Mark
Damazer was appointed Controller, Radio 4 in October 2004 having been
Deputy Director of BBC News since April 2001.
He was previously Assistant Chief Executive of the News
division (from December 1999) with responsibility for driving the long
term ambition, quality and standards in news programming across all
BBC networks.
Before that he was Head of Political Programmes, responsible
for the BBC's news and current affairs journalism from Westminster,
from March 1998.
This role placed him in charge of a wide variety of
political programming on television and radio, including Question Time,
Westminster, Yesterday In Parliament and The Westminster Hour.
He also led the BBC's team of political correspondents
who report for television, radio and bbc.co.uk and oversaw the production
of award-winning documentaries.
Mark joined the World Service in 1981 as a current affairs producer.
He then spent two years with ITV as a producer with
TV-am, returning to the BBC in 1984, initially to work on the Sixty
Minutes programme and then to help launch the Six O'Clock News later
the same year.
He became output editor on Newsnight in January 1986
and Deputy Editor on the Nine O'Clock News in August 1988 and in 1990
was appointed Editor.
At the beginning of 1994 he became Editor of Television
News Programmes, with responsibility for all news output across television.
He became Head of Weekly Programmes, News and Current
Affairs in May 1996 - the department was re-structured and re-named
Current Affairs in July 1997 - responsible for television programmes
including Panorama and Correspondent and, on radio, File On 4, From
Our Own Correspondent and Law In Action together with a range of special
documentaries and short series.
He took on the extra duties as Assistant Director BBC
News in 1999 before becoming Deputy Director.
Mark was born on 15 April 1955 and educated at Cambridge
where he was attained a Double Starred First in History.
He was awarded the Harkness Fellowship at Harvard University.
He is a Board Member of the Institute of Contemporary
British History and the Carl Rosa Opera.
Mark is married with two children.
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