Gordon Burns

HE is the face of the BBC North-west news . . . and in June, journalist Gordon Burns will be live on location as he presents The Bolton and Bury Business Awards 2008.

Gordon, who has anchored North-west Tonight for the past 12 years, is himself an award winner, having picked up the BBC's prestigious Ruby award for Best UK Regional Presenter and also the Royal Television Society's North-west award for Best Regional Broadcaster on five occasions.

But for many, he will always be remembered as being the man behind the Krypton Factor the popular TV quiz, which he wrote and presented.

The Krypton Factor ran for 18 years in a peak-time slot and attracted audiences of up to 18 million people.

Gordon began his career as a reporter in Belfast where he was born. He moved to BBC radio in London working on programmes such as Sports Report and Sports Parade.

He had a spell on the Today programme before returning to Belfast as sports editor of Ulster Television.

During the Northern Ireland conflict, he fronted the nightly news programme UTV Reports covering, over a four-year period, events such as bloody Sunday and the fall of the Stormont parliament.

He describes that time as the most testing of his life. He was later given his own late night chat show, The Gordon Burns Hour.

He came back to England were he became a regular face on Granda Reports and then produced and presented Granada's political programmes in the North-west.

For ten years, he provided the live commentaries on the ITV network for the political party conferences in Blackpool and made several World in Action programmes on the Northern Ireland troubles.

He later continued his fascination with Irish politics by anchoring Channel Four's Irish Angle for several years.

A sports lover, Gordon loves nothing more than watching Premiership football and sitting through days of cricket test matches at Old Trafford.

He is married with two grown-up children who both work in television.

He has lived in Manchester for the past 30 years.

His proudest boast is that he has interviewed at length six British and four Irish prime ministers.

10:32am Tuesday 19th February 2008

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