Mike Read has won ten National Broadcaster Awards and been awarded the Gold Badge of Merit by the Music Association for his special contribution to Britain’s music industry. A household name in Britain for over 35 years having fronted three top-rated long-running TV series, Top of the Pops, Pop Quiz & Saturday Superstore and three national radio breakfast shows, including Radio One and Classic FM. He features every few weeks on the re-runs of Top of the Pops on BBC Four and has presented two Pop Quiz specials for the BBC in 2016/2017 with a new series in the spring.

2016 saw him still presenting front line programmes for the BBC as well as producing and presenting a new TV series, Tin Pan Alley, which ran for 8 weeks on Sky in 2016. During 2015 and 2016 he has been shooting, producing and presenting a six part series Jamaicaphiles, entirely shot in Jamaica, featuring Noel Coward, Oscar Hammerstein, Ian Fleming, Errol Flynn, John F. Kennedy and Johnny Cash.

A best-selling author, he has had thirty-six books published, including his autobiography, Seize the Day, which was published in October 2014 and Forever England, a biography of Rupert Brooke, published in January 2015. His new book for 2017 is “1,000 Years of a London Street.” Mike has written eight stage musicals and songs for over forty major artists including Cliff Richard, The Bee Gees, Boy George, Gene Pitney, Don McLean, Brian Wilson, Barry & Robin Gibb, Donovan, David Essex, Steve Harley, Peter Andre, Justin Hayward and many others.  Mike has had several chart hits and twice topped the Independent singles chart. He currently has a best-selling CD of his music and Rupert Brooke’s poems featuring the Kings College Choir & the Eton College Chapel Choir.

He is Chairman of the Lords and Commons Entertainment Committee, was created a Knight of Malta in 2011 and is Chairman of the British Plaque Trust. With the Plaque Trust hat on, he is working very closely with the BBC organising and spearheading almost 50 Blue Plaques to music icons for BBC Music Day in June 2017.

He has played himself in such perennial favourites as Only Fools and Horses and Midsomer Murders, having been on stage from the age of eight, playing in such shows as I Capture the Castle, Dear Octopus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Cliff the Musical.

He regularly travels to different parts of the world broadcasting or giving talks, including, Australia, the USA, Malta, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honolulu, Norway, France, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, Turkey, The Canary Islands, Greece, Croatia, Italy and many Caribbean Islands.