North Media Talent

Chelsey Ward

Chelsey Ward is a Radio Presenter and a host.

Currently, Chelsey co-presents the daily drive time show on BBC Local Radio across the Yorkshire region.

She’s featured on BBC Radio 1, as part of the Christmas take over and since then, was invited back to present Early Fridays.

Her passion for radio began in her living room, where she would create fake radio shows for her mum to listen to. Her strong-willed nature has led her to seek opportunities and create a career in broadcasting.

As soon as she could get herself behind a mic, she began presenting on her local hospital radio station in Worksop (up north) at the age of just 16. Chelsey is known for her high energy and humour. She thrives when building a connection with the audience as she understands the power of radio.

Happiest with mic in hand, she strives to leave her audience with a lasting smile. Chelsey has been annually invited to host events for large industry bodies. As a young woman with a working-class background, she is aware of how important representation is in big spaces.

Chelsey is never afraid to stand out and be different, and usually you’ll hear her before you see her.

Outside the studio, she’s probably struggling to pitch up a tent whilst camping or dancing at a festival. Chelsey has a love for adventure and apparently will try anything at least once.

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Chris Howard

Chris Howard is a radio and digital presenter based in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

Most recently Chris presented Friday Early Breakfast on BBC Radio 1 during February 2024 plus a run of Radio 1 Anthems over the Christmas 2023.

Chris was selected Winner of Demo Factor 2023 impressing a panel of judges (including heads of both Radio 1 and Absolute Radio plus presenters from Heart and Times Radio) at the National Student Radio Association Conference (SRACon).

While studying at Sunderland University Chris joined Spark, the community radio station presenting a variety of output from Sport coverage to specialist music shows. While Chris was the host of the Breakfast Show he helped Spark pick up Best Station at the 2022 Student Radio Awards, the first time in the stations history.

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Conor Knight

Conor is a regular presenter on BBC Radio 1, and has spent the last 18 months covering Radio 1 weekend breakfast, Early Breakfast and taking the reins of the Mid-morning show over Christmas.

Conor is currently presenting mid-mornings on Radio Essex – where he’s been bringing his tongue in cheek demeanour, love for music and popstar nonsense to his dedicated and growing band of listeners since 2018.

His radio journey started on community radio back in 2017 where all he wanted to do was play the music he loved and talk about popstars being ridiculous.

This led on to him joining FunKids where he brings his brand of fun and joy to kids (and adults) across the UK since 2019, working his way from a weekend slot to now, hosting weekday evenings.

The pandemic saw Conor launch a comedy fact podcast called Baffled – which has charted in the in the UK Top 20 & US Top 40 – this has saw the likes of Paul Chowdry and Yvette Fielding drop by for a chat.

Conor feels equally at home in the studio as he does being out and about covering festivals such as Creamfields, CBBC’s Summer Social and the Brit Awards – where he gets to interview celebrities and musicians.

Hailing from Hornchurch, Conor is a typical Essex lad, and outside radio enjoys, Gigs, fashion and a trip to his local for a pint.

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Rob Howard

Rob Howard is an multi award winning presenter, who can currently be heard on the Heart Network weekend breakfast show. He has worked for many radio stations including 10 years at Capital where he presented almost every show including breakfast!

Rob has hosted many events including the National Student Radio Awards at London O2 Indigo and worked many red carpets including the Mobo’s and the Brits. He has also interviewed countless stars including Stormzy, Ed Sheeran and his interview with Steve Carell went viral gaining over 6 million views. Rob can also DJ and has opened for Olly Murs and JLS on their UK stadium tours.

Rob also has a large following on tiktok with over 335,000 followers, amassing over 52 million total views and 9 million total likes.

Outside of work Rob is a Dad as well as a Tottenham Hotspur season ticket holder

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Ben Coley

Ben is currently a presenter for BFBS The Forces Station, and in 2020 opened up the ‘BFBS British Forces Christmas Takeover’ on BBC Radio 1.

At the age of sixteen Ben got involved with his local hospital radio station in Evesham and launched his own specialist music show for North Cotswold Community Radio. Ben mixed his time at Sixth Form with playing music in a band and getting other local artists to play on his shows.

