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Norman B.
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Norman B.
Norman Batley is a radio personality who has hosted and programmed award-winning shows for stations in the United Kingdom, Seattle, Washington, and Tampa, Florida. He is also a business entrepreneur who has created, managed, and owned successful restaurant concepts in the Tampa Bay area. He produces, writes, edits, and hosts Life Elsewhere, a weekly show about art, media, and culture. The show is broadcast on WMNF. The show is heard on podcast platforms including Spotify, Mixcloud, NPR One, Apple Podcasts.
Norman B.'s career has spanned the worlds of broadcasting, advertising, and hospitality. After studying graphic design and graduating from Richmond College, London, his first position was as a graphic designer for BBC News. He later began working as an art director for EMI Records, working on album covers, publicity, and branding campaigns. He began his own boutique agency, specializing in branding and promotion for the music and fashion industries. A client based in Seattle, Washington, led to an extensive stay in America. An opportunity to be a guest on a local radio show, talking about the new music coming out of the UK. His radio appearance attracted enough interest from listeners and management alike to prompt Norman to explore a regular radio time slot.
Life Elsewhere became a permanent feature on station KCMU (KCMU became KEXP-FM 90.3FM in April 2001), after being a syndicated program being broadcast to multiple college stations.
Life Elsewhere morphed into a weekly show for independent London, UK, station Phoenix Radio. Norman B. launched the reggae show Positive Vibrations for KCMU. The show could be heard on Saturday mornings.
Norman B.’s first foray into commercial radio was in 1984 for an album-oriented rock station KXRX, where he produced and hosted Seattle Blues, a Sunday night show that drew a large following. Bart Becker of The Seattle Weekly wrote that Norman B. was "stirring up the Sunday night radio waves" and "breaking the sound barrier." Following the ratings performance of Seattle Blues, Norman B. was invited to host a midday talk show on KGW in Portland, Oregon, with KXRX management facilitating his travel between the two cities. Prompted by the success of Seattle Blues, KXRX released a new weekly new music show hosted by Norman B. called, The Xtra Hour.
In August 1991, at the peak of Seattle's globally renowned "grunge" music wave, Norman B. was poached by the newly launched alternative radio station 107.7 KNDD The End. Within six weeks of The End's first broadcast, three albums by local artists — "Ten" by Pearl Jam, "Nevermind" by Nirvana, and "Badmotorfinger" by Soundgarden — were released, reaching the top of the Billboard charts, which benefitted KNDD. Within a year KNDD was "defying history," as reported in the Seattle Times. "This spring's Arbitron ratings show KNDD in the top three stations among listeners aged 18–34," writes Times reporter Ken Hunt.
The Seattle Weekly wrote that "In the past six months 'The End' has become one of the hottest stations in the city... leonine Brit and gentleman rocker Norman B makes an amiable afternoon companion."
"I loved all of the DJs," recalls blogger Michael Sutton on the occasion of The End's 20th anniversary. "British iconoclast Norman B., The eclectic mix of music -- was radio at its finest."
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Norman B.
Norman Batley is a radio personality who has hosted and programmed award-winning shows for stations in the United Kingdom, Seattle, Washington, and Tampa, Florida. He is also a business entrepreneur who has created, managed, and owned successful restaurant concepts in the Tampa Bay area. He produces, writes, edits, and hosts Life Elsewhere, a weekly show about art, media, and culture. The show is broadcast on WMNF. The show is heard on podcast platforms including Spotify, Mixcloud, NPR One, Apple Podcasts.
Norman B.'s career has spanned the worlds of broadcasting, advertising, and hospitality. After studying graphic design and graduating from Richmond College, London, his first position was as a graphic designer for BBC News. He later began working as an art director for EMI Records, working on album covers, publicity, and branding campaigns. He began his own boutique agency, specializing in branding and promotion for the music and fashion industries. A client based in Seattle, Washington, led to an extensive stay in America. An opportunity to be a guest on a local radio show, talking about the new music coming out of the UK. His radio appearance attracted enough interest from listeners and management alike to prompt Norman to explore a regular radio time slot.
Life Elsewhere became a permanent feature on station KCMU (KCMU became KEXP-FM 90.3FM in April 2001), after being a syndicated program being broadcast to multiple college stations.
Life Elsewhere morphed into a weekly show for independent London, UK, station Phoenix Radio. Norman B. launched the reggae show Positive Vibrations for KCMU. The show could be heard on Saturday mornings.
Norman B.’s first foray into commercial radio was in 1984 for an album-oriented rock station KXRX, where he produced and hosted Seattle Blues, a Sunday night show that drew a large following. Bart Becker of The Seattle Weekly wrote that Norman B. was "stirring up the Sunday night radio waves" and "breaking the sound barrier." Following the ratings performance of Seattle Blues, Norman B. was invited to host a midday talk show on KGW in Portland, Oregon, with KXRX management facilitating his travel between the two cities. Prompted by the success of Seattle Blues, KXRX released a new weekly new music show hosted by Norman B. called, The Xtra Hour.
In August 1991, at the peak of Seattle's globally renowned "grunge" music wave, Norman B. was poached by the newly launched alternative radio station 107.7 KNDD The End. Within six weeks of The End's first broadcast, three albums by local artists — "Ten" by Pearl Jam, "Nevermind" by Nirvana, and "Badmotorfinger" by Soundgarden — were released, reaching the top of the Billboard charts, which benefitted KNDD. Within a year KNDD was "defying history," as reported in the Seattle Times. "This spring's Arbitron ratings show KNDD in the top three stations among listeners aged 18–34," writes Times reporter Ken Hunt.
The Seattle Weekly wrote that "In the past six months 'The End' has become one of the hottest stations in the city... leonine Brit and gentleman rocker Norman B makes an amiable afternoon companion."
"I loved all of the DJs," recalls blogger Michael Sutton on the occasion of The End's 20th anniversary. "British iconoclast Norman B., The eclectic mix of music -- was radio at its finest."
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