Matt Baker

TV presenter fronting sports and animal programmes

Seven and a half years on Blue Peter established 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 was a key contributor to the recent Blue Peter at 50 documentary and was invited to Buckingham Palace as part of the anniversary celebrations.

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 NE natural history series.

Matt left Blue Peter in 2006 and began fronting BBC Daytime shows. He joined the BBC1 City Hospital presenting team and was also part of the One Show 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 provided commentary at the Women's European Gymnastics Championships in France for BBC2 last year as well as the Glasgow Grand Prix Gymnastics and was a key commentator for BBC's coverage of the gymnastics events at the 2008 Olympic Games from Beijing in August.

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 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. 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.

His guest appearances include The Wright Stuff, Saturday Kitchen, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, the Steve Wright Show, Song for Europe, BBC Breakfast and Children In Need.

Matt studied for a BA (Hons) Acting at Queen Margaret's in Edinburgh, but after only eighteen months into the course he was snapped up as the 28th Blue Peter presenter - the rest is history!