KARL STEIN
Karl Stein first appeared on Leicester Sound in January 1992, when the station began to share evening and overnight programmes with Mercia FM in Coventry. He was on air between 1.00am and 4.00am on Sunday mornings. As well as this he often covered the Late Show when the regular presenter was on holiday. He also later presented Sunday nights 7.00pm - 10.00pm.
Karl has recently contacted me and given me the following information on his life and career.
Karl Stein, born Nuneaton, February 1963.
"Always been interested in radio from as long as I can remember........ and
that's sometime ago now ! I joined the local Hospital Radio service in my
hometown of Nuneaton around 1980, the station had been 'on air' about two
weeks prior to me joining. There are lots of jokes about Hospital Radio but
I can honestly say that it gave me a great insight into what radio was all
about and without it I would not have had the chance of being involved with
professional radio. If anyone is really interested in a career in radio it
really is a good way to get started and to gain some experience.
We did a couple of link up programmes with Mercia Sound, ILR for Coventry &
Warwickshire, during Sunday lunchtime period - the idea being to present
patients requests from the wards live on real radio, not just the hospital
radio service. I was invited to be one of the main presenters from Hospital
radio.
I suppose that gave me a 'bit of a taste' for the real thing and some time
later heard that Mercia Sound was to commence 24 hour broadcasting round the
clock. Demo tape prepared and sent, to which I received a letter inviting
me for an interview.
Stuart Linnell, who was then MD at Mercia Sound gave me the opportunity
following some further training to become a Freelance Presenter with the
station. I started my career at Mercia presenting Overnight's -''Nightbeat'' was the name of the show from 1am to 4am . I was later given a
show called ''Play It Cool'' 3am - 4am Saturday Morning. The big one for me
and probably my favourite show was ''The Love Zone'' which went out from
1am to 4am Sunday morning and later became broadcast with Leicester Sound as
well as Mercia FM. A chance to play some great Love Songs / Soul / Late
Night Music which I could choose myself, where as all other shows at this
time were now pre programmed with music. as long as the 'sound / mood ' was
right I had pretty much an open book.
I did various fill in shifts - Mark Keen's Late Show in the week and
weekends, The Sunday Shuffle Quiz on a Sunday Lunch Time for Jeff Harris and
The Boxing Night Build up programme to Mercia's Snowball Charity Appeal for
about 5 years running.
The last show I worked on was when Nightbeat came back to Coventry after
being shared with I'm not sure whether it was with Extra AM or Trent ? I
did some nights and Sara Blizard, who is now Weather Girl on East Mids TV,
did the others. That was also a great show to work on, that was broadcast
from 1am to 6am and was broadcast on both Mercia and Leicester Sound from
Mercia's Coventry studio's at Hertford Place.
I was at Mercia / Leicester from 1986 to 1993 and since 1993 had not done
too much in the way of broadcasting, family commitments and a return to my
original career and place of work at a leading manufacturing company in
Nuneaton as a Technical Advisor has not up until present allowed much time
for professional broadcasting.
The last three weeks have seen Karl Stein return to the airwaves of a small
part of Leicester Sound and Mercia FM's old transmission area for the
Nuneaton, Bedworth, Hinckley & Atherstone areas during a RSL for Anker FM
107.3 where he presented the Sunday Morning Breakfast Show from 7am to 10am."
My thanks to Karl Stein for that information