He went to high school in Piteşti and graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of English Language. Chiriac made his radio debut in 1963, with the show "Jazz of Yesterday and Today", later "Jazz magazin". Beginning on July 10, 1967, he produced for Radio România the most popular music show of its day, "Metronom". Together with Geo Limbăşanu, he presented listeners with the latest information from the pop, rock and jazz scenes. Shortly after the August 21, 1968, Invasion of Czechoslovakia (in which Romania did not participate) he played a ballad by Mircea Florian which relates how five small wolves and a bigger one attacked a sheepfold, and later put on The Beatles' "Back in the U.S.S.R." According to his nephew, "everything came to an end one evening" when he played the song, "which had escaped the censor, who didn't know English. But the song was heard on the show by the wrong people and was banned in 1969", also leading to "Metronom"'s cancellation that year.