Speakers
Seven and a half years on Blue Peter established popular conference host, Matt Baker, as one of the best loved and most versatile presenters in the show’s history, winning him 2 BAFTA awards for Best Children’s presenter and a Royal Television Society award. Matt is a key face across the BBC. He co-hosted the hugely popular BBC One Show from 2011 – 2020
He is the co-presenter of BBC1’s top rating Sunday night Countryfile series. He also presented Secret Britain for BBC1 and was a finalist in Strictly Come Dancing 2010. Matt also took part in the Strictly Live Tour where he won a record-breaking number of shows.
Matt was born in Durham where he grew up in the Dales on his family’s sheep farm. His love of the countryside and animals made him the natural choice for fronting such shows as Animal Rescue Squad for Five, One Man and His Dog, Summer Countryfile Diaries, Crufts, Animal Rescue and a BBC natural history series.
Matt left Blue Peter in 2006 and began fronting BBC Daytime shows, including the BBC1 City Hospital series. His other BBC credits include hosting the Evacuation series, and 2 series of The Stables Live 8. He presented Jonny Wilkinson’s Hotshots rugby plus Jonny’s rugby training DVD. He has also starred in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the London Palladium and Sunderland Empire and as Prince Charming in Cinderella at the Sheffield Lyceum.
As a boy, Matt was a British gymnastic and sports acrobatics champion, later joining the BBC Grandstand team as a world gymnastics presenter and commentator. He is also a hang-gliding world record holder. Matt is a regular commentator at the Glasgow Grand Prix Gymnastics and European Gymnastics Championships for BBC2 as well as the London Marathon for BBC1. He was a key commentator for BBC’s coverage of the gymnastics events at the 2008 Olympic Games from Beijing and the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships 2009 from London’s O2 Arena. Matt’s exceptional physical prowess has allowed him to complete an impressive number of television challenges: he trained as a stunt man in Florida; spent a gruelling week with the Royal Marine Commandos, successfully passing their recruits’ course, and later completed the Para’s P Company selection tests. He also made the final of BBC Sport Relief’s charity show jumping series Only Fools on Horses.
Matt has hosted many large scale live concerts including a series of children’s concerts with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Road Shows, 4 Family Proms in Hyde Park and many live Proms from the Albert Hall; he co-presented three series of Making Tracks for BBC Radio 3 and was a long-running presenter of Open Country for Radio 4. Matt was also the co-host of the Olympic Handover Concert, officially marking the start of London’s tenure as Summer host city. The event took place in front of a 40,000-strong crowd at The Mall and was broadcast live on BBC1 and BBC Radio 2. He was also involved in the Olympic Victory Parade through central London, which went out live on BBC1
Matt was one of the celebrities who took part in Around The World In 80 Days, a re-enactment of Jules Verne’s literary odyssey for BBC Children in Need.
Matt is in high demand for corporate work as a conference presenter, awards host and for voice-overs.
