Alex Belfield

Alex Belfield
Alex Belfield Las Vegas 2013
Born	(1980-01-14) 14 January 1980 Nottingham, England
Station(s)	Celebrity Radio
Style	Journalist, Broadcaster, Comedian and Entertainer
Country	United Kingdom
Previous show(s)	BBC
Website	http://www.celebrityradio.biz

Alex Belfield (born 14 January 1980) is a British radio presenter, singer, comedian and entertainer. He lives in Gedling, Nottinghamshire, where he was born and went to school.

Radio career

In September 1997, Belfield was part of the launch team of Radio 106 where he began his professional career. In 1999, he was offered a six-month contract working Nairobi, Kenya presenting 'Belfield at Breakfast' at 98.4 Capital FM.^[1] He then returned to the UK to rejoin Century 106 for a third year working on the breakfast show.

In September 2001 he formally began his career as a talk/personality radio host when he joined BBC Radio Leicester and served as a presenter and producer for 18 months. Belfield then moved to Mansfield 103.2 FM in January 2004 to present Belfield's Lunchtime Mega Phone-in.^[2] At Mansfield 103.2, he established a reputation for developing a series of high-profile publicity stunts, the first one of which involved Belfield pretending to be fired live on air by Mansfield 103.2 managing director Tony Delahunty, and then reappearing the following day.^[3]

In February 2001, he launched his own production company, Alex Belfield Productions, providing bespoke celebrity programmes which have been broadcast on over 80 radio stations in the UK.^[4] His subjects have included Ozzy Osbourne, Cilla Black, Donny Osmond, Frankie Valli, Dame Edna Everage, Katherine Jenkins and Lord Sugar.^[5]

In 2002, Belfield presented a special programme, Live From New York,^[6] to mark the first anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks, which was broadcast on 18 BBC radio stations in the UK. Guests included Ricki Lake and the Duchess of York.

Between 2004 and 2010, he appeared on a number of radio stations, including Mercia FM, Touch FM,^[7] BBC Bristol, BBC Radio Shropshire and BBC Hereford and Worcester.^[8] Belfield also recorded programmes for 3 years for both Coastline FM in Spain and CityTalk 105.9 in Liverpool.^[9]

In 2006, he presented the breakfast show on Capital Gold in Birmingham for six weeks, before moving to London to take over the station's networked national late show called "The Late Night Revolution".^[10]

In 2009, Belfield set up a website featuring his archive of celebrity interviews.^[11] Recent official YouTube stats show Celebrity Radio attracted 8.6 million minutes viewed year on year.^[12] The website is updated weekly with new theatre, restaurant, hotel and travel reviews plus celebrity guests.

In May 2010, he joined BBC Radio Leeds to present the mid-morning show. Belfield attracted 50,000 listeners at 9am, the station peak.^[13] In February 2011, Belfield was on holiday in Egypt during the uprising against Hosni Mubarak and reported on events for a number of BBC television and radio services including BBC 5Live, BBC Breakfast on BBC 1, BBC News and BBC World.^[14]

Belfield left BBC Radio Leeds in March 2011, saying "I'm not a journalist, never have been and frankly don't want to be". He has since described his time at BBC Leeds as "the worst year of my life". Belfield was featured Live on BBC Look North for Children In Need.^[15] 'Belfield's Live Challenges' raised £120,000 for the charity.^[16] Since he resigned in April 2010 BBC Radio Leeds have lost over 700,000 listening hours.^[17]

In December 2011, Belfield made his debut on BBC Radio 2 with Sir Jimmy Savile's "last in-depth interview", recorded at Savile's home in Leeds.^[18] The interview was broadcast on Christmas Day 2011.^[19]

This final interview with Savile was originally published in The Sun on 31 October 2011, the day after his death, as a celebration of his life.^[20] The interview was later republished in the Daily Star on 12 October 2012 following the ITV Exposure programme exposing Savile as a prolific paedophile.^[21]

Belfield also recorded the last UK interview with Andy Williams, published in the Daily Mirror following the singer's death.^[22]

Entertainment career

Since 1994, Belfield has worked as a touring stand-up comedian, singer, entertainer and pianist. He has also taught many choirs including the 'St Anthony's Choir' for seven years from 1995 in Nottingham.^[23]

Belfield began working for ITV in April 2013 as a Warm-Up Comedian. He regularly worked for Loose Women. Belfield has interviewed the cast many times including his friend of 20 years, Jane McDonald, who was a panelist on the show until 2014. Belfield returned for the new series of Loose Women in September 2013 at ITV Studios on London's Southbank.^[24]

Alex performs over 180 Live shows per year. He performed 54 shows in December 2013 for his Christmas tour.^[25]

Belfield celebrated 20 years in Live Entertainment in 2014.^[26]

In May 2015 Belfield returned to Las Vegas for 3 weeks to record over 100 interviews & reviews with many of the top Sin City Stars including Donny Osmond. Last years 'Las Vegas Top 10 List' attracted over 430,000 hits on YouTube.^[27][28]

Alex continues to tour his Live show and has booked a 48 date tour in December 2016.

Belfield returned to America May 2, 2016 for 6 weeks. He's back in Miami from Jan 9th 2016 - Feb 5th 2017.

National Newspapers

In 2015 he had exclusive celebrity stories printed in all national newspapers including The Sun, Sun on Sunday, Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Sunday People and Daily Star.^[29][30]

Alex recorded the last in-depth interview with Cynthia Lennon which appeared in the Daily Mirror and as a two-page spread in The Sun newspapers following her death on 3 April 2015.^[31][32]

In June 2015 Alex flew to New York after breaking a world exclusive of a near fatal accident at a Criss Angel Magic Show. He broke the story in the Daily Mirror which later ran on the most watched morning show in the USA, NBC Today Show nationally as well as CBS, FOX & CNN. The clip has had 716,000+ hits to date on YouTube. This is the biggest, most high-profile & successful PR campaign in Alex's 20-year career.^{[33][34][35][36]}

In August 2015 Belfield made national headlines with his controversial Exclusive Noel Edmonds interview in the Daily Mirror ^[37] This interview was later printed in the Daily Mail, Huffington Post, The Guardian, Radio Times & debated on BBC 5 Live & more.^{[38][39][40][41][42]}

In December 2015 Belfield had two 'spreads' (2 pages) on consecutive weeks in Sunday Express with Lorna Luft and Dame Shirley Bassey. These were both in-depth exclusive interviews for Celebrity Radio.^{[43][44][45][46]}

Alex continues to write for the national press in 2016.^{[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58]}

References

External links

• Alex Belfield's website
• Alex Belfield's celebrity interviews website