Darren Adam is a British-Icelandic radio broadcaster. He is delighted and hugely honoured to have been granted Icelandic citizenship by Alþingi, the nation’s parliament. With this, he left a dream job to take up another, and a dream life: becoming the host and producer of RÚV English Radio, bringing Iceland and RÚV to the world in English.

His radio career began a long time ago, in 1983, aged nine, making coffee, putting records away, and generally making a nuisance of himself, at Moray Firth Radio in the Highlands of the UK. At the age of 18, when he’d been presenting for four years, he won his first New York Festivals Radio Broadcasting Award. He also co-presented and produced a weekly bilingual chart show which was recorded onto a DAT cassette in Inverness and then broadcast in China to a measured audience of sixteen million people.

 

In 1993, after leaving Moray Firth Radio, he moved to Edinburgh’s Radio Forth, and quickly progressed to presenting the flagship breakfast show on Forth One. During his time as presenter, the programme went on to achieve what are still all-time high listening figures. Darren stayed on this show until 2003, when he took the chance to broaden his broadcasting horizons by moving to sister station FORTH2. This allowed him to pursue his interest in speech radio and current affairs.

 

He was the regular host of Forth’s annual Edinburgh International Festival coverage, live from city venue The Gilded Balloon, and in 2011 interviewed almost fifty guests live during the three-week run. For nearly ten years he presented and produced simulcast coverage of the Princes Street Gardens Fireworks Concert which concludes the festival. He also hosted Ask Jack – a Q&A session with then Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell in which questions were asked by a studio audience. He regularly anchored and reported during Forth’s election coverage broadcasts, and in 2007 was stationed at Ingliston to report through the night on what became the chaos of the Scottish Parliamentary Election count. The programme subsequently picked up a Gold World Medal at the New York Festivals Radio Broadcasting Awards in 2008. Darren is also a regular winner there in the Best Personality categories, scoring victories since 2004.

 

Additionally, he regularly collated, edited and assembled Radio Forth’s entries into various industry award forums, helping secure success for his colleagues at the likes of The Arqiva Commercial Radio Awards, The IRN Awards, and in other categories at The New York Festivals.

 

Darren’s Mid-Morning show on FORTH2 successfully blended music presentation with intelligent and entertaining speech. Until 2012 he broadcast across Scotland each weekday evening. Darren hosted the FORTH2 Talk In - a weekly topical phone in, each Sunday morning - until its final ever broadcast in June 2013; the show repeatedly increased its audience in successive RAJAR surveys. He also returned occasionally to Forth One and broadcast on Northsound One and Clyde 1 too.

 

In 2013, Darren moved back to breakfast music radio, taking over on Dumbarton’s Your Radio, broadcasting across the west of Scotland. He could also be heard appearing on a number of Bauer Radio stations in Scotland, including Tay FM, Westsound, Radio Borders, and across their Bauer’s Greatest Hits Network of stations, on which he has also presented “Scotland’s Talk In”, a live two-hour Scotland-wide phone in show. Darren has also occasionally presented “Morning Call” on BBC Radio Scotland.

For many years he hosted a daily news talk show across the UK from London on LBC, achieving record audiences in the time slot. He also guested regularly from London on US news and talk stations such as KNX 97.1 News Radio in Los Angeles (here, here, here and here), San Diego’s KOGO AM, and KIRO FM in Seattle.

 

He has written for The Scotsman newspaper, contributing travel articles from destinations including Cyprus, Greenland, Copenhagen and Loch Ness. He has also presented TV shows for LTV and hosted podcasts for AudioGO.

 

Darren is an accomplished voice-over artist, appearing as the voice of national and regional TV, radio and cinema campaigns for, amongst others, USC Clothing, Setanta Sports, City Of Edinburgh Council, STV, and The Scottish Government. He has hosted events for organisations including ConocoPhillips and internationally has narrated corporate video campaigns for the likes of Morgan Stanley.

 

In 2006, Darren managed Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter James Lowe, and secured him performances across the city and in Reykjavík, Iceland. From 2007 to late 2009, he also managed Edinburgh/Glasgow band Jakil, and until 2012 one of Edinburgh’s premier rock bands Six Storeys High, securing and organising record releases, gigs (including two UK-wide tours), national radio play and interviews. He also created the Cav Live music night at Edinburgh’s Lava And Ignite, and organised the March 2012 MessFest charity event at the city’s largest rock venue, the HMV Picture House. In 2013 he tour-managed Hold The Suspect on their nine-date, debut UK tour. He is also proficient in the use of video editing software and has made zero-budget viral videos for Six Storeys High, Radio Forth, Jakil, and others. The videos for Radio Forth saw Darren also pick up nominations at the Promotions and Marketing Awards and inaugural European Radio Awards.

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Darren is comfortable using a variety of industry-standard radio playout and editing systems and has a full driving licence.

He lives with his partner of nearly 30 years in Reykjavík, Iceland. And that is something he has wanted to say for a very long time.