[4][9] He continued in this role until 1980, when he became a regular presenter of music programmes for Radio 1, taking over the Monday-Thursday evening show from Mike Read in December 1980.
According to Skinner, during his time working on Newsbeat he broke the news of the death of John Lennon to Paul McCartney's household by phone in the early hours of 9 December 1980.
[9] In late 1981, Skinner became presenter of Radio 1's Rock On magazine show on Saturday afternoons and Roundtable on Friday evenings, on which he and guests would review the week's new releases.
Instead of publicising a new Boomtown Rats release as planned, Bob Geldof announced the creation of the Band Aid project on Skinner's Radio 1 show in 1984.
In October 1988, when Radio 1 – which had acquired its own FM transmitters – extended its hours, Skinner rejoined the station to host a midnight show to play a mix of album-orientated music.
In April 1990, he left the midnight show to be replaced by Bob Harris, but continued with the Saturday Sequence, where he remained until 1991, when Johnnie Walker took over.
On 30 April 1993, he hosted Virgin Radio's first programme playing two exclusive premiere cover tracks: "Born To Be Wild" by INXS and "Purple Haze" by The Cure.
After freelancing on the Classic Gold network, in April 2006 Skinner joined BBC Radio Berkshire to host the Saturday and Sunday mid-morning programmes.
[17] Skinner joined Xfm, now known as Radio X, in January 2009 to present the station's networked mid-morning show in London and Manchester.