Before I start a little bit of background on how I ended up out here in the UAE.
I’d worked across the UK at various radio stations and fair to say over the last 12 months the industry has changed for what it was to what is. Many of the radio stations I’ve worked for over the years no longer exist gone and I suspect will never return gone are Fox FM, B97 Chiltern FM, 106 Century FM and 96 Trent FM all but one of the stations having been replaced with network offerings from both Heart and Capital and this means that they only have 2 local shows per day and as a result in the region of 150-200 presenters have lost jobs and are now looking for alternative work.
Back in August I was told my current contract wasn’t renewed so despite having been successful in both the shows I’d presented at Key 103 over 4 years I found myself in the trickiest job market I can remember. So a demo was made and sent out to over 30 stations and safe to say feedback was limited and what I did get was a number of programmers saying I don’t understand why you’d want to come here after working in Manchester.......?? Simple answer I enjoy working in radio.
Whilst looking for work in the UK I spotted an interesting advert which gave little away other than an opportunity might be available in a place where the sunshines, so I thought why not send a demo and following on from that a number of emails where exchanged, a couple of phone calls made and then a job was offered in the United Arab Emirates at a station called Coast 103.2 so on Friday 7th January I left Manchester on the Airbus A380 and 7 hours later I arrived in the UAE.
More photos here
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