BBC News Presenter Count 1967-2020

I will be using this thread to update how many of each presenter have presented each news programme over the years. I will be uploading figures for Breakfast, News at Six, News at Ten and the late weekend bulletins. I will be using information mainly from Genome which means I won't be able to upload figures for the News at One as there is no information! I appreciate some of it may be inaccurate as the info from Genome is from the original Radio Times listings and doesn't take into account holidays, sickness and anyone presenting on location etc. Hopefully some of you may find it interesting, in which case enjoy reading through the facts and figures. If you think it's a load of crap, then well, you know where the back button is!

I will be starting with Breakfast and starting in 2000 when the programme first launched...

Breakfast 2000:
(1) Sophie Raworth - 48 programmes
(2) Jeremy Bowen - 46 programmes
(3) Darren Jordon - 16 programmes
(4) Sarah Montague - 13 programmes
(5) Philip Hayton - 2 programmes
(-) Nici Marx - 2 programmes
(-) Bill Turnbull - 2 programmes

Wouldn't it be better to use http://localendar.com/public/tvnewsfix for later years?

Yes when I get to about 2009 I will be.

Breakfast 2001:

(1) Sophie Raworth - 171 programmes
(2) Jeremy Bowen - 157 programmes
(3) Darren Jordon - 58 programmes
(4) Sian Williams - 55 programmes
(5) Bill Turnbull - 28 programmes
(6) Michael Peschardt - 15 programmes
(7) Julie Etchingham - 9 programmes
(8 ) Tanya Beckett - 7 programmes
(9) Asad Ahmad - 5 programmes
(10) Sian Lloyd - 3 programmes
(11) Martine Dennis - 2 programmes
(-) Chris Eakin - 2 programmes
(-) Geeta Guru-Murthy - 2 programmes
(-) Sarah Montague - 2 programmes
(-) Liz Pike - 2 programmes
(-) Kate Sanderson - 2 programmes
(-) Noel Thompson - 2 programmes
(12) Peter Dobbie - 1 programme
(-) Carrie Gracie - 1 programme
(-) Anna Jones - 1 programme
(-) Nici Marx - 1 programme
(-) Louise Minchin - 1 programme
(-) Susanna Reid - 1 programme
(-) Paul Welsh - 1 programme

Bill Turnbull & Sian Williams' first appearance on the sofa together was Friday 27th April 2001
Susanna Reid's first appearance on the programme was Friday 28th December 2001, during the festive period when the show came from the News 24 set
The first Sunday edition of the programme was 7th October 2001. On Saturdays it was Weekend 24 over on BBC Two

Breakfast 2002:

(1) Sophie Raworth - 148 programmes
(2) Bill Turnbull - 119 programmes
(3) Sian Williams - 112 programmes
(4) Jeremy Bowen - 89 programmes
(5) Dermot Murnaghan - 54 programmes
(6) Natasha Kaplinsky - 22 programmes
(7) Kate Sanderson - 17 programmes
(8 ) Michael Peschardt - 15 programmes
(9) Darren Jordon - 10 programmes
(10) Ben Geoghegan - 8 programmes
(11) Jules Botfield - 5 programmes
(-) Chris Eakin - 5 programmes
(12) Louise Minchin - 4 programmes
(13) Adrian Chiles - 2 programmes
(-) Jon Sopel - 2 programmes
(-) Tim Willcox - 2 programmes
(14) Asad Ahmad - 1 programme
(-) Rob Bonnet - 1 programme
(-) Jane Hill - 1 programme

Breakfast 2003:

(1) Natasha Kaplinsky - 184 programmes
(2) Dermot Murnaghan - 172 programmes
(3) Bill Turnbull - 93 programmes
(4) Sian Williams - 85 programmes
(5) Jules Botfield - 38 programmes
(6) Jon Sopel - 14 programmes
(7) Tim Willcox - 11 programmes
(8 ) Michael Peschardt - 10 programmes
(9) Michael Buerk - 6 programmes
(10) Rob Bonnet - 4 programmes
(11) Louise Minchin - 2 programmes
(-) Susanna Reid - 2 programmes
(12) Tanya Beckett - 1 programme
(-) Stephen Cole - 1 programme
(-) Ben Geoghegan - 1 programme
(-) Joanna Gosling - 1 programme
(-) Daisy Sampson - 1 programme
(-) Noel Thompson - 1 programme

Daisy Sampson (later McAndrew) - there's a blast from the past. Around that time she was a regular with Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics, then on to ITV News. Haven't seen her anywhere for many years.

My memory is a bit hazy on this but wasn't the appearance by Philip Hayton in 2000 because he presented from Washington for the US Election? Was his appearance in November 2000? I vaguely recall he was in Washington for his appearance on Breakfast, rather than in the studio.

A lot of the then lesser-known names on those lists, such as Chris Eakin, Ben Geoghegan, Martine Dennis, Carrie Gracie et al, would have been on the weekend or holiday programmes from News 24, I'm sure.

I do remember Noel Thomspon and Nici Marx popping up around Christmas, so that must have been Christmas 2001. And it looks like Michael Peschardt was contracted to do a certain number of weeks (by the looks of it three, dropping to two) a year when he was over from Australia. That arrangement started in the previous Breakfast News era from what I can remember.

If you get chance to do this counting for the 1993-1999 virtual era that would be interesting to see. There's less been documented about who presented what during the 1990s as it was before the internet really became popular.

You're right about Philip Hayton in 2000. He presented 2 editions alongside both Jeremy Bowen and Bill Turnbull in Washington for the 2000 US Elections.

Adrian Chiles is one I'm a bit confused about. It says he presented 2 editions alongside Sophie in 2002 but I've never seen it mentioned anywhere before?

Breakfast 2004:

(1) Natasha Kaplinsky - 178 programmes
(2) Dermot Murnaghan - 152 programmes
(3) Bill Turnbull - 122 programmes
(4) Mishal Husain - 61 programmes
(5) Simon McCoy - 48 programmes
(6) Susanna Reid - 34 programmes
(7) Sian Williams - 19 programmes
(8 ) Jane Hill - 17 programmes
(9) Jules Botfield - 11 programmes
(10) Emily Maitlis - 7 programmes
(-) Kate Sanderson - 7 programmes
(-) Jon Sopel - 7 programmes
(11) Chris Eakin - 4 programmes
(-) Louise Minchin - 4 programmes
(12) Stephen Cole - 3 programmes
(13) Rob Bonnet - 2 programmes
(-) Gillian Joseph - 2 programmes
(-) Liz Pike - 2 programmes
(14) Maxine Mawhinney - 1 programme
(-) Ben McCarthy - 1 programme
(-) Tim Willcox - 1 programme

12th June 2004 saw the first Saturday edition of Breakfast. Initially running on BBC One from 0600-0930, it eventually moved to BBC Two the following September running from 0600-0900, with Weekend 24 0900-1000
Sian Williams dropped quite considerably this year due to covering Sophie's maternity on the Six. This saw the rise in prominence of Mishal Husain and Susanna Reid on the programme, also the introduction of Simon McCoy to the BBC from Sky

It possibly happened. Adrian Chiles was, I seem to recall, the presenter of Working Lunch at the time.

Daisy McAndrew is (or at least was prior to the corona virus) a semi-regular reviewer on the papers so still appears on the BBC occasionally.