Tony Horne (in the Morning)
Tony Horne is the English born radio personality, currently believed to be the longest running continuous breakfast presenter on English commercial radio.
The Tony Horne In The Morning Radio Show currently airs on Metro Radio across North East England. The show is contracted until December 2011.
Broadcast career
His career technically began at University Radio Exeter1 in 1989, when he became the first programme director to gain an FM license for a student station. From here went to AA Roadwatch broadcasting traffic across the south of England and began a network show across Devonair and Plymouth Sound weeknights from 7 to midnight, after turning down a network show from BBC Radio Devon. In these early days he was sometimes known as ‘Horney Tone’, freelancing in the summers at Ocean Sound, and also producing for KZTO in Kansas, USA. In 1990 he was named runner-up in the radio academy's young broadcaster of the 90s competition, in 1993 he quit the day after his graduation, after achieving a 2:2 in French and Italian, some of which was completed at the Universities of Rome and Padua.
The day after he quit. He was offered the breakfast show on GWR FM. On 1 September 1993, Tony Horne In The Morning was born. The first co-host joined in 1995 (Katy Hubbard) but Tony left a year later to join Metro Radio. Bringing windups and outrage to the traditionally safe radio market of the Northeast for the very first time, he achieved the remarkable feat of achieving an 87% awareness and 50% listenership.
The show was littered with controversy, though it was later admitted that these were just stunts. Most notable were the ‘Cliff Richard will you just piss off’ rant, the ‘coconut phonecall’, and the [...] on the beach fiasco where he bolted the studio door and played the song of the same name by T-Spoon for an hour.
In August 2000, he quit, after being poached by Capital Radio to head up their new speech-based 105.4 Century Radio across the Northwest. He was sued by EMAP for breach of contract, and stopped short of issuing legal proceedings himself after many newspapers in the region issued a quote from the then Managing Director, Mel Booth, saying that he hadn’t wanted his kids to grow up with a Geordie accent. Tony still gets asked about this on air, and has repeatedly said that he was just offered a better job at the time and it was sour grapes from the radio station. Booth was fired months later. This is believed to have been his downfall.
On 1 January, Tony Horne In The Morning debuted in the Northwest with newsreader Andrew Bailey and impressionist Mike Maguire. Within thirteen days the show had made international headlines after winding up the relatively unknown but soon to be England football manager Sven Goran Eriksson, just days before he was due to arrive in the UK. This was a purple patch for the show with many big names from Richard Madeley to Uri Geller falling victim to prank calls.
However the show did absolutely nothing in the ratings until May 2003 when it recorded record numbers for Century, increasing by nearly 120,000 listeners in one quarter.
In the autumn, Metro Radio made an approach to re-sign the show after their own falling ratings but were unable to reach a deal in time, so Tony signed a new one-year deal at Century, on the basis that conversations would continue. These were concluded in June 2004 when he re-signed for Metro Radio, leaving his contract early and beginning the new show on 1 November.
Despite the advances of the Guardian Media Group, he committed to his latest deal at the tail end of 2007. He is rumoured to own much of his intellectual property.
In June 2008, he took a two month break from the show to travel Australia, returning to find that for the first time in his career Terry Wogan had overtaken him in the ratings.
The radio show is perceived as edgy and controversial, though has yet to have an Ofcom complaint upheld.
The show has several unprecedented features, notably the unbroadcastable jokes (invented 1993) and You Tube Of The day (invented in 2004 and borrowed by many ever since) There are also currently three features running, especially for the most devoted listeners. These are the Josef Fritzl joke of the day, the Gary Glitter memorial gag, and the daily 'Christmas Shoes' mention.
There is also a best of THITM show on Sundays from 10am
The Cast
Tony is joined every week day morning from just before 6am by Metro Radio stalwart Captain Marky Mark (debut 1997) with live traffic from the sky every fifteen minutes.
Anna Foster is the current news personality.
The show has two producers in Ian Thompson, known on air as ‘Dogsbody’, and Mark Cliffe, dubbed the ‘Junior Dogsbody’, principally because he joined a little later in April 2005. Junior features on air occasionally, most notably taking over the show after the Maldives outside broadcast went down in September 2008.
Behind the scenes John Iley is the show’s 24/7 man on the net, scouring cyberspace for everything the show needs.
Brian Moore is the deputy in Tony’s absence; Tyne Tees Television presenter Philippa Tomson stands in for Anna.
Writer
Tony has written thousands of articles and columns over the years for various publications from Mail On Sunday to The Observer. He has written a weekly column for Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s heritage paper Evening Chronicle since November 2004, satirising the week’s events in the North east, most famously receiving two death threats in 2007, after suggesting that the Sunderland chairman and acting manager Niall Quinn would have to sack himself after five games. They promptly lost all five and Quinn sacked himself, being replaced by Roy Keane.
On September 1 Tony’s first book Hornes Down Under Part One will be published by Troubadour- one mad family drives a campervan across Australia....disaster ensues. Part Two is currently being written featuring the same story but from his wife’s point of view.
Education
1976 -1982 Lovelace Junior School2, Chessington, Surrey.
1982 - 1988 Tiffin School For Boys3, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey.
1989 - 1993 University of Exeter, Roma and Padua (BA French and Italian)
Family
Tony is married to Natalie Horne (nee Hughes). Natalie is an actress, last seen appearing in Hollyoaks. She is also Managing Director of their company Horney Media 4. They have three children - Molly, Sam and Poppy.
Horney Media
Horney Media was formed in 1998 and specialises in PR, speechwriting, breakfast radio consultancy, independent production and TV formats. They are closely tied to Nova International5, organisers of the Great North Run6, for whom they have produced the majority of their freelance audio commissions in recent years, as well as contributing many articles for their massive database of readers through their quarterly magazine.
Representatives
Tony Horne is represented by Gillian Davies at Lyons Wilson solicitors (Representation)7, in Manchester and Jane Walton at Hundredth Monkey (PR)[http://www.hundredthmonkeyuk.com/]in Newcastle, and David Harper at David Harper TV (TV work)
Natalie Horne is represented by Nidges Casting8, in Manchester.
External links
- DJ Profile Official Profile page at Metro Radio
- Horney Media Official Page for Horney Media
- Tony Horne Books