About

Has a company let you down? Are you being overcharged by your energy supplier? Watchdog wants to know. Every week Anne Robinson, Matt Allwright and Anita Rani investigate your stories, quizzing big businesses and testing claims made about some of their best-selling products. We hold companies to account and try to make sure you get what you bargained for...

Join us on BBC One every Thursday at 8pm for consumer advice you can't afford to miss. Anne will be joined by some famous faces who'll be reporting on topical issues, and Matt Allwright will be investigating some more Rogue Traders getting away with it.

If you've got a story get in touch. We also want to know what you think about our latest reports. We're online 24 hours a day with consumer advice, breaking news and updates on our latest investigations.

"My mission statement is to have all customers treated like royalty. Any chairman of a public company providing less-than-perfect service needs to fasten his or her seat belt and adopt the brace position."

Anne returns to Watchdog after an eight-year break. She left to front the BBC's quiz show The Weakest Link, which took her to the US, but she's ecstatic to be back. "It's the worst negotiation I've ever done," she confesses. "They just asked and I said yes, when can I start?"

Her journalistic credentials are second to none - she was Fleet Street's first female editor and she has written for newspapers including The Sun, The Express, The Times and The Daily Telegraph.

"Whatever people say about me, they've always thought I was a decent journalist and that's what I'm most proud of. That and my modesty," she says, with her tongue firmly in her cheek.

"The team's been doing a brilliant job; we're just going to take it up an octane or two. It's not as if I'm taking over something that isn't fantastically successful, there'll just be a bit more roar of the greasepaint, smell of the crowd!" she laughs. "And I'll be in Yves Saint Laurent, as always!"

Journalist and presenter Matt Allwright has been here before. In 1997, he made the leap from local to national TV, reporting on Watchdog and presenting Weekend Watchdog, alongside Anne Robinson.

He's excited to be back in the studio with Anne. "It's a bit like moving back in with your parents," he says. "You know your bed and board is sorted for a while, but don't kid yourself there aren't rules."

When Anne left for The Weakest Link, Matt went solo, presented Weekend Watchdog for a series and then moved to the hit series, Rogue Traders. Matt first leapt onto the back of Dan Penteado's bike in 2001 and has confronted more than a 100 rogues, sometimes in prosthetic disguise, but mostly as his charming, calm, reasonable self. Last summer, Matt teamed up with Anita Rani for Rogue Restaurants, sending off undercover operatives with secret cameras, to expose poor hygiene at eateries big and small.

He plays in two bands in an attempt to reclaim his youth. Matt is nearly 40.

As well as presenting Watchdog, Anita is a regular reporter and studio guest on BBC One magazine programme The One Show. Anita presented the series Rogue Restaurants with Matt Allwright in summer/autumn 2008 on BBC One. Together the hardy duo toured the UK undercover in the name of exposing shocking cases of restaurant hygiene.

Anita grew up in Bradford, and came to broadcasting early, with her own show on Sunrise Radio at the age of 14. She studied Broadcasting at Leeds University, and went on to work as a TV researcher for the BBC and various independent companies.