Biographies

Controller, Radio 4 and Radio 7

Mark Damazer was appointed Controller of BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 7 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 TV 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 TV, radio and online and oversaw the production of award-winning documentaries.

Mark joined the BBC 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 TV.

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 TV 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.

Radio 4 was named UK Station of the Year at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2008.

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, a Vice-Chair of the International Press Institute Executive Board, and a Fellow of the Radio Academy.

Mark is married with two children.