Sean Rafferty to leave BBC Radio 3 after 28 years of broadcasting

[Tony Sweeney]

Sean Rafferty to leave BBC Radio 3 after 28 years of broadcasting
Mark Rainey

Former BBC NI presenter Sean Rafferty is to step down from his Radio 3
weekday music programme after 28 years.
The Belfast-born broadcaster will host the station’s flagship programme
In Tune for the final time next April, the BBC has announced.
In a statement, he said he would "truly miss" hosting the show, with its
mixture of interviews, live performances and classical repertoire.
He will be replaced by Petroc Trelawny, who is currently the voice of
BBC Radio 3’s breakfast show, alongside current co-presenter Katie Derham.
Announcing his departure decision, Rafferty said: "I shall miss the
truly remarkable and life-enhancing musicians, many coming to the studio
ever since they began their careers: A joy.
"And to be able to share it all with the listeners at home: A privilege.
They’ve been like family."
The respected arts broadcaster previously presented the early evening
television news in Northern Ireland, as well as the Radio Ulster news
and current affairs programme, Evening Extra.
Before joining the BBC, Rafferty studied law at Queen’s University,
Belfast, and went on to work as an accountant.
Sean Rafferty was born in Belfast and brought up in Newcastle, Co Down.
He studied law at Queen's University, Belfast and soon after began his
career in broadcasting.
He grew up in Newcastle, Co Down where his mother introduced him to
music – particularly traditional Irish songs.
Rafferty hadn’t planned on a career in the media, but having heard that
BBC Northern Ireland had a vacancy for a researcher, he left his job and
ended up working on Gloria Hunniford's Sunday afternoon show.
"One day, the producer suddenly said, ‘Oh God, we’re short, you’ll have
to go on'," he told The Spectator in 2009., external "And the next thing
I knew I was in front of the camera in a fur coat, on live television,
doing an item on Christmas presents for men – how ridiculous is that?"
After a spell as one of the main presenters on Scene Around Six and
Inside Ulster, in 1990 he
launched the Radio Ulster interview programme Rafferty, where guests
included the recently-released Beirut hostages John McCarthy and Brian
Keenan.
He left Northern Ireland to work at BBC Radio 3 in 1997.
With an extensive knowledge of classical music, Rafferty quickly became
a mainstay of the In Tune programme, which included a mix of live and
recorded elements.
But it was his self-deprecation and droll one-liners that really
endeared him to listeners, the BBC said.
In a BBC profile recorded in 2010, Rafferty said: "I am a reluctant and
absolutely ludicrously unlikely broadcaster”.
In the same interview, he discussed how music had been a lifeline "when
there were bombs going off around the corner" during the Troubles.
"I suspect it must have been what it was like in the Blitz, where you
didn't know what was going to happen the next day, so there was an edge
to your appreciation."
In a statement, Petroc Trelawny paid tribute to Rafferty's warmth and
humanity on the airwaves.
"Sean has stylishly and wittily helmed In Tune for three decades,
creating a very special space for musicians to perform and share rich
insights into their work and their lives”.
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/people/sean-rafferty-to-leave-bbc-radio-3-after-28-years-of-broadcasting-4681231