Ken Bruce

Ken Bruce (born 2 February 1951, Glasgow, United Kingdom) is a British broadcaster. He has 3 sons and 2 daughters.

Early career

Ken began his broadcasting career with the Hospital Broadcasting Service in Glasgow, and went on to become a staff announcer for BBC Radio Scotland. He later took on his own daily afternoon show for the station and was also involved in a wide range of current affairs programmes.

Radio 2

Ken joined BBC Radio 2 in the early 1980s as a deputy presenter, before taking on his own Saturday night show in early 1984.

In January 1985, Ken took over from Terry Wogan, on the weekday Breakfast show which went out from 8-10.30am. In March 1986 he moved to the weekday mid-morning show, which went out from 9.30-11am.

In April 1990, Ken took over the Monday - Thursday late night slot from 10pm-midnight, replacing Brian Matthew. He remained here until January 1991, when he presented the weekday early show from 6-7.30am,

In early 1992, Ken returned to his current mid-morning slot, which now runs from 9.30 to 12.00. He usually takes over from Terry Wogan and hands over to Jeremy Vine at the 12.00 news.

His current show is particularly noted for the daily Popmaster quiz, with questions set by music expert Phil Swern. The top prize is a DAB Radio. There are two ways to win this prize:

• By scoring the maximum of 39 points. In theory, both contestants could do this.
• If the winning contestant scores less than 39, they go on to the "3 in 10" round. The contestant will win the Radio if they can name three hit singles by an artist within ten seconds.

If the winner fails the "3 in 10" bonus round, they are awarded a 'Space' Radio. The losing contestant is given a CD Wallet for taking part.

There have been numerous instances where the 'Space' Radios have appeared on eBay, much to Bruce's dismay.

Bruce maintains a flirtatious relationship with the traffic presenter, typically Lynn Bowles. There are also regular features, such as Record of the Week, Album of the Week and Tracks of My Years. All prove popular with the listeners. There are also regular text/e-mail competitions (currently Spin It to Win It - asking for a positive spin on a recent news story - on Monday, and Words Don't Come Easily (sic) - providing an alternative "next line" to a given song lyric - on Fridays) and a music news slot (with Julie Cullen - Mark Sutherland used to do alternate weeks until he left the BBC to work for Billboard music magazine) on Thursdays. A slushy love song is played at about 10.15 each day, preceded by a number of romantic dedications.

Listeners' comments are read out throughout the programme; many of these are concerned with the appearance of Bruce and the traffic reporter on the Radio 2 webcam.

Although the programme's playlist is almost exclusively rock, pop and soul from the 1970s onwards, its Radio Data System flag identifies it as programme type 12, "M.O.R.".

On the 3rd of August it was announced that Ken Bruce had added 245,000 listeners, bringing his overall ratings to a record high of 6.64 million.

Other appearances

Ken Bruce has presented for the BBC Proms in the Park for numerous years, coming out just before Terry Wogan.

He is also Radio 2's regular commentator for the Eurovision Song Contest and one of the regular presenters of the long-running Friday Night is Music Night.

He has also made several guest appearances in the "Dictionary Corner" on Channel 4's Countdown.