In 2016 he joined Bournemouth University as a fresher, and whilst studying Multimedia Journalism got stuck into everything that student radio had to offer. Ben went from presenting his own rock show to eventually hosting Drivetime, the SRA Chart Show and scheduling the stations’ specialist evening programmes. It was Ben’s stint on Drivetime that won him ‘Bronze’ for ‘Best Entertainment Programme’ and a nomination for ‘Best Male Presenter’ at the Student Radio Awards in 2019.

In the summer of 2019 Ben freelanced as an Assistant Producer for Virgin Radio, including the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky. He also spent time working as a Broadcast Assistant for BBC Radio Solent. These opportunities led Ben to secure a full-time presenting and producing slot for BFBS in 2020.

At BFBS, Ben has presented across local Afternoon, Breakfast and international Network shows in Cyprus and The Falkland Islands. He also interviewed guests on the red carpet at the BRIT Awards 2020.

During his time in Cyprus, he was selected to host the opening slot for the ‘BFBS British Forces Christmas Takeover’ across the BFBS and BBC Radio 1 networks. This was followed by Ben covering a one-off morning show for Kerrang! Radio.

Ben recently made the class of 2021 for the ‘ReelWorld Radio Academy 30 Under 30’.

Currently Ben presents weekdays from 6:30 – 10am on BFBS Salisbury Plain and covers shows across the BFBS network. He presents and produces his own unsigned music podcast too.

When off-air, you’ll catch Ben moshing at a gig, playing guitar, watching UFC or shamelessly being a Radiohead-nerd.

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Emil Franchi

Emil presented Friday Early Breakfast plus cover BBC Radio 1 throughout July 2022 and has since covered for Matt and Mollie plus the Official Chart for Radio 1. He is also a regular cover presenter on Absolute Radio. Before this he presented Heart North East Drivetime.

Growing up in the North East, Emil first caught the radio bug while studying at University, where he produced and hosted shows at Newcastle Student Radio, going on to help organise the successful 2014 SRA Conference bid.

During his time at University, Emil volunteered at hospital station Radio Tyneside, working on their Breakfast show for 2 years despite being one of their youngest presenters. He was nominated for Best Male Presenter at the HBA Awards.

In early 2015 Emil moved to Stoke-on-Trent to present overnights on the old UTV/Wireless Local Network covering 9 stations including Signal 1, Pulse 1 and The Wave. Within eighteen months, he moved through the ranks to present the weekday evening shows, alongside hosting events for the station and presenting backstage interviews, at Total Access Live 2016.

After 2 years in Staffordshire, Emil returned to the North East for a brief spell on Star Radio Drive, in his home County, Durham, before moving to Heart North East as their weekend presenter. He was their Saturday breakfast presenter for 18 months.

In June 2019, Emil took over Heart North East’s Drivetime show, becoming the youngest presenter in the Heart regional slot. In no time at all and without hesitation, he jumped out of a plane for Heart’s Big Sky Dive, helping raise money for Global’s Make Some Noise. He has been host for several live events including Cancer Research UK’s Race For Life.

Outside the world of Radio, Emil is a huge fan of his beloved Newcastle United and has been involved in fan media since 2018. He is part of the “True Faith” Fanzine & Podcast and is the face of their popular Fan Cam videos on YouTube. He has been interviewed, regularly, on Sky Sports News and BBC Sport, representing the group, offering insight and opinion.

More recently, Emil’s enthusiasm, communication and presenting skills have provided a route into the team at WhatCulture. He now provides content on movies and TV Shows such as Marvel, Star Wars and Doctor Who.

With a wide and diverse knowledge of music, Emil will happily challenge all takers to a game of, “Guess the intro”! He has a passion for entertaining and gives every challenge full commitment.

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Pete Snodden

Broadcaster, DJ, Speaker, Host, Stadium Announcer & TV show contributor are just some of the terms you can use to describe Pete Snodden. He is a Husband and Father is best known as the voice behind the hugely successful breakfast show on Cool FM in Northern Ireland for the best part of 16 years. Pete is a broadcaster who is equally at home behind the mic in a studio as he is in front of a live audience and has a vast array of experience. Pete has opened for the President of the United States ‘Barrack Obama’ at his keynote speech in Belfast ahead of the G8 conference in 2013. He has broadcasted live from the red carpet at the MTV European Music awards and has hosted many events including Red Bull’s ‘Crashed Ice’ and ‘Soap Box Race’, ‘Heineken Star Serve’, ‘Sports Relief’’ and the closing ceremony of the World Police & Fire Games.

