Peter Edwin Allen (born 4 February 1946) is an English radio broadcaster with 40 years' experience in journalism. He has been with

BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts mainly news, sport, Talk show, discussion, interviews and phone-ins, and is on air 24 hours a day. It is the principal BBC radio station Broadca ...

since it started in 1994, and co-presented the ''Drive'' programme for 16 years from 1998 to 2014.

Early life

Allen was born in

Rochford Rochford is a town and civil parish in the Rochford (district), Rochford District in Essex, England, north of Southend-on-Sea, from London and from Chelmsford. At the 2011 census, the Civil parishes in England, civil parish had a population ...

, Essex, and attended the independent Brentwood School. At 18 he left school and started work with his local newspaper. He emigrated to Australia and worked for the Sydney ''

Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...

''.

Broadcasting career

In the 1970s Allen switched to working in radio, joining

Independent Radio News Independent Radio News provides a service of news bulletins, audio and copy to commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom and beyond. The managing director, Tim Molloy, succeeded long-term MD John Perkins in November 2009. Perkins had been ...

, the newly launched news service for UK commercial radio. He eventually became the network's political editor while working at

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

. He also worked as a presenter at its sister radio station LBC, the London news and talk station. Allen then switched to television and was

ITN Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based media production and broadcast journalism company. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, New York City, New York, Paris, Sydney and Washin ...

political correspondent until 1992, when he was one of "a string of high-profile resignations" following the company's budget cuts. He then joined London News Network. On 1 March 1994, the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

announced that Allen was to host its new ''Breakfast'' programme on

. In 1997 ''Breakfast'' was extended by half an hour. Also in 1997, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' described the "witty repartee" of Allen and co-presenter (and future protagonist) Jane Garvey as the best illustration of the station's tone, "friendly, informal, brisk, and mercifully, not terribly politically correct". Garvey describes him as "the legendary Peter Allen who taught me a lot about broadcasting, and even more about confectionery". On 31 August 1997, Allen and James Naughtie hosted the

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. The service provides national radio stations cove ...

coverage of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales which saw Radios 2, 3, 4 and 5 Live taking a single programme. This coverage won a Sony Award for best news event. During 13 years working together at Five Live, following ''Breakfast'' with ''Drive'', Allen and Garvey won six Sony Awards including the Gold award for news broadcaster of the year in 2002. In 2007, newspapers cited unnamed sources which said that Allen had been rejected as

John Humphrys Desmond John Humphrys (born 17 August 1943) is a Welsh people, Welsh broadcaster. From 1981 to 1987 he was the main presenter of the ''BBC Nine O'Clock News, Nine O'Clock News'', the flagship BBC News television programme, and from 1987 until ...

' replacement on BBC Radio 4's ''Today'' programme because he was not "posh enough" and did not have an

Oxbridge Oxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford, Universities of Oxford and University of Cambridge, Cambridge, the two oldest, wealthiest, and most prestigious universities in the United Kingdom. The term is used to refer to them collect ...

background. A BBC spokesperson responded "The reason we are not commenting is that it is about whether or not someone went for a job that may or not exist. Consequently, we cannot really get into it." He has been with the network since 1994 and was the co-presenter of BBC Radio 5 Live's ''Drive'' programme for more than 16 years, from September 1998 to October 2014. He also chairs conferences and hosts events and award ceremonies, as well as performing as an after-dinner speaker. In July 2014 the BBC announced that he was moving to a morning slot for three days a week, replacing Victoria Derbyshire who was leaving the station. In August 2015, Allen presented a live programme from

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...

on the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb, speaking to several survivors of the attack and an American physicist who helped to design the bombs in the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...

. From November 2016, Allen co-hosted a 5 Live Sunday evening programme with Jane Garvey. From January 2018 to September 2019 he co-hosted a Sunday evening programme on the same station, ''Peter Allen and Caroline Barker'', in which the presenters were to "delve into the personalities behind the headlines".

References

External links

Fi Glover, ''The Independent'', June 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Peter English radio personalities BBC Radio 5 Live presenters Living people People from Rochford People educated at Brentwood School, Essex 1946 births LBC radio presenters Mass media people from Essex