Mike Chaney

Michael Kingsley Chaney (3 March 1931 – 15 March 2024) was an English editor, broadcasting executive and journalist for the BBC. He began his carer in journalism in the early 1950s, starting in small regional newspapers before going on to larger publications, the northern editions of the national papers and finishing with the News Chronicle. Chaney was employed by the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC World Service, the BBC Home Service and its replacement BBC Radio 4. He was the launch editor and creator of BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat in 1973 and was editor of BBC Radio 4's early morning flagship news programme Today from 1976 to 1978. Chaney helped launch the BBC's first countywide local station BBC Radio Norfolk that he headed from 1980 to 1982.

Early life Chaney was born in North London on 3 March 1931. He was the oldest son of the building society manager Stan Chaney and his wife Lily . Chaney had a younger brother. He was educated at Oxted Grammar School, Surrey. He enrolled on a journalism course at Regent Street Polytechnic (today the University of Westminster). and moving to larger ones such as The Times, then to the northern editions of the national papers and ending up with the News Chronicle on Fleet Street. He began a two-year teaching assignment in Africa with the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1957 and this concluded in 1959. Chaney's experience with the broadcaster resulted in his being employed by the BBC World Service. Chaney had instructions to be "faster and slicker than Radio 4" and ensure that the news was more accessible to young Britons. He made an early attempt to ensure the programme was less London-centric,

Chaney was put in charge of launching BBC Radio Norfolk, the corporation's first countywide local station and the one with the smallest staff when it was launched in 1980. Chaney left the BBC in 1982 following his complaining by telephone to the BBC Radio managing director Aubrey Singer about the poor condition of Radio Norfolk's entire razor blades that were used to cut and edit tape. He moved from Norfolk to Dorset. Chaney left the council in 1994 and established a speech writing business. In retirement, he was active in a successful campaign to save Puddletown Library for the village community when the council pulled funding and campaigned for (and helped to run) a NeighbourCar scheme to provide transport to and from the local surgery.

Personal life and death He was married three times. Chaney's first marriage was to Diana Emptage, then to Frances Bernard in 1964 and finally Annie Edwards in 1993. He had seven children. Chaney died on 15 March 2024.