30 Facts About Ron Onions

Ronald Edward Derek Onions OBE was an English broadcast journalist who in the 1970s pioneered a new style of radio news on the emerging local independent stations in Britain.

Ron Onions was later Head of News at Capital Radio in London where he introduced his pioneering news presentation with immediate success.

Ron Onions was then appointed Editor-in-Chief of the London Broadcasting Company and Independent Radio News, where the style was developed and sustained.

On leaving school Ron 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.

Ron 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 Ron Onions left print journalism to join the newsroom of Southern Television, an independent broadcaster based in the port city of Southampton in southern England.

Ron Onions remained with the BBC in Southampton for four years.

In 1965 Ron Onions returned to London to join the production staff of the BBC's early evening flagship current affairs programme, Tonight, where he served for a short time before moving to BBC Television News as a sub-editor.

Ron Onions was fast-tracked into reporting and presenting news on the BBC's new second channel, BBC2, as well as directing film reports on political affairs and elections.

Largely for family reasons, Ron Onions turned down that opportunity and a subsequent offer to become the BBC's news organiser in Tokyo.

Ron Onions later recalled: "In a foolish display of petulance, I said I didn't see myself as deputy to anyone".

One of the applicants for the entertainment franchise invited Ron Onions to become its Head of News if it won the franchise.

Ron Onions was disillusioned by the BBC and its news department and wanted to develop and work on a different style of news broadcasting after being impressed by radio news in New York.

Bukht told Ron Onions he was looking for a Head of News and invited him to meet the company's chairman, Richard Attenborough, and the managing director, John Whitney.

When in New York, Ron Onions had been a keen admirer of the non-stop all-news radio stations, CBS and WINS.

In 1974 Ron Onions was appointed Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the London Broadcasting Company and Editor of Independent Radio News.

Ron Onions was still faced with pitifully low advertising income, increasing financial problems and continual industrial unrest, prompted by pay demands at a time of fast-rising inflation.

Gradually, Ron Onions was able to send a few reporters overseas on important stories, and the station's parliamentary unit began to break a number of leading political exclusives.

All the while the news style which Ron Onions had successfully established in the first six months of Capital Radio provided the key.

In 1977, the Editor-in-Chief left and Ron Onions took over his job, but was not given his title.

Ron Onions brought in a new managing director, and Onions, in a perceptible demotion, was given a new title, beneath the MD, of editorial director.

In 1983 Ron Onions was invited to join Visnews, a leading distributor of news film to television stations all over the world.

Ron Onions's task was to launch a non-stop news channel aimed at the growing cable television market.

Ron Onions was invited to join the board of the company, Jazz FM, and was appointed Station Director.

Ron Onions 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.

Ron Onions was among them, being fired as Programme Director before the station's first year was up.

Ron Onions did not stay long at London News Radio once transmission had started.

Ron Onions married his "childhood sweetheart" Doris Moody in Edmonton in 1951.

Ron Onions was a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music with a teaching diploma in speech and drama.

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