Forum for former BBC staff

Forum for former BBC staff
http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> Notices, obituaries and tributes >> Tony Butler http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1689372642 Message started by MB on Jul 14^th, 2023, 10:11pm

Title: Tony Butler
Post by MB on Jul 14^th, 2023, 10:11pm

Veteran Midlands broadcaster Tony Butler died this afternoon (Friday) aged 88. This is part of his Google entry:

Tony Butler (born 15 May 1935) is a retired Birmingham based UK sports broadcaster and was one of the first stars of local radio in Britain, known for a distinctive local accent and sometimes controversial style. In 2007, he was honoured by the Sony Radio Academy with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
He was born in Wolverhampton on 15 May 1935 and began his journalistic career in local papers in Birmingham before beginning to contribute to BBC national and regional radio in the 1960s. His strong regional accent caused problems at the staid BBC and he later recalled how he was encouraged to soften his natural accent. At one point the BBC even provided elocution lessons.

Tony often described himself as the inventor of the football phone-in when he worked in the Midlands, both for the BBC and BRMB.

Title: Re: Tony Butler
Post by david en france on Jul 20^th, 2023, 5:47pm

On being Birted out in 1994 I was fortunate to be given the chance to offer media interview training to emerging privatised railways in the Midlands. (Thank you Robin Etherington) I became a regular visitor to Stanier House, home of Central Trains and InterCity. I soon discovered that everyone nominated to face my inquisitions held the formidable interview technique of Tony Butler as being the bench mark to attain. Few Local Radio stations can boast that kind of reverence these days. As someone who served in local radio for seventeen years, the best years of my life, I mourn the passing of these complacency-breaking pioneers. These were the days of ascendency. Now we are witnessing the opposite.