He was born in Oldham, Lancashire, and worked as a jockey and toolmaker as well as performing in local band The Jasons. In 1962 he started working as a club DJ, and moved to Bristol to work for the Top Rank chain. He also presented an early ITV pop music programme, Discs-a-Gogo.
In 1965 he joined the pirate radio station Radio Caroline North, based on a ship in the Irish Sea, developing his personality as "your royal ruler". After the banning of pirate radio through the 1967 Marine Offences Act, he joined Radio Luxembourg, which to British pop music fans provided the only alternative to BBC Radio 1. He continued to present regular programmes at Luxembourg, after becoming programme director there in 1977. That year, he was the first European DJ to play Elvis Presley songs non-stop, upon hearing about the singer's death in the late hours of August 16. He remained programme director until 1984.
Around 1981, he began playing DJ mixes of dance records and started the 'Disco Mix Club Show'. On returning to Britain, he launched DMC as a record subscription club in 1983. He also launched the spin-off magazine Mixmag, which was later sold to publishers EMAP. Prince continues to run the company, now known as DMC International.
Recent projects include Wedding TV (which Tony Prince co-founded). The channel (available on Sky Digital) won the Best Specialist Channel award at the annual Broadcast Digital Channel Awards in 2008.
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Last updated on Sunday June 15, 2008 at 15:28:21 PDT (GMT -0700)
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