed to many of the titles in the series ''Poets' England
. He has also written two crime novels. In 1997, he published Forever England: The Life of
Rupert Brooke''.
Contemporary art In October 2007, Read started to produce contemporary art, with a gallery of works in the medium of confectionery entitled
Choc Art. The work includes recreations of album sleeves by
the Beatles, his own take on the famous map of the
London Underground, and works based on the paintings of
L.S. Lowry. ==Personal life and ventures==