Martin Foster was born in Weston Favell, brought up in Hythe, Kent, also lived in Cambridge, Essex, and now living in beautiful  S.Devon.

Martin has been married to Vicky for 43 years, they have two children Andrew, a Commercial Airline Pilot, and Michelle, a successful Graphic Designer, plus two beautiful grand daughters Sophia, and Louisa.   

Martin has spent his working life in broadcasting working in Radio & TV, for the majority of his career his second home was London Weekend Television (LWT) man, and boy. He also worked at ITN in London. He started his career in Vision Broadcast Engineering/Studio Supervisor, and eventually moved into lighting as a Lighting Director.

 Martin has worked on such shows as Blind Date, Beadles About, Surprise, Surprise, Who’s Line is it Anyhow, Have I got News for You, Game On, Father Ted, The Cannon and Ball Show, An Audience With...., Drop the Dead Donkey, Clive Anderson Talks Back,  ITV Sport,  Saint & Greasvie, Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, Hale & Pace, Barrymore Show, Brian Connelly Show,  Aspel & Co, Room 101, Brian Walden on Sundays (Weekend World), Crime Monthly, Gloria Hunniford Show, Game For A Laugh, Metal Micky, The Two of Us, Me, and My Girl, Play Your Cards Right, Tarrent on TV, The  Dame Edna Experience, Frost on Saturdays, The Gentle Touch, The Charmer, World of Sport, The Big Match, The South Bank Show, ITV Telethons, and many, many more. Martin worked with many famous artists during this period of his career.

Martin eventually left LWT in 1996, and joined ITN to become Kirsty Young’s Lighting Director (until 2004), and the Senior LD at ITN/CH5 News. During this period he won an RTS craft award, for the lighting design of the CH5 news studio.  Martin lit many famous guests at ITN, such as Twiggy, Max Bygraves, June Whitfield,   Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart Simpson),  Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt (Status Quo), The Stranglers,  Cast from Sex in The City, Tony Blair, Jane Birkin (of song Je Taime fame), all the ITN presenters, and many more.

Martin left full time employment in 2004, and enjoyed a freelance life, working mainly on BBC programmes, such as,  Strictly Come Dancing, Jonathan Ross on Friday Nights, Top Of The Pops, many BBC sitcoms, and quiz programmes. He also worked on Big Brother at Elstree, and French, and Sanders Shows for the BBC at the Pinewood Studios, and many shows at the old Thames Television studios situated at Teddington Lock, Middlesex.

Martin has also taught  A level students Psychology, he has two degrees in this discipline, and he is a member of the British Psychological Society (charted).

Martin also has a degree in electronics, and is a Fellow of the Institution of Electronics, and Technology (Charted), and he is a registered engineer with the Engineering Council (UK).

He was on the membership committee and Technical Advisory Panel for the Society of Electronics & Radio Technicians, and other national engineering institutions for broadcasting .

He decided enough was enough re freelancing in television, after travelling back and forth to Bristol (working with Noel Edmunds on Deal or No Deal) commuting was eating into his quality time, so Martin looked at how he could put something back into society locally via the medium that he had worked within, and loves so much.

This was the dawning of Riviera FM. In 2008 Martin planned the basis of a community radio station with other like mined people.  This would be a radio station that would reflect the needs of the local people, a station that would dare to be different, that  would provide a unique, diverse, and open access service for the citizens of Torbay.