Anne Diamond

For the Candian writer, see Ann Diamond.

Anne Margaret Diamond (born 8 September 1954) is an English radio and television presenter and journalist. She hosted Good Morning Britain for TV-am and the similarly titled Good Morning... with Anne and Nick for BBC1, both with Nick Owen as her co-presenter. Currently Anne presents a phone-in show on BBC Radio Berkshire on weekday mornings from 10am to 1pm and makes regular appearances airing her views as a panelist on The Wright Stuff on Channel 5 and BBC London, and is a regular columnist for the Daily Mail.. She is most well known for her succssful campaigning for research into cot death. following the death of her third son Sebastian. A campaign which she co-founded in 1991 was reported to have cut the incidents of cot death in the UK from 2,000 a year to close on 300.

Biography

Diamond's parents were of Irish ancestry, although her father was raised in Scotland. She was born and grew up in Malvern, Worcestershire, and she attended Worcester Grammar School for Girls. She is the cousin of Scots singer-songwriter Jim Diamond.

Early career

Diamond worked at a Butlins holiday camp as a redcoat and chalet-maid. She then began her career as a journalist on the Bridgwater Mercury and Bournemouth Evening Echo.

Television

She began her television career with BBC West in Bristol, followed by Associated TeleVision with their ATV Today programme in 1979 and Central News, where she first linked up with co-presenter Nick Owen. She re-joined the BBC in 1983 as a presenter on the nightly programme "Nationwide". Later that year, when the franchised breakfast television company TV-am's chief executive Peter Jay quit, new producer Greg Dyke sacked presenters Anna Ford and Angela Rippon, and replaced them with the practised team of Anne Diamond and Nick Owen. TV-am also became known for the puppet Roland Rat which had been fronting children's programmes at the station from its inception. Greg Dyke left the station a year later and, in June 1984, former BBC Breakfast Time Editor, Mike Hollingsworth was appointed TV-am Director of Programmes. The station's figures slowly picked up, with notable successes including an interview with Princess Michael of Kent over her father's connection with the German Nazi party. Audience measurement figures (BARB) for August 1984 show the station's audience finally overtaking the BBC rival .

After the birth of her first two sons, Diamond was eased back from daily broadcasting onto the weekly programme "Diamond on Sunday". One noted edition in 1989 came from the Berlin Wall as it fell, after Diamond fought with station bosses to cover the world-impact story. Those in charge of production at TV-am did not appear to believe the issue significant and Diamond booked her own air tickets to Berlin and commandeered a satellite dish to broadcast live with the British MP Gerald Kaufmann as the East German government collapsed . Despite plaudits, the incident brought her into conflict with the TV-am management. This coincided with the broadcaster David Frost, returning from an unsuccessful foray into American television with the CBS programme Inside Edition and claiming his right, as a founder director of TV-am, to be re-instated to the Sunday slot. Diamond left the station after a legal dispute over the issue. Shortly afterwards TV-am lost its licence to broadcast (History of ITV).

In 1987, she appeared as the TV-am presenter on an episode of Filthy Rich & Catflap. After TV-am Anne Diamond presented the ITV show TV Weekly produced in Southampton. Shown in the afternoon in most ITV regions the programme looked behind the scenes of various TV programmes and interviewed various personalities from in front and behind the camera. Following the loss of the TV-am breakfast franchise in 1992, Diamond was rejoined by Nick Owen to present the BBC daytime show Good Morning with Anne and Nick. The programme ran for 4 years against ITV's This Morning.

In 2006, Diamond appeared in Celebrity Fit Club. She was initially made team captain but was later demoted for walking off on her team. It was then revealed that she received Adjustable gastric banding surgery before appearing on the show, which provoked much press outrage. It subsequently emerged that the operation had not been successful, although Diamond had quit the show in week seven - she later had a successful second operation.

In 2008, Diamond hosted a series of special 25th year reunion TV-am daily shows on the BBC London 94.9 breakfast show between 27–30 May 2008 along with Nick Owen. Diamond now often sits in for Vanessa Feltz's morning call-in show on BBC London 94.9 on Bank Holidays and during Feltz's personal holidays.

During 2008 Diamond became involved in co-developing a jewellery range, which she marketed on shopping channel QVC under her own name brand. In 2009, she appeared on the opening episode of the second series of Hole in the Wall on BBC One with David Vitty.

Radio

In the late 1990s she presented the breakfast show on the London radio station LBC, variously with Sir Nicholas Lloyd and Tommy Boyd. After a few months presenting her own lunchtime show in 1999, she left the station.

In 2001 she spent a week on The Wright Stuff, and was welcomed back in 2003 after Celebrity Big Brother and has been there to the present day. In 2002 she also returned to television, appearing in Celebrity Big Brother. In October 2004 she joined BBC Radio Oxford, presenting the weekday breakfast programme. In 2006 she left BBC Radio Oxford, presenting her last breakfast programme on 17 March 2006, her replacement being Sybil Ruscoe. Much had been made on the breakfast programme of "Diamond's Dieting Buddies", a scheme whereby Diamond and listeners to the station in 2006 who wanted to lose weight would give one another moral support.

Campaigning

Cot death

Diamond became involved in raising awareness of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome—known as "cot death" in the UK—after her son, Sebastian, died from the syndrome in 1991. She fronted "Back to Sleep", a campaign telling parents to ensure that babies slept on their backs. Since then, there has been a significant fall in incidents of cot death in the United Kingdom, from more than 2000 per year to around 300, which has been attributed to the campaign. Diamond was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the only time it has ever been awarded to a non-medic.

Diamond spoke out over the cot death and baby-swap storyline in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders, featuring characters Kat Moon and Ronnie Branning. "I think it's crass what they've done," she told ITV's Daybreak breakfast programme, branding the plot "tacky sensationalism". The episode gathered numerous complaints following its New Year's Eve airing.

FSID named Anne Diamond as their Anniversary Patron for their 40th anniversary in 2011.

Video game violence

On the 28 March 2008 in an article for the UK's "Daily Mail" tabloid newspaper, Anne Diamond contributed to an article concerning violence in video games where she is quoted as saying that the 9.1/10 GameSpot.com rated, 15 certificate Wii game "Resident Evil 4" "shouldn't be allowed to be sold, even to adults"

Leveson Inquiry

Diamond has been featured in numerous stories in the British tabloid press since the mid 1980s. On the 28th November 2011 she gave evidence at the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press. She gave detailed accounts of intrusion by journalists into her life and her dealings with tabloid newspapers.

Personal life

She married Mike Hollingsworth in 1989, and the couple had five children: Sebastian, Oliver, James, Jake and Conor. But after he had an affair with radio presenter Harriet Scott, they separated.

External links

• Fathappens.co.uk Anne Diamond's project
• Anne Diamond at the Internet Movie Database