Eddie Mair

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Eddie Mair
Eddie mair crop.jpg
Mair in 2009
Born (1965-11-12) 12 November 1965 (age 58)
Dundee, Scotland
Occupation Journalist, presenter, political commentator
Notable credit(s) PM
The World
Eddie Mair Live
Andrew Marr Show
Newsnight

Eddie Mair (born 12 November 1965 in Dundee) is a Scottish broadcaster who presents on national BBC radio and television. He hosts BBC Radio 4's daily news magazine PM, the Radio 4 Saturday iPM, and NewsPod. He occasionally presents Newsnight and Any Questions. Mair became a stand-in presenter for the Andrew Marr Show following Marr's stroke. He was also the original host of the BBC Two programme Time Commanders.

Early life

Mair was born in Dundee.[1] His father was a lorry driver and his mother was a nurse. His amateur broadcasting career is reported to have started by using the public address system in the school playground.[2][3] Mair's professional career began after he rejected a university place in order to present on Radio Tay, a local Dundee station.[3]

Career

Mair joined the BBC in 1987 as a sub-editor for Radio Scotland.[1] He moved on to present Good Morning Scotland and Reporting Scotland, then Eddie Mair Live in the drive-time slot for Radio Scotland. In 1993 he hosted Breakaway, the weekly 'travel and leisure' programme on BBC Radio 4. He then joined Radio Five Live when it began in 1994 presenting the Midday with Mair news show.[4] From 1996 to 2000 he presented the BBC/PRI programme The World.[5]

Mair was the host of the weekly current affairs programme Broadcasting House from its launch in April 1998, until 2003, when he took over PM and the programme was handed to Fi Glover. On both programmes, Mair developed his trademark style of mixing serious journalism with witty and satirical commentary. After reading out the weather forecast, he would invariably encourage listeners with a jaunty "Do wrap up", whether the forecast was cold or warm.[6] Since Nick Clarke died in 2006, Mair has substituted for Jonathan Dimbleby as the presenter of Any Questions. Standing in for Andrew Marr on his Sunday morning show on 24 March 2013, Mair interviewed London Mayor Boris Johnson asking critical questions about past known misdeeds such as lying to a minister and commenting: "...you're a nasty piece of work". Patrick Wintour in The Guardian commented that Johnson's "reputation" took "a severe pounding",[7] while Dan Hodges in his Telegraph blog thought Mair's approach was a "disgrace".[8] Johnson himself said that Mair had done a "splendid job".[9]

Mair has also presented Newsnight on BBC Two[10] and The 7 O'Clock News on BBC Three.[1]

On PM, Mair has a long-running on-air feud - real or simulated - with Robert Peston, the BBC's Economics Editor. It is a matter of some speculation whether Mair and Peston genuinely feel some mutual antipathy or whether their supposed hostility is merely a running joke. For Comic Relief in 2012, Peston co-hosted the PM programme with Mair,[citation needed] and in 2015 they co-hosted the show "The Robert Peston Interview Show (With Eddie Mair)"[11]

From 27 to 30 October 2014, Mair guest presented four editions of The One Show with Alex Jones on BBC One.[12]

Awards

In 2005, Mair won the News Journalist award at the Sony Radio Academy Awards.[13] He has also won a Sony Award for Speech Broadcaster of the Year,[1] Best Breakfast Show[4] and was nominated for two Sony awards for Midday with Mair on 5 Live.[1] Mair was listed as the fifth most powerful person in British radio in a 2005 poll in the Radio Times,[14] and 28th most influential LGBT person in The Independent on Sunday's Pink List 2013.[15]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ [1] Archived 22 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ↑ Nick Clarke "Up the injunction" (Nick Clarke's diary), The Guardian, 12 November 2003, p. 20
  7. ↑ Patrick Wintour "Boris Johnson caught in bicycle crash of an interview with Eddie Mair", The Guardian, 24 March 2013
  8. ↑ Dan Hodges "Boris Johnson's Eddie Mair interview: if Boris's private life is fair game, then so is everybody else's", telegraph.co.uk, 24 March 2013
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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