HE’S the undisputed king of radio with 60 years on the airwaves under his belt.
And BBC legend Tony Blackburn, 81, has no plans to slow down just yet as he prepares to embark on another mammoth UK theatre tour in 2025.
While the veteran broadcaster still feels at the peak of his powers – his weekly Sounds of the 60s Radio 2 programme is the station’s most listened to show on BBC Sounds – Tony insists he’ll call it a day the moment standards start to drop.
The DJ, who is currently under contract until 2026, has already spoken to wife of 32 years Debbie and Radio 2 boss Helen Thomas about his future.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, he says: “I said, ‘if I’m not doing the show as well as you think I could, but I will know that, then I will give it up’.
“One or two people I’ve known who go on there, and they’re not as good as they used to be, and they don’t do the show particularly well, but they’re just hanging on in there because they like doing the show. I’m not going to do that.
“So as long as I can turn up in the studio, and I more or less know where I am, and I know how to operate the machinery, and still enjoy it, I will do it. But I’m not going to hang on, and be 99, and still going in there with a carer.”
Tony, who was the first DJ to broadcast on Radio 1 back in 1967, realised a long-held dream in 2010 when he got his own Radio 2 show succeeding Dale Winton on Pick of the Pops.
He’s full of praise for the station and its stars, and insists there aren’t any egos battling out to be top dog.
He says: “I do want to do it as long as I can, because I really, really enjoy Radio 2. I like the people there, and I like the DJs I work with there, because they’ve all proved themselves, so there’s not the competition that you get elsewhere when you’re younger.”
Next year Tony will hit the road for 28 more dates of his Sounds of the 60s live show.
He’ll be joined by seven musicians and a couple of singers, and will tell stories of his time broadcasting on pirate ships in the 60s, his BBC career and play hundreds of classics tracks.
The extensive tour comes after Tony’s doctor advised him to scale back his work commitments last year after a bout of sepsis, but, with a glint in his eye, the broadcaster said he couldn’t resist the lure of playing to his fans.
A heckler at a recent gig joked Tony might not make his next birthday, but he took the morbid gag in his stride.
He says: “The shows we put on sale for next year, already we’ve sold out 15,000 tickets. So I don’t know if people are coming along to see if I’m still alive. Well, the demand is there.
“It’s a fun show. I love doing it and we all get on very well. We’re aiming for an older audience, which aren’t really well catered for these days.”
The live shows give Tony the opportunity to work up a sweat and keep active, which he much prefers to going to the gym.
His dad was a doctor and warned him of the long-term impacts of running on the knees and hips; as a result he’s always favoured walking.
“I think it’s really important to keep going, you know, exercising a little bit,” he says.
“I go down here in North Devon, where I am now, I go down and walk around a little bit and be active and say ‘hello’ to people and things like that. But I don’t actually go to the gym or anything like that.
“It’s so boring. I mean, when I was at Capital Radio, I went into the gym. We had a free membership, and there was always a woman by the side of me on this treadmill, and she looked dreadful, absolutely dreadful, drained, sweating.
“And I thought, ‘God, if that’s what it does for you, no thanks’.”
Tony is rightly considered radio royalty and earlier this year he had the pleasure of mingling with a real royal when he received his OBE from Princess Anne at Windsor Castle.
During their encounter, he left the Princess stumped not once but twice.
Firstly, she got a shock when he revealed his real name and next when he told her he’d DJ’d in the castle many years before.
As long as I can turn up in the studio, and I more or less know where I am, and I know how to operate the machinery, and still enjoy it, I will do it.
Tony Blackburn
He says: “When I went in front of her, she said, ‘well, it’s you’. I had Antony Blackburn, and I said, ‘my name is Tony Blackburn, but I use Antony’.
“I just said to her, ‘thank you very much’. I said, I’ve been here before. I did a disco here for… I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! The main producer on there, she was getting married there, and I think her father or grandfather was a bishop there.
“They asked me to do a disco, so I did do a disco in Windsor Castle. But I don’t think she had an answer coming back from that. But she was very nice, and it was a nice day.”
As the ITV jungle show’s first winner, Tony will forever be an important part of its history.
Though he immediately quashes any chance of a return for the All Stars version, Tony relished his time in the bush.
“I mean, it’s all genuine,” he says. “You know, some people think you get pizza deliveries in the evening, but you don’t. You don’t get any of that.
“I loved it. No mobile phones, nothing there. And the sound of the rainforest, or jungle, whatever you want to call it, is absolutely gorgeous.
“And the people I was in there with, they were, individually, they were okay. But they just didn’t get on. And I became like a figure that was trying to stop the arguing.
“I loved it, but I wouldn’t want to do it again.”
As a national treasure, perhaps it’s better for everyone if he’s kept in the safety of the radio studio.
Tony Blackburn’s Sounds of the 60s Live Tour 2025 will begin in March and run throughout the year, tickets available at ticketmaster.co.uk
