Nicky Campbell

Biography:

In March 2001 Nicky Campbell joined BBC1’s primetime consumer affairs programme Watchdog, taking over the helm from Anne Robinson, and currently presents both the BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast programme and BBC One's Sunday morning faith and ethics show The Big Questions. 

Nicky Campbell joined BBC Radio Five in October 1997, as host of their morning news magazine show - broadcast daily from 9am – 12noon. In May 1998 The Nicky Campbell show won the prestigious Sony Gold Award for Best Daytime News Talk Show (for an interview with Gerry Adams) and the Sony Award for Best Magazine Show. 

During his time at Radio 5 Live Nicky has brought a raft of new listeners to the network with a current weekly reach of 2 million. He has interviewed a vast array of high profile personalities including Tony Blair, Salman Rushdie, Graham Taylor, Rod Steiger, Jerry Springer, Terry Waite, David Bailey, Mo Mowlam, Lulu, Nasser Hussain, Neil Morrissey, David Soul, F W de Klerk, Boy George, Tony Benn, Ravi Shanker and Charlton Heston. 

In addition to his Watchdog and Radio 5 Live commitments, Nicky has presented the first of a number of Newsnight programmes for BBC2. Nicky has previously hosted the European Election Programme with David Dimbleby for BBC2, the 1999 Rugby World Cup coverage for ITV and co-presented the Sydney 2000 Olympics coverage for Radio 5 Live. After 10 years at Radio One, Nicky turned down a two year contract renewal and considerable offers from other networks to make his move to Radio 5 Live. During his time at Radio 1 Nicky built up a reputation for his in-depth and entertaining interviews which resulted in two silver SONY Awards – one for Best Interview and the other for Best Short Form Entertainment. 

Nicky has presented Central Weekend Live for 10 years and has fronted Late Night Live and Thursday Night Live for the ITV network. Nicky’s other TV credits include The Nicky Campbell Show (BBC Scotland), The Big Race (ITV), Talk About (BBC), Europe Street (BBC), Leviathan (BBC), The Travelling Talk Show and Ride On (Channel 4).

Before embarking on a career in broadcasting, Nicky was Rector at St Andrew’s University and during his stint at Capital Radio (before joining the BBC) he wrote for Spitting Image.

Nicky has been a winner of the Sony Award four times: 1998 Sony Bronze Award for Best Magazine Show; 1998 Sony Gold Award for Best DAytime News & Talk Show; 1997 Sony Silver Award for Best Short Form Entertainment; and 1993 Sony Silver Award for Best Interview.

In May 2009 it was revealed that Anne Robinson would replace Campbell and Julia Bradbury for the new series of Watchdog, which returned to the BBC on 10 September. Campbell is currently presenting ‘Long Lost Family’ on ITV1 with Davina McCall and ‘Your Money Their Tricks’ with Rebecca Wilcox and Sian Williams on BBC One.