Ronald Edward Derek Onions

Ronald Edward Derek Onions OBE (27 August 1929—27 May 2012) was an English broadcast journalist who in the 1970s pioneered a new style of radio news on the emerging local independent stations in Britain. Inspired by US radio stations heard while he was working in New York, Onions established significant change in news presentation with regular hourly bulletins which were brisk, vivid and immediate. His populist, almost tabloid, presentation was in contrast to the cautious, traditional and less frequent bulletins of the national broadcaster. The style quickly became established throughout the United Kingdom.

Onions' career in journalism began with local newspapers in London and on the south coast of England. In the 1960's he joined the BBC's television and radio news department, working on the nightly current affairs programme Tonight and then reporting and presenting on the broadcaster's new channel, BBC Two. After taking charge of the BBC's emergency coverage of the Aberfan disaster in Wales in 1966, he was appointed the broadcaster's first news organiser in the Americas at a momentous period of US history. There he produced the BBC's coverage of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy and of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Onions was later Head of News at Capital Radio in London where he introduced his pioneering news presentation with immediate success. He was then appointed Editor-in-Chief of the London Broadcasting Company and Independent Radio News, where the style was developed and sustained. As a result of its success it was copied and established permanently throughout British radio.

Early life Onions was born in Edmonton in North London on 27 August 1929 to Benjamin Onions, a plumber, and Elizabeth Amelia Onions, née Lewin. He was raised in hard financial circumstances in neighbouring Enfield and educated at Edmonton County Grammar School. On leaving school Onions carried out two years' national service in the Royal Air Force as an Aircraftman First Class, serving as a clerk in Equipment Accounts at RAF Abingdon in Oxfordshire.

Early career Onions learnt his trade in journalism on the Enfield Gazette and as a sports reporter and sports editor for the Tottenham Weekly Herald in North London.

In 1960 Onions left print journalism to join the newsroom of Southern Television, an independent broadcaster based in the port city of Southampton in southern England. After less than a year with Southern TV, Onions joined the BBC in their new local television and radio operation in Southampton to write, report and present news programmes. He remained with the BBC in Southampton for four years. In a "remarkable and humane piece of broadcasting"

News organiser, New York Onions' multi-abilities in presenting, reporting, directing, producing and facilitating the work of others, particularly as demonstrated by his work at Aberfan, were highly regarded by BBC News. One of the applicants for the entertainment franchise invited Onions to become its Head of News if it won the franchise. Onions accepted but the applicant failed in its bid. of mostly unknown radio writers, editors, reporters, producers and presenter/newsreaders to run Capital's round-the-clock news service. Some came from BBC radio, some from hospital and industrial radio services, some from Australia, New Zealand and Canada with experience in commercial radio, and one or two from theatre and television. A number of the young team, such as Tricia Ingrams from United Biscuits Network, Robin Houston from a voiceover and technical theatre background and Greg Grainger from Australian radio, were later to become household names. With the addition of its secretarial support, Onions' Capital Radio newsroom was seen as "surprisingly extensive". At Capital Radio he was responsible for introducing to the UK the fast three-minute "synopsis" or "snapshot" bulletin. "Relying on pace, brilliant writing, vivid interview snippets and short, punchy eyewitness reports – immediate, upfront, sometimes brash, and always with an 'angle' – it helped pave the way in this country for the modern concept of 'rolling news'." The Press Gazette maintained that Onions' approach to radio news "swept away the more traditional 'bulletin of record' style. In an Onions bulletin "news was always moving forward, rather than just a summary of recent history." Early in April 1974 he left Capital Radio to join LBC.

LBC and IRN In 1974 Onions was appointed Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the London Broadcasting Company (LBC) and Editor of Independent Radio News (IRN). In starting up it had employed mostly newspaper journalists who had little or no experience in radio broadcasting, and it was said to be "disorganised and amateurish, unstable, financially precarious, beset by union problems". Former Capital Radio newsreaders Tricia Ingrams and Robin Houston and deputy-editor Tony Tucker boosted the presentation team, while Capital reporters like Bill Spencer, Ian Gilchrist, Paul Michaels and Christopher Hourmouzious joined "Onions' squad of dynamic young reporters",

Despite the growing success of the station in terms of output and listener appreciation, it was still severely hampered by low revenue, industrial strife and management turmoil. Onions later recalled that "there was quite a militant union which had got used to running the place itself, and which wanted pay parity with the BBC, for understandable reasons. But the money just was not there. At one point we had just one commercial running on the station ... bringing in an income of about £5000 when we had a wage bill running at 20 times that." In 1980 he was also appointed to the Board of LBC.

In 1982 a profound influence on LBC/IRN's development was seen when Britain went to war with Argentina in the South Atlantic. Onions fought trenchantly, and ultimately successfully, against a reluctant Ministry of Defence for one of his reporters, Kim Sabido, to be allowed to join the accredited press ranks, travel to the Falkland Islands and be embedded with the troops on the front line. He was invited to join the board of the company, Jazz FM, and was appointed Station Director. He had only six months from the winning of the franchise to employ staff and work on programme policy before the station's first day on air in March 1990.

By his own account, he found the task difficult. There were differences of opinion with his fellow board members and strains within management, which persisted even after the station went on air. His choice of DJs was queried by the board. They made some appointments with which Onions disagreed and other presenters to whom Onions had offered jobs were rejected. Onions was among them, being fired as Programme Director before the station's first year was up. In a light-hearted piece Onions had written for The Guardian in the days just before Jazz FM launched, he complained: "Really, I'm just a hack. I should have stayed with News. I shouldn't have left the BBC. Or LBC. Or Visnews. I'm good at news."

Onions did not stay long at London News Radio once transmission had started. He had now reached retirement age. "Thirty-five years in the rough and tumble of broadcasting, BBC and commercial, home and abroad, was more than enough," he later maintained. London News Radio was his last job in broadcasting.

Character The Press Gazette, in writing about Onions, celebrated his "characteristic combination of vision and chutzpah ... Many will remember not only Onions' brisk and exacting standards, but also the happy alliance of these to his handsome charm and an unexpectedly quirky good humour." Onions, it went on, "never forgot the human side of what he was doing, either in the workplace or in terms of the output he editorially oversaw. Instinctively kind and considerate beneath the demands of his professional nature, he won many friends among his employees." .

Personal life Onions married his "childhood sweetheart" Doris Moody in Edmonton in 1951. She was a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music with a teaching diploma in speech and drama. The couple had two daughters, the younger of whom, Louise, was born without a thyroid gland, and her resulting severely-disruptive symptoms posed a huge challenge to her family.

After her death in 2009, which caused Onions "huge grief", the family jointly authored a book, Don't Bring Lulu: Her Family's Tale of Trial and Triumph, about her life and the family's problems and joy in looking after her, combined with a memoir of Ron Onions' professional life. The book was the idea of Onions' elder daughter, Sarah, also a journalist, and "it rescued Ron from the black-dog melancholy that had sometimes been the dark side of his creative spirit." It was published shortly before Onions' death.

As well as his OBE in 1983, Onions was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977.

He died unexpectedly in his sleep on 27 May 2012, at the family home in Surbiton, overlooking the River Thames in London. He was 82.

Legacy On Onions' death the Press Gazette stated that "almost every news programme on British television and radio bears the stamp, in some degree, of the mercurial genius who in the 1970s and 80s created the whole ethos of commercial radio news and current affairs ... The list of people who passed through Ron Onions' tutelage at LBC/IRN now reads like a who's who of some of the most distinctive names in broadcast news."