Simon Tate

Simon’s interest in music and radio was fired up from a young age by his two older brothers, who were avid fans of Radio Caroline North. So much so, that his dad took them out to see the good ship Caroline on his yacht in 1967. He still has a photo of a can of beer with a request wrapped round it, being caught by Tony Prince and duly played, minutes later, by Bob Stewart for Simon’s 11th Birthday.

11 years later, Simon was invited by Tony Prince to visit the famous London HQ of 208 in Hertford Street to be one of Tony’s “Celebrity DJs” – and to record a programme, which was his first ever radio show – going out on July 30th 1978.

Since then, Simon has worked at several commercial stations including Radio Victory, Radio City, and Rock FM, before being appointed Programme Director for the launch of Blackpool’s Radio Wave in 1992, where he spent many happy years.

In 1983, whilst at Radio City, he was delighted to find his show, “Downtown” voted into the Smash Hits Readers Poll Top 20 Radio Shows – of which Mike Read was No.1.

In 2018, Simon joined the team at United DJs Radio (UDJ) to present Tate’s Gallery, which featured quality new music alongside hits and album tracks from the past. It was during this time at UDJ that Simon was invited to launch a series celebrating the world’s oldest radio chart show, The Radio Luxembourg Top Twenty.

The 208 Top 20, which recreates those Radio Luxembourg Chart shows, spanning the 208 Years of 1951 – 1992, can now be heard on Sunshine Radio.

The show is unique amongst “retro chart shows” in that it is presented “In The Now”, as if you have gone back to that year and are listening once again to 208, with the original jingles and commercials alongside the hits of the day! A new feature is that listeners are invited to vote for which years they can hear the following week!