BBC Radio 1 Initially a weekend presenter playing new pop records, Bates took over the weekday mid-morning programme in November 1977 and remained for 16 years, with up to 11 million listeners. Two long-running features of his programme were
The Golden Hour and
Our Tune. Bates inherited
The Golden Hour from
Tony Blackburn. Bates presented the Sunday afternoon
Top 40 from 2 April 1978 to 26 August 1979 and from 8 January 1984 to 23 September 1984. He presented BBC TV's
Top of the Pops regularly from 1979 to 1988. He presented the station's roadshow before retiring from the duties after his round-the-world trip in 1989. When
Matthew Bannister arrived to modernise Radio 1, Bates was thought to be under threat. Bannister says in ''The Nation's Favourite'' that he feared Bates's supposed subversive influence rather than his broadcasting style. Bates
resigned in summer 1993 before the station could dismiss him, playing "Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)" by Reunion as his last record. Bates has worked on all five analogue national BBC Radio stations. Alongside his stint at
BBC Radio 1 and his broadcasts for
BBC Radio 2 and
BBC Radio 4, he also presented a
Prom concert on
BBC Radio 3 in 1987 and presented a digest of the daily papers on the original
BBC Radio 5 in 1990.
After Radio 1 After leaving Radio 1 he worked for Irish-based
long wave station
Atlantic 252, and later for
Sky One. During these few years he also became the face of the
VSC often seen before films that had come out on rental video, describing the classification of the film. This was lampooned by comedians such as
Harry Enfield and
Ben Elton. From September 1995 to April 1996, Bates broadcast for
Talk Radio UK (now TalkSPORT) as the breakfast show presenter. He was then heard on London's
Liberty Radio as a mid-morning presenter until 1997. Bates joined
Classic FM in 1997. He was also heard on
BBC Southern Counties Radio presenting a Sunday morning show until late 1998. In addition, between 1996 and 1998, Bates presented a show on the
Classic Gold Network on weekday evenings. He then moved to London's
LBC as breakfast host from 1999 to 2002.
Classic FM Bates began presenting the weekly
Classic Romance show in 1997 on Classic FM. In mid-2002 he was offered his first daily slot, presenting the drivetime show. From June 2003 he hosted the Classic FM weekday breakfast show and the one-hour "Classic FM at the Movies" programme, discussing films and film music on Sunday evening. In September 2006, his programme's hours changed from 7:00 a.m. – 11:00a.m. to 8a.m. – noon. In 2010 Bates was moved to mid morning (9:00a.m. to 1:00p.m.) and shortly afterwards it was announced he left the station in January 2011 to present a show on Smooth Radio.
Gold As well as his daily show for Classic FM, Bates could also be heard on the
Gold Radio Network every Sunday morning from 8:00a.m. to noon.
Smooth Radio On 17 August 2010, it was announced that from January 2011 Simon Bates would take over as host of the
Breakfast Show on
Smooth Radio, leaving Classic FM after 13 years of broadcasting. He brought back both
The Golden Hour and
Our Tune to the show. "
The Golden Hour" aired every day from 9am to 10am as it did originally, while
Our Tune aired each morning at 8:40am. Other features in the show included the Thousand Pound Minute, where listeners needed to answer ten questions correctly within 60 seconds to win £1,000. In September 2012 the radio industry news website
Radio Today reported that Bates had started to present a separate breakfast show for Smooth Radio's sister station,
Smooth 70s. Smooth Radio did not publicise the show, but confirmed Bates was providing "a little content" when asked about the programme. The content was "
voice tracked" from the main breakfast show. Bates left Smooth Radio on 21 March 2014.
BBC Radio Devon Bates, who lived on a farm in
mid-Devon, started hosting the
BBC Radio Devon breakfast show from 6:30a.m. to 10:00a.m. on weekdays from 12 January 2015. He also featured the Golden Hour from 9:00a.m. to 10:00a.m.; the years ranged from 1956 to 2004.
2017–present Bates left BBC Radio Devon on 8 January 2017 to "move on to other things." Gordon Sparks took over the breakfast show. In 2020, Bates was hired to do the voice over for
Channel 5's weekly countdown of the 30 biggest selling singles of one year in the UK (known under a number of titles such as
Britains Favourite 80s Songs,
The 90s Greatest Hits 1990–1999, ''Britain's Biggest 90s Hits
and Britain's Favourite 90s Songs''). Bates was a regular contributor for
CBS News's
London Calling segment until 2022. in August 2023,
Boom Radio announced that Bates would be joining and presenting a regular Sunday afternoon show between 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. In October 2023 he also began presenting a Saturday afternoon show on Boom Radio, featuring hits from the 1970s between 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. ==Personal life==