Biographies

Presenter, BBC Breakfast

Bill Turnbull has been presenting Breakfast since 2001. He began as a weekend presenter and in 2008 became one of the main weekday presenters for the programme which is broadcast on BBC One and the BBC News channel.

He joined the BBC as a reporter for BBC Radio 4's Today programme in 1986, then moved to Breakfast Time in 1989, where he reported memorable stories from around Britain and Europe, including the Lockerbie disaster and the Romanian Revolution of 1989.

It was, Bill remembers, a steep learning curve – learning the techniques of making television amid rapidly changing events. In 1990 he became a correspondent for BBC News.

As a News Correspondent, Bill later covered everything from presidential elections to street riots in more than 30 countries.  During his four year stint as the BBC's Washington Correspondent between 1994 and 1998 he reported on the Oklahoma bomb, the OJ Simpson trial and the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

 

Other highlights in his career include the Moscow uprising in 1991, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the US Presidential elections.

He was a regular presenter on BBC News 24 and BBC Radio 5 Live, before joining the Breakfast presenting team full-time. He has also occasionally presented news bulletins on BBC One.

Bill Turnbull's career in journalism began at Scottish local station Radio Clyde in 1978. In 1980 he became a reporter for LBC and Capital Radio in London before freelancing for a number of years in the USA.

In 2005, he was a contestant in the third series of the BBC dancing competition Strictly Come Dancing, paired with Karen Hardy.

In his spare time he looks after his chickens and, rather more hazardously, several hives of bees.

He likes to unwind by watching what he calls "the Pride of the Chilterns" – Wycombe Wanderers.