Host of WAYBACK SATURAY NIGHT
James Ross presents The Greatest Hits Of Music every week, with a focus on the biggest and best songs from through the years. Great songs that you remember, and some you’ve forgotten!
James has been broadcasting one way or another since he was a scruffy teenager. He’s been a DJ, producer, TV presenter, journalist, reporter, operations manager and distribution manager at numerous radio and TV stations in the UK and around the world. Somehow radio and TV is in his blood, and throughout his career he’s had close links with many aspects of broadcasting.
James started out in BBC Local Radio, working at BBC Radio Solent, BBC London and BBC Radio Bristol, mixed with spells at Radio Top Shop. He was then, for many years, behind the scenes at BBC Radio One, and then as a reporter at BBC Radio Two and LBC News Radio. His reporting specialty was travel shows, and for this he travelled all over the world to record radio programs about destinations such as Barbados, Egypt, Cyprus, Hungary, Sweden, China, Japan, the U.S, and many others. An exotic and fun job which he loved, perhaps not surprisingly!
James has also been lucky enough to work closely, while at the BBC, with numerous celebrities – as diverse as the Pet Shop Boys, the Rolling Stones, Jeremy Clarkson, Simon Bates, Alan Freeman, Terry Wogan – and many others. With a slightly different hat on, James played key roles both in front and behind the camera at financial network Bloomberg Television in Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Back on the entertainment side James has also worked for UK broadcaster ITV working to expand shows such as Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here to a global audience. But it’s music radio that is his first love, and in the radio world he’s also presented shows for top radio stations all over the world, including those in countries as diverse as Spain, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Thailand etc.
Rather than focus on one particular era The Greatest Hits Of Music plays the biggest and best hits from the sixties right up to today’s hits. The show is about the strength of the artistes, and the familiarity of their songs. It’s about the best-produced, and most-uplifting hits from through the years, all mixed together with occasional songs from charts around the world, music and showbiz news, and a bit of light fun and banter.
I’m Matt Craig, a lifetime New Yorker born in Queens and living in Long Island. I’ve spent my whole life listening to some of the greatest radio stations of all time in America’s #1 market. Now here’s my story…
“Why so many airchecks Matt?” Funny you should ask…My radio ah-ha moment came in 1976, when I heard WNYT for the first time. It was the radio station of The New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury and was heard on what Cablevision Channel Q as the background music was then. It seemed like a cool thing to do, so I decided to call the station. I spoke to both the General Manager and Chief Engineer that day and the rest is history.
I worked at WNYT for the next 3 years and got an internship at WGLI-AM in Babylon, NY. I also worked at WNYG-AM doing some fill ins for free. Why free? Because I took a trade out for some restaurant coupons I never used!
In 2004 I got back on the air at WEBE-FM 108 in Bridgeport, CT as the fill-in host for Studio 108 on Saturday nights. I was offered the show on a regular basis, but driving from Long Island to Bridgeport was a minimum 2 hour trip, sometimes more depending on traffic and weather, so I had to turn it down. I loved doing that show! So, in 2020, I started my own internet radio show called “New York’s Best Rock” which is now on 34 stations around the world.
