Tony Livesey

Anthony "Tony" Livesey
Born	11 January 1964 (1964-01-11) . Burnley, Lancashire, England
Occupation	Journalist & Presenter

Anthony Livesey (born 11 January 1964, Burnley) is a British journalist and broadcaster who currently presents a late night show on BBC Five Live. The show runs from 22.30 to 1:00 from Monday to Thursday.

Early life

He attended St Georges Junior School Vaughan Street, Nelson, Lancashire. His mother died aged 42, when he was 13 years old.

Career

Newspapers

He began his career with the Nelson Leader and then worked in the Middle East with Sam Sloan at the Gulf News in Dubai. Returning to his native Lancashire, he worked at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph before spending 18 years with Sport Newspapers where he was editor-in-chief and managing director of the Daily Sport and Sunday Sport newspapers.

Radio and television

After resigning in August 2006 from the Sport newspapers, he joined the BBC, presenting the breakfast show on BBC Radio Lancashire, where his daily podcast was the BBC's most popular for regional radio, until he joined 5 Live in January 2010. On this station Livesey presents the late night discussion show from MediaCityUK, Salford Quays. At the time of this move, it was announced he would continue to host a weekend show on BBC Lancashire, though this has yet to transpire.

In 2004 Livesey appeared as the moderator in the BBC2 game show Traitor, although his name did not appear in the opening credits. He is also the sports reporter for regional TV news progamme BBC North West Tonight, and additionally covered for regular news anchor Gordon Burns in his absence, up to Burns' retirement, as well as presenting the North West edition of the BBC's regional football show Late Kick Off. A staunch supporter of Burnley F.C., Livesey is a regular pundit on BBC1's Inside Sport alongside Gabby Logan as well as appearances on Have I Got News For You, What The Papers Say and Never Mind The Buzzcocks, all on the BBC, and Gladiators on ITV. He also occasionally presented the Breakfast programme on 5 Live.

Livesey presented the one-off documentary Crumpet: A Very British Sex Symbol, which was transmitted on BBC2 on 28 December 2005 and a year later he presented another programme related to this called Beefcake: A Very British Sex Symbol, which too was transmitted on BBC2 on 27 December 2006.

On 11 January 2010, Livesey started to present a new late night show on BBC Radio Five Live. The show is a mixture of news, sport, discussion and entertainment. He took over from Richard Bacon, who moved to the afternoon show following Simon Mayo's departure to BBC Radio 2. Livesey's show was the first of the station's London-based programmes to move north prior to the whole station moving to BBC North's new broadcasting facility at MediaCityUK, Salford Quays in 2011.. Livesey's late night show on 26 September 2011 was the very first to be presented from MediaCity. He is occasionally stand-in presenter on Shelagh Fogarty's programme on 5 Live.

In October 2011, Livesey began presenting BBC News Breakfast television.

In 2011 he competed twice against representatives of other BBC radio stations. Firstly, he performed a stand up comedy routine against representatives from Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 Music for Comic Relief. Secondly, he and Pat Nevin took on BBC 6 Music in a Fighting Talk special.

Livesey is also credited with creating the chant, "SOL..SOL BAMBA", in aid of Leicester City defender, Sol Bamba.

External links

• Press Gazette: Sport editor Livesey resigns
• BBC profile
• Breakfast show gallery
• Tony Livesey at the Internet Movie Database
• His contributions on BBC TV
• Editor gets complaints
• Tony Livesey on Twitter
• Tony Livesey Experience Podcast