As Controller BFBS Radio, Nicky Ness has responsibility for three networks of output on local, national and international platforms aimed at entertaining and informing British Forces and their families wherever they may be based.
Appointed in September 2009 after an 18-year career with parent company The Service Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC), Nicky began her broadcast career in 1991 as a Radio reporter for BFBS in Germany before moving into speech programme presentation. After a move to Gibraltar she added music sequence presentation to her skills where junior weekend and late shifts soon turned into a weekday breakfast show residency.
Nicky’s business acumen was tested in the late 90’s when, following budget cuts by the MoD, she negotiated a solution to keep the otherwise doomed BFBS Gibraltar on the air with a full complement of news, speech and sequence programmes. The station was subsequently re-instated with Nicky at the helm as Station Manager. She became the voice of Gibraltar mornings for six years until she moved on within the BFBS Group in 2003. Belize and then Cyprus followed before Nicky returned to the UK and appointed as Director of Entertainment at SSVC, joining the Senior Management Team and heading up morale boosting live entertainment events for troops deployed on operations around the world in locations such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
After a 5-year break from radio Nicky is now firmly back in the medium she loves, concentrating on raising the profile of Forces broadcasting in the UK whilst continuing to sustain the needs of the overseas stations and their communities.
She has a special interest in ‘less format, more personality’ led programming which BFBS has the luxury of being able to explore and also in evolving the best use of new media platforms to further support the unique audience and circumstances that BFBS Radio serves.