Pete’s interview technique makes interviewees feel at ease and ensures he gets the best out of each person he speaks to from the world of music, sport, entertainment and politics. Amongst his favourite interviews are Rory McIlroy, Alicia Keys, Usher & Noel Gallagher.

Pete has attained a few accolades along the way, CIPR Entertainment Presenter of the Year, Fate Magazine and Go Magazines Media personality of the year and has also enjoyed his former dance show ‘The Source’ picking up the ‘Most informative Media’ award at the NI Dance music awards.

A club DJ and a huge sports fan, Pete plays Hockey and Golf and has a love for football and rugby.

Pete stands proud as an ambassador for the ‘Prince’s Trust’ and ‘Young Enterprise Northern Ireland’.

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Jack Wood

Jack currently Hosts “Scruff Of The Neck TV” on Twitch where he interviews bands, and puts on gigs, and is a regular host of charity gigs for WarChild. He also occasionally presents on XS Manchester, and until recently presented on Radio X.

He started his presenting career at hospital Radio, Radio Cavell in Oldham and then went on to present on University Radio Nottingham, as well as being the playlist editor.

As music is his passion after graduating he worked for an online music review site, Subba-cultcha, organising album, gig, festival reviews for others as well as writing his own reviews.

Radio picked up when he started to present weekend overnights on the Bauer city network before moving to Weekday Early Breakfast across the City Network, alongside presenting Sunday mornings on Kerrang! Radio then to it’s evening show. This was alongside Saturday afternoons on Preston’s famous Rock FM!

He then moved to Radio X presenting Friday Evenings amongst a host of other shows.

Jack’s a keen writer, from having opinion pieces published in Metro, and a recent article in NME.

As a keen runner, he hosts his own weekly podcast, “Wood on the Run” which is a running playlist and chat to encourage casual runners. He also hosts the MancMade podcast, interviewing people who have influenced and been influenced by Manchester such as Rowetta from the Happy Mondays and ex Mayor Carl Austin-Behan.

Other things that take up Jack’s time are sport, born into a Man U household as well as style and fashion, especially renewable fashion.

He was never knowingly sold PPI.

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Mollie Finn

After graduating from Bournemouth University in 2020 it was announced that Mollie would begin her Radio career as a part of the Radio 1 Presenting family as the Friday early breakfast presenter in February 2021.

Mollie began presenting when she was 18 on Bristol community station, BCfm. Starting as a co-presenter on the Breakfast show Mollie took many opportunities to develop her presenting skills, live reporting on the 2017 general election and interviewing at Love Saves the Day festival. In 2017 she was asked to present an episode of ‘Doorstep Sport’ for Made in Bristol TV.

After starting at Bournemouth University in 2017, Mollie became a member of student station Nerve Radio and was selected for the role of Station Manager in 2019. Throughout her time at student radio Mollie hosted several shows including the Breakfast show in her final year. During her time at university, while juggling her communication and Media Degree and the Station Manager she was offered a Voice-Tracked presenter slot on Spanish Station Sugar Radio.

It was her entry to the SRA’s Demofactor that drew attention to Mollie as a presenter, after receiving a golden buzzer she gained the confidence to apply for the Radio 1 Christmas presenter search. As a result Mollie was given a place on ‘Radio 1 on rotation’ as it was announced that she would present Friday Early Breakfast in February 2021.

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Joel Mitchell

Joel presents Tuesday-Thursday evenings across BBC Local Radio in the North, and regularly covers daytime shows on BBC Radio Manchester. He’s comfortable chatting to musicians, interviewing politicians and interacting with listeners on the phone-in.

Joel also regularly fills in on BBC Radio 1, including weekend afternoons and R1 00s / R1 10s. In January 2021 he became the first host of the rotating Friday ‘Early Breakfast’ slot, and returned twice in 2023. Joel’s first opportunity to present on BBC Radio 1 came in December 2019, when he deputised for Scott Mills on the ‘Official Chart’.

He previously presented his own slot on BBC Radio Leeds between June 2019 and September 2023, after a stint launching the ‘Hello Friday’ youth strand for BBC Radio Sheffield in August 2018.

Joel regularly hosts events for several industry bodies, and also appears on internal BBC panels to discuss his work.

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