Ray's past


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Ray Cokes was MTV Europe's best VJ ever. This is a look at his past...

His MTV past

Before MTV: Ray has worked for Belgian national TV & he also did some rock shows on Sky Channel/Music Box.

In 1987 he joined MTV Europe (he was there since the beginning). During those first years Ray hosted a few shows, like MTV at the movies, Ray's Request, the Big Picture and many specials (his Cannes specials are famous). That's how he established himself as MTV's most popular & respected VJ. So MTV gave him his own live show.

MTV's Most Wanted started on 14th of April 1992. Every Tuesday to Friday Ray offered a lot of viewer interaction, live guests, competitions... In the beginning it was a lot of crap. At the end it still was, but by then the popularity of the shown had reached enormous proportions. The end was announced as "quit while you are on top". It ran for four years and the final show came on Dec 15 1995. But Ray would be back soon...

MTV came up with X-Ray Vision (21st of March 1996): a bigger show in a bigger studio with a bigger live audience (2 live guest, same Most Wanted stuff but a bit different) and co-hosted by Naughty Nina (the floor manager on Most Wanted) and Pathetic Pat. But the show was too packed!

MTV wanted him to do a live edition from Hamburg, but a lot of drunk & rude people ruined the show. Ray was blamed and the show was stopped. Cancelled?? At the end of the last show, Ray disappeared with Naughty Nina, while playing 'Everybody Hurts' (REM). MTV wasn't the same anymore without him. Until now he hasn't returned to MTV.

What happened exactly? I wondered for long, but last year "Most Wanted Friends" told me the truth: X-Ray Vision was cancelled because it lacked the finances required and Ray quit after the Hamburg fiasco (he lost his confidence in MTV)

So this got published in the paper:

Ray Cokes leaves MTV.
Ray Cokes quits MTV after 9 years with the music channel MTV. Cokes, who became enormously popular around Europe with the programme MTV's Most Wanted, is going to present a radio programme from Berlin next month. But he hasn't put his television plans away. At the moment he's talking to a 'major' production company.
Cokes said, that he had '9 fantastic years' with MTV, but it was time to do something else. And he also wants to reassure his fans: "I won't turn my back on Europe, I'll be back on TV soon."

"Voll auf Cokes" on KISS FM

Ray tried something new after the MTV fiasco: radio. In October 1996 he appeared on German Radio "KISS FM" with "Voll auf Cokes". He choose for KISS FM, because they offered him absolute freedom. Naughty Nina became his loyal sidekick (in the meanwhile she had been an MTV VJ for a short time). It was an experiment for him to convert his jokes & face expressions into sound only.

Wanted and Phil Collins

During the summer of 1997, Ray did a show on channel 4 (UK) called WANTED, an interactive game show, that you can describe as an exhilarating nation-wide game of hide and seek.

Ray Cokes interviewed Phil Collins for VH1. It was broadcasted in October '97. It didn't mean mean his move to VH1, the channel he joked about during his Most Wanted days?

Virgin Radio

From February through to July '98, Ray hosted 2 radio shows on Virgin Radio (UK):

"The Ray Cokes Show" was a live interactive show with a Most Wanted kind of atmosphere (every Sunday to Thursday between 7:30 and 10 pm UK TIME).

"London Calling" was Ray's other show on Virgin Radio, in which he brought the latest gossip, guests, live music, ... every evening between 6:45 and 7:30.

In July '98 Ray left Virgin Radio, because he wasn't happy there and he didn't like the way that some of his colleagues were threating him. After leaving Virgin Radio, Ray disappeared from the air waves for almost a year taking time off to marry his long time girlfriend Melanie and just to relax.

This page has last been updated: 12-01-06