Tony Currie

Tony Currie died at his home on the Isle of Lismore on the afternoon of 26 September 2026, aged 75, shortly after being diagnosed with tonsil cancer. He was surrounded by his family. Quality Radio announced his death the following day and noted that in his final days he had been deeply touched by messages from friends. His Wikipedia biography and Scottish broadcasting colleagues recorded the same date and place. Early news listings that used 28 September reflected the day the death was widely reported rather than the day he died.

Tony Currie was born in 1951 in Ardrossan on the North Ayrshire coast of Scotland. Even as a teenager he was drawn to radio. From 1963 he ran Radio Six, which later became Radio Six International, an independent station that would accompany him for the rest of his life. The early venture foreshadowed a career spent both on the microphone and in programme leadership.

Currie worked at KPFK Radio in Los Angeles in 1972 before joining Radio Clyde in Glasgow in 1973 as the station's first voice on air. In April 1976 he joined Scottish Television as a continuity announcer after freelancing on trail voiceovers. He became chief announcer, reading lunchtime and late evening Scottish News bulletins and inserts within Scotland Today, and was a familiar in vision presence until he left STV in January 1987.

He then served as Controller of Programmes for the Cable Authority and later as cable programming controller for the Independent Television Commission. In 1993 he led an unsuccessful Radio Six bid for a Central Scotland regional FM news and speech licence. After executive work including AsiaVision, Tara Television in Ireland and Cambridge Cafe Radio, he returned to announcing as an announcer director for BBC One Scotland and BBC Two Scotland. He also produced and presented BBC Radio Scotland's Nightshift overnight strand and was the first to broadcast from Pacific Quay in Glasgow. He retired from BBC television announcing around January 2020 after a serious health scare the previous year, remaining director of programmes at Radio Six International.

Currie chaired the Royal Television Society of Scotland and the Radio Academy in Scotland. He wrote for Radio Times, TV Times, The Guardian, The Herald, Scotland on Sunday, the Glasgow Evening Times and Broadcast magazine, and published A Concise History of British Television, The Radio Times Story and Not Quite Altogether Now!, about the launch of Radio Clyde. In 2024 he acquired the Pye Records trademark and relaunched the label from the Isle of Lismore, with vinyl pressed at Sea Bass Vinyl in Tranent. The relaunched label's first release was Race the Sun by the Tony Currie Orchestra.

In the 1970s Currie married Karin Spalter, a fellow broadcaster and production manager. They had three children. Karin died in January 2023 after living with Parkinson's disease; Currie had spoken publicly about caring for her around the time of his own retirement from BBC announcing. In later years he made his home on the Isle of Lismore in the Inner Hebrides, from where he ran Pye Records and continued Radio Six International. Tributes after his death named Julia, Leo and Andrew among those closest to him.

Currie is remembered as one of the defining continuity voices of Scottish television, bridging the in vision STV era and BBC Scotland's later presentation style. Radio Six International, which he founded as a teenager and still directed at his death, linked unsigned and specialist music to listeners and affiliate stations around the world. His books and journalism preserved the craft history of British television and radio. The revived Pye Records label, based on Lismore and releasing new orchestral and vinyl work, extended his lifelong passion for popular music into a final chapter that colleagues and listeners continue to celebrate.