Richard Bacon

Richard Paul Bacon (born 30 November 1975) is an English television, radio presenter television producer.

He has worked on television shows including Blue Peter, The Big Breakfast, Good Morning Britain, and on radio stations including Capital FM, Xfm London and BBC Radio Five Live.

In February 1996, he joined L!VE TV as a reporter; this saw him being banned from the State Opening of Parliament, and having a beer thrown at him by Damon Albarn as he tried to interview him leaving a nightclub.

Bacon's television break was as a presenter on the children's show Blue Peter, which he joined on 21 February 1997.

He presented alongside Romana D'Annunzio, Katy Hill, Konnie Huq and Stuart Miles.

On 19 October 1998, he was the programme's first-ever presenter to have his contract terminated in mid-season, after the tabloid newspaper News of the World published a report of Bacon taking cocaine.

His tenure on the programme lasted just over 18 months.

The then head of BBC children's programmes Lorraine Heggessey went on air to explain Bacon's dismissal to CBBC viewers.

Bacon was required to return his Blue Peter Badge upon his dismissal.

Bacon's television career survived the setback, and he has since presented such shows as The Big Breakfast, Top of the Pops, and reality TV shows Back To Reality and Castaway Exposed.

In August 2005, the band The Magic Numbers walked out of Top of the Pops, after Bacon made a remark that was widely thought to be about the body shape of members of the band; during rehearsals he referred to the band as a "big, fat melting pot of talent".

Bacon guest-hosted ITV's This Morning during 2005, Channel 5's The Wright Stuff on several occasions during 2007 and 2008, and BBC Two's Something for the Weekend from 2008 to 2009.

He was the narrator for series 1 to 3 of Sky's police documentary Brit Cops.

Since 2006, he has narrated and presented BBC Three's series Most Annoying People.

He has made several TV cameo appearances as himself, including Hotel Babylon in 2007 (in which his character hires escort girls to play Scrabble with him all night), the episode "Video Killed the Radio Star" of the TV series FM, an episode of The Thick of It (both in 2009) and an episode of Psychoville in 2011.

In late 2010, he presented Richard Bacon's Beer & Pizza Club on ITV4.

Just before the 2010 World Cup he hosted a show called World Cup's Most Shocking Moments, with Peter Crouch.

Bacon presented editions of BBC Three's Young Voters' Question Time.

A second series aired in late 2011.

In October 2011, he hosted BBC Three's Up for Hire, an interactive series over the course of five nights tackling one of Britain's biggest issues – youth unemployment.

In April 2012, he presented the Channel 4 television series Hidden Talent, each programme of which featured ordinary members of the public taking tests in certain fields or skills to identify any previously unidentified talent.

On 13 January 2013, Bacon appeared on All Star Family Fortunes with his family playing against Louie Spence.

On 25 November 2013, Bacon hosted one series of ITV's game show Show Me the Telly.

On 8 December 2013, he guest-presented an episode of Sunday Scoop.

On 17 February 2014, he hosted a one-off show, Benefits Britain: The Debate, for Channel 4.

In the same year he presented the live Channel 4 programme How Rich Are You?, about the UK economy.

In 2015, Bacon co-presented the first series of The Big Painting Challenge alongside Una Stubbs for BBC One, and sports show Eternal Glory for ITV.

He also joined Reena Ninan as a substitute co-host of ABC's World News Now overnight and America This Morning news programme.

In 2016, Bacon became the presenter of The National Geographic Channel's reboot of its documentary and panel discussion TV series, Explorer.

Bacon grew up in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and was educated at St Peter's Church of England Primary School on Bellamy Road, followed by two independent schools, also in Nottinghamshire: at Wellow House School, a preparatory school on Newark Road in the village of Wellow, and then at Worksop College, a boarding school on Windmill Lane in Worksop.

He studied Business Studies with Electronics at Nottingham Trent University, but dropped out after a year.

His first job in the media was as a reporter for BBC Radio Nottingham, notably on the programme The Beat.

In November 2016 Bacon became the presenter of the National Geographic Channel's Explorer programme, which comprises several (usually three) short films, introduced by Bacon, involving matters of social, political, environmental or humanitarian significance.

Each film is then discussed before a live studio audience with Bacon moderating, and usually includes the filmmaker or another representative of the film and at least one expert on either side of the issue.

For the debut show, Bacon hiked through Yosemite National Park with President Barack Obama.

In June 2017, he began hosting a daily half-hour newsmagazine show called Top 30.

It originally aired on Fox affiliates for four weeks before being picked up as a regular series, broadcast nationally across America in September 2017.

On 13 September 2017, it was renewed through 2019.

In July 2019, he was a guest presenter filling in for Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain.

In October 2019, the American TV network ABC commissioned his original "whodunnit" game show format The Hustler for an eight-part series, hosted by Craig Ferguson.