Gordon Burns presented the BBC’s nightly news programme North West Tonight for 15 years. When he stepped down in September 2011 the programme had, during his time anchoring it, picked up eight awards for best news programme in the region. Gordon himself has won the Royal Television Society’s Best News Presenter award five times and received the coveted BBC Ruby Award for the best regional news presenter in the UK. He was also honoured with an O2 Media Award for Outstanding Contribution.
Gordon made his name nationally when he wrote and presented the popular ITV quiz The Krypton Factor which ran for 18 years in a peak time slot and won audiences of up to 18 million people. He was also a consultant on the show helping to devise many of its mind stretching and physical challenges.
Gordon began his career as a reporter in Belfast where he was born. He then went to BBC radio in London working on programmes like SPORTS REPORT AND SPORTS PARADE. He also had a spell on the TODAY programme before returning to Belfast where he was appointed sports editor of Ulster Television.
When the troubles began in Northern Ireland, Gordon fronted the nightly news programme UTV REPORTS covering, over a four year period, events like 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.
Returning to England, Gordon first presented GRANADA 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. Later he continued his fascination with Irish politics by anchoring Channel Four’s “IRISH ANGLE” for several years.
A sports fanatic, Gordon loves nothing more than watching premiership football, sitting through days of Test matches at Old Trafford and following Lancashire County Cricket team. (Champions 2011 !!). He is married with two grown up children, both now working in television. He has lived in Manchester for over 30 years.
Gordon’s proudest boast is that he has interviewed at length 8 British and 4 Irish Prime Ministers.
In 2010 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bolton in recognition of an outstanding contribution to broadcasting.
Gordon is very much in demand in the Corporate Market, hosting conferences and award ceremonies and training events.
