Brian Hayes, an influential LBC and BBC radio presenter, has died at the age of 87. The BBC reports: The Australian helped to transform radio phone-ins – from the 1970s onwards – with his conversational and at-times confrontational interview style, during a career that spanned five decades.

He once said that callers should be treated as “real people with something to say” and that the phone-in should be treated “like a conversation that matters”.

Born in Perth, Australia, in 1937, Hayes worked in both newspapers and broadcasting before moving to the UK in the early 1970s.

He helped to launch Capital Radio in 1973, working as a producer before moving on air.

But it was as the morning interview and phone-in show host on LBC from 1976 that he properly began to make a name for himself.

Known for not suffering fools gladly while on air and giving many callers short shrift, he was once satirised in Private Eye.

He pioneered a style whereby callers had to be on their mettle – as he was known to treat them in the same way he’d treat a politician.

Speaking about his time on the station to the Guardian in 2003, he reflected: “In my years at the station I interviewed many heroes and villains, including political, trade union and business movers and shakers, the greatest writers, musicians, performers and, of course, the informed, loveable and infuriating Londoners who flooded the phone lines ready to tell the rest of us how the world should be organised.

“And they were even prepared for me to argue them into a corner. Sometimes there was a lot of heat in my kitchen and I loved it.”

In the 1990s, Hayes moved to BBC Radio 2 where he would present the breakfast programme, Good Morning UK! – where he was ultimately replaced by the returning Terry Wogan – and the Sony award-winning weekly phone-in, Hayes over Britain.

He went on to present Friday nights on BBC Radio 5 Live in the 2000s, as well as programmes such as Not Today, Thank You on Radio 4.

Hayes also later returned to the LBC airwaves on Sunday nights.

Story courtesy of bbc.com