Penny Smith

Last updated

Penny Smith
Born
Penelope Jane Smith

(1958-09-21) 21 September 1958 (age 65)
Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England, [1]
Occupation(s) Newsreader, television presenter
Notable credit(s) Sky News
GMTV (1993–2010)
BBC London 94.9 (2013–2015)
SpouseTony Birtley (1984–1987; divorced)
Website penny-smith.co.uk

Penelope Jane Smith (born 21 September 1958) is an English author, [2] television presenter, newsreader and radio presenter. She has presented for Sky News, GMTV, Classic FM, BBC Radio London, TalkRadio and is a regular contributor to TalkTV launched in April 2022. Smith is a current presenter of the weekday mid-morning show on Scala Radio and her favourite classical composer is Giacomo Puccini.

Contents

Early life and education

Smith was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, and grew up in Rutland. [3] She attended Uppingham Primary School [4] in Uppingham and the Rutland High School for Girls (later Rutland College) in Oakham.[ citation needed ]

Television and radio

Smith began her career as a reporter and feature writer on the Peterborough Evening Telegraph in 1977. [5] After four years, she left to backpack through Central and South America and South East Asia where she reported and presented on a current affairs programme for Radio Television Hong Kong. In 1984 she joined Radio Trent as a reporter/presenter and then worked for Central Television as press officer for documentaries and drama.

After that, Smith co-presented Lookaround , the local evening news for Border Television and in 1987 she joined Thames Television to co-present Thames News with Andrew Gardner. Smith left the station toward the end of 1988 to help launch Sky News in February 1989. In April 1993, she joined GMTV where she stayed until 4 June 2010. [6] [7]

Smith has also presented Crime Net, Crime File and Crime Fighters for Carlton, Crime Monthly and Britain's Most Wanted for LWT, Going for a Song for the BBC and Celebrity for ITV. She also co-presented the 1995 series of The Krypton Factor alongside Gordon Burns. In 2001, she appeared in Jonathan Creek "Satan's Chimney".

In 2006, Smith appeared in the BBC One show Just the Two of Us . She sang with Curtis Stigers and was eliminated on 3 March. She came fourth. She later appeared on Never Mind the Buzzcocks in 2006 and several episodes of Have I Got News for You . She also appeared in Garfield 2 when Garfield was watching television. In February 2009, she appeared on the ITV1 daytime programme Loose Women as a panellist on occasion.

In July 2010, Smith presented BBC Radio 2's Kiri Prize, a nationwide hunt to find an opera star.[ citation needed ]

Smith has also covered the Friday Night Arts Show on BBC Radio 2 when Claudia Winkleman was away. [8]

From January 2013 to January 2016, Smith co-presented the weekday breakfast show on BBC London 94.9. [9] [10]

Smith joined digital radio station talkRADIO in 2016 presenting her first show on 26 March 2016. She presented the weekend breakfast show until February 2021. [11]

From March 2021, she began presenting the weekday drivetime show on Scala Radio. [12]

GMTV

1993 – 2009

On 19 April 1993, Smith began her career on GMTV as the show's main newsreader, as well as becoming the main presenter of the Reuters News Hour alongside Anne Davies, Matthew Lorenzo and Ross Kelly. In 1998, John Stapleton joined GMTV and then joined Penny as her co-presenter of the Reuters News Hour. In 2000, GMTV rebranded all of their programmes. With the loss of Matt Lorenzo and Ross Kelly, Smith and John Stapleton became the main presenters of the GMTV Newshour, as well as becoming the main newsreaders and relief presenters for GMTV Today.

2009 – 2010

In 2009, GMTV had another relaunch, with all of their programmes rebranding and new studio. This meant that the GMTV Newshour and GMTV Today became GMTV, with Penny and John presenting the first hour of the show. Smith and Stapleton were the first faces and voices of the relaunch. Smith continued to be the main News Reader of GMTV .

On 3 March 2010, it had emerged from Smith's Twitter account that she had decided to leave the programme after