Stephanie Hirst
Stephanie Hirst during an invited visit to 10 Downing St in 2016
Born
Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England
Career
StylePresenter
Previous show(s)Hit40UK
Hirsty's Daily Dose
WebsiteOfficial website

Stephanie Hirst is an English radio and television presenter on Hits Radio. She has hosted Hit40UK and the weekday breakfast show on Capital Yorkshire Hirsty's Daily Dose.[1]

Career

Hirst started her career at 96.3 Radio Aire in Leeds as a helper making tea for DJs, before joining the overnight show at age 16.[citation needed] She moved to Minster FM in York, then to The Pulse of West Yorkshire in Bradford in 1995 to present the evening show. In 1997 she moved to Hallam FM in Sheffield, her local station, where she hosted the drivetime programme for three years. She then returned to The Pulse of West Yorkshire to co-host the breakfast show with Elisa Hilton, but quickly left to take over the breakfast show at Viking FM in Hull after the departure of JK and Joel. Hirst left Viking FM, to present Hirsty's Daily Dose) at Galaxy Yorkshire, a station covering all areas of Yorkshire.

After Neil Fox quit as the host of Hit40UK in 2004, Hirst – one of Fox's stand-ins previously from 2003 – was recruited, initially with Katy Hill, to host the programme each Sunday from the studios of Capital Radio in London and went on to host the programme alone. Hirst presented her last Hit40UK chart on 15 October 2006.

In May 2013, Hirst returned to presenting nationally on Gold on Saturday afternoons where she created a show called 'Vinyl Heaven', with every song played live from the original vinyl copies.

On 20 June 2014, Hirst announced that she had left her presenting roles at Capital and Gold with the final edition airing on 13 June. In January 2015, Hirst started work on ITV's morning show 'Lorraine' as part of a strand called 'Change One Thing'. She made a return to radio on 4 July 2015, with a programme called, 'Nothing but the 90s' which was aired on BBC Radio Manchester.

As of 3 September 2016, her weekly Saturday night show on BBC Radio Manchester changed to a "Vinyl Revival" show. The show was taken off air - initially, according to the BBC, temporarily - to be replaced by a phone-in during the first Covid-19 lockdown in the UK in March 2020. However, the show never returned.

In April 2018, Hirst began hosting her first, solo, daily radio show since leaving Capital in 2014. The Stephanie Hirst Show was broadcast on BBC Radio Leeds. She left the BBC in April 2021.

She made a return to commercial radio for Bauer's Hits Radio Pride, initially a temporary 'pop up' DAB & Online station for the LGBT community, it has subsequently become a full time national radio station. She hosted her first 'Belters' show on 28 August 2020.

She then joined the national Hits Radio network in August 2021 to host 'Stephanie Hirst's Belters'.

She also is a trustee of The Radio Academy and a former chair of the Student Radio Awards sponsored by BBC Radio 1 and Global Radio and can be seen on Channel 5 as a occasional panelist on Jeremy Vine.

Transition and activism

Hirst came out publicly as a woman and talked about her gender transition on 11 October 2014 during an interview with Stephen Nolan on BBC Radio 5 Live.[2][3] In 2014 and 2015, Hirst was included in The Independent On Sunday's "Rainbow List", an annual celebration of 101 LGBT people in the UK.[4]

In June 2016, she was one of the prominent faces of Pride In London's 'No Filter' campaign. The manifesto film, which starred Hirst alongside Sir Ian McKellen and Graham Norton, explored what 'No Filter' means to the LGBT+ community. A second short film was made with Hirst describing her first 'No Filter' moment and shown daily within London's Westfield centre.[citation needed] In July 2016, Hirst was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Leeds Beckett University for her LGBT activism.[3] In February 2017, Hirst was nominated for a British LGBT Award in the 'Top 10 LGBT+ Celebrity' category.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ Halliwell, Rachel (3 July 2015). "Stephanie Hirst: 'Why I'm returning to radio a year after transitioning from a man to a woman'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 8 July 2017.
  2. ^ "Stephanie Hirst 'Coming Out' Interview". BBC 5Live. 11 October 2014.
  3. ^ a b Scotney, Kelly (25 July 2016). "Stephanie Hirst Awarded Honorary Doctorate". Leeds Beckett AC. Retrieved 8 July 2017.
  4. ^ "Rainbow List 2014, 1 to 101". The Independent. 9 November 2014. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022.

External links