Vernon Corea

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Vernon Corea bigraphy, stories - The legendary broadcaster - a pioneer with Radio Ceylon/Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and the BBC.

Vernon Corea : biography

11 September 1927 – 23 September 2002

Vernon Corea (11 September 1927 – 23 September 2002) was a pioneer radio broadcaster with 45 years of public service broadcasting both in Sri Lanka and the UK. He joined Radio Ceylon, South Asia’s oldest radio station, in 1956 and later the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. During his time he presented some of the most popular radio shows in South Asia, including The Maliban Show, Dial-a-Disc, Holiday Choice, Two For the Money, Take It Or Leave It, Saturday Stars, To Each His Own,Kiddies Corner, and Old Folks at Home. He was well known not only in Sri Lanka, but right across the Indian Sub-Continent from the late 1950s to the 1970s – this was in the heyday of Radio Ceylon, the oldest radio station in South Asia.

Television

Vernon Corea created television history on the island of Sri Lanka when he was invited to present the first ever experimental television broadcast on 15 June 1972 by the Radio Society of Ceylon. He appeared on television screens in Colombo, in black and white, on a short TV programme, this was history in the making. Seven years later the first regular television transmission was conducted in Sri Lanka and the first TV presenter on that regular transmission was Vernon Corea’s cousin, Vijaya Corea – he introduced his cousin to radio by asking him to present ‘Kiddies Corner’ a popular children’s programme on Radio Ceylon in the 1960s. Vijaya Corea was one of many young broadcasters mentored by Vernon Corea – he went on to become the Director-General of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. Another protégé was Nihal Bhareti who went on to greater height heights in broadcasting and was the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation’s Director of English Services. Leon Belleth was another mentee, after a successful career with Radio Ceylon/SLBC he retired in Australia.

There are now several television stations operating on the island, a far cry from the early experiments of the Radio Society of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1972.

Film

Career

Following brief careers in teaching at Uva College in Badulla (where he met his wife Monica) and as a salesman at Car Mart in Colombo, Vernon Corea joined Radio Ceylon as a Relief Announcer in 1956, he was appointed by the Director of the Commercial Service, the Australian, Clifford Dodd and his assistant Livy Wijemanne. He became well known as The Golden Voice of Radio Ceylon, representing shows of popular music, baila music, and western music. He was later Business Manager, News Director at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation.Corea represented the Director-General of the station at a Commonwealth Broadcasting Conference, when he was in the United Kingdom, on a six-month fellowship with the Nuffield Trust in 1970.

From 1956 to 1960, Vernon Corea and other announcers of Radio Ceylon introduced the music of Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Louis Armstrong, Jim Reeves, Hank Snow, and Cliff Richard over the airwaves of Radio Ceylon/Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation. They became hugely popular in South Asia.

Pioneering broadcaster, Vernon Corea(left) at [[Radio Ceylon, Colombo in 1958.]]

Vernon Corea, the BBC’s Ethnic Minorities Adviser and broadcaster, at his home in [[Wimbledon Village, London in 1985.]]

Throughout his life and his broadcasting career Corea promoted the very best of Sri Lankan talent in the world of popular music. He was the first to consistently promote Sri Lanka’s musicians through his highly influential entertainment column – EMCEE published in the Ceylon Daily News in the 1960s-1970s. Vernon introduced hundreds of musicians to listeners at Radio Ceylon/Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and in the studios of BBC Radio London when he presented the popular London Sounds Eastern radio programme. He ‘discovered’ many young Sri Lankan stars through his radio programmes on Radio Ceylon and promoted their musical talents in the EMCEE column in the Daily News in Colombo. Some went onto the international stage.