The radio and TV presenter, Moira Stuart, is to be honoured later this week at the 46th annual Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, chosen by journalists who write about television and radio and sponsored by Virgin Media.
On Friday March 13th, she will receive the Harvey Lee Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting at the awards lunch at Banking House in the City of London.
Moira Stuart’s career in radio and television spans five decades. In February 2019, she joined Classic FM to be the station’s morning news presenter from 6am-10am. Moira presents the weekly Hall of Fame programme for Classic FM.
For nine years Moira presented the news on Chris Evans’ BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show. She also presented her own show on BBC Radio 2, Music ‘til Midnight, on Sunday nights.
She started her BBC career as a production assistant in Radio’s Talks and Documentaries Department in the 1970s, before moving on to become a BBC Radio 4 announcer and newsreader and programme presenter. Moira moved to television news in 1981 to become the first female African-Caribbean national newsreader, presenting every type of BBC News bulletin before leaving in 2007.
Moira has presented many programmes on radio and television including The Big Spell for Sky 1, The Holiday Programme and Have I Got News For You on BBC One. She appeared on BBC One’s successful documentary series Who Do You Think You Are? and made a memorable appearance as herself in Extras. In March 2007 she presented the documentary In Search of Wilberforce for BBC Television, examining the role of anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the British bill that banned the slave trade. Moira has also appeared on BBC One’s Would I Lie To You? and ITV’s Harry Hill’s Alien Fun Capsule. Most recently Moira presented the BBC World Service documentary, The Unknown Soldier.
The BPG’s chairman Jake Kanter, said: “Moira Stuart is being recognised with the Broadcasting Press Guild’s Harvey Lee Award for more than five decades of outstanding broadcasting. A true household name, with an utterly unmistakable voice, she is the authoritative presence we all need in the age of fake news and disinformation.”
The BPG Awards are highly prized by programme-makers because they are selected independently by journalists who write about TV and radio – correspondents, critics and previewers. The awards lunch, at Banking Hall in the City of London on Friday, will be attended by the winners, BPG members and leading broadcasting executives. www.broadcastingpressguild.org
For more information about the Broadcasting Press Guild, including a full list of winners over the past 45 years, and see pictures and videos from previous BPG awards ceremonies at:
http://www.broadcastingpressguild.org/2014/03/25/history-of-the-broadcasting-press-guild
Notes to editors:
1. The other award winners will be announced at the 46th BPG Awards lunch at Banking Hall in the City of London on Friday March 13th 2020. Winners have been informed in advance and places at the lunch are by invitation only. A full news release about the winners, embargoed till 12 noon on Friday, will be available.
2. The Broadcasting Press Guild was founded in 1974 and has more than 150 members. They are journalists who specialise in covering television, radio and the media, and include critics, previewers, media correspondents and feature writers from national newspapers, broadcasters and leading trade journals and websites.
3. Harvey Lee (1950-1991) was the media correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and a leading light in the BPG throughout the 1980s. Previous winners of the BPG’s Harvey Lee Award, for an outstanding contribution to broadcasting, include Sir Lenny Henry, John Humphrys, Nicholas Parsons, Sir Terry Wogan, Cilla Black, Melvyn Bragg, Andrew Davies, Sir David Frost, Michael Grade, Norma Percy, Biddy Baxter & Edward Barnes, Phil Redmond, Beryl Vertue, Tony Warren, Anne Wood, John Lloyd and Charles Wheeler. See more details at http://www.broadcastingpressguild.org/bpgawards/harvey-lee/.
4. The 2020 BPG Awards are sponsored by Virgin Media, which offers four multi award-winning services across the UK and Ireland: broadband, TV, mobile phone and landline. Its interactive TV service brings live programmes, thousands of hours of on-demand programming and the best apps and games in a set-top box, as well as on-the-go for tablets and smartphones. It launched the world’s first virtual mobile network and is also one of the largest fixed-line home phone providers in the UK and Ireland. Virgin Media is part of Liberty Global, the world’s largest international cable company, connecting over 11 million customers through operations in 6 countries across Europe. www.virginmedia.com/tv
Further information from Torin Douglas, BPG: torindouglas@aol.com or 07860 422992
