Liz Kershaw

Infobox_Person
name = Liz Kershaw

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imagesize = 300px
caption = Godiva Festival 2007, Coventry.
birth_date = birth date and age|1958|7|30|df=y
birth_place = Rochdale, Lancashire, England.
death_date =
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occupation = Broadcaster and journalist
known_for =
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children =
relatives =Andy Kershaw (brother)
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Liz Kershaw (born 30 July, 1958, in Rochdale, Lancashire) is a high-profile female UK music broadcaster.

Early career

The older sister of fellow broadcaster and world music obsessive Andy Kershaw, she began her career as a pop journalist for the "Yorkshire Post" before joining Leeds station Radio Aire, where her brother also worked for a time.

While in Leeds, she recorded a version of The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks" under the name of Dawn Chorus & The Blue Tits. Liz was Dawn Chorus and TV presenter Carol Vorderman was briefly one of The Blue Tits. Andy Kershaw was also an occasional member of the group, who recorded a session for John Peel in 1985 [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel/sessions/1980s/1985/Feb24dawnchorusandthe/ BBC John Peel Sessions] ] .

In the late 80s Kershaw worked for British Telecom helping to produce the telephone music line service called Livewire. Kershaw helped produce Radio 1 DJ Mike Smith, who recorded introductions to the records in a similar fashion to Dial-a-disc from some years earlier.

Her next move was to the BBC and local station Radio Leeds before the call came from BBC Radio 1 to present a music magazine show called "Backchat". After winning a number of awards, she progressed to the evening show and then her best known slot, the weekend breakfast show which she co-hosted with Bruno Brookes. The two projected a 'love-hate' relationship on-air, and got their fair share of PR in the tabloids as a result, including Kershaw smashing a turntable live on air because she hated a Wet Wet Wet record being played on it; and the two pulling a stunt of getting married as an April Fool. During this period they also made a charity record for the BBC's Children in Need campaign; a version of "It Takes Two". They later made two more fundraising records featuring their Radio 1 colleagues and guest vocalists Frank Bruno and Samantha Fox, though only one charted.

She left Radio 1 in 1992 to present a weekly phone-in on BBC Radio 5 in its original form. She was part of the team which would later relaunch the station and give it its current name of BBC Radio 5 Live. At the same time she also went back to local radio for a spell, presenting BBC Radio Northampton's breakfast programme, and presented documentaries for the other 4 BBC national networks - Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3 and Radio 4.

Recent career

In 2002, she was one of the original presenters on the newly launched, digital station BBC 6 Music where she presented the weekday afternoon show from 1-4pm, before taking over the weekend mid-morning slot in April 2004, from 10am-1pm.

In September 2005 Liz became a presenter on the BBC's BBC Coventry & Warwickshire radio station, where she took over the Drivetime show. She now presents the Breakfast Show for the station and continued to present her show on BBC 6 Music, but on Saturdays only. She can currently be heard on Saturday Lunchtimes 12-2pm.

Liz and Bruno re-united for a one-off special on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire on Christmas Morning 2006.

In July 2007 her show was cited in a BBC phone-in competition scandal, with pre-recorded shows being aired as live, and members of the production team pretending to be members of the public ringing in to a competition which did not exist. [Pierce, Andrew, [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/19/nbbc519.xml "BBC staff suspended over phone-in scandal"] , The Telegraph (London), July 23, 2007]

On 30 July 2008 the BBC was fined £400,000 (a record for the corporation) by media watchdog Ofcom. It was accused of 'misleading its audiences' by 'faking' telephone phone-ins. Amongst those affected were Kershaw's show on BBC 6 Music. Kershaw's programme had the biggest censure of £115,000 being penalised for 17 cases of deception in 17 months between May 2005 and January 2006.

Ofcom stated that the organisation 'deceived its audience by faking winners of competitions and deliberately conducting competitions unfairly.

References

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/liz_kershaw/ Liz Kershaw page at BBC 6 Music]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/coventry/content/articles/2005/09/01/liz_kershaw_qa_feature.shtml Liz Kershaw page at BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire]

Persondata
NAME= Kershaw, Liz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= Broadcaster and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH= 30 July 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH= Rochdale, Lancashire, England.
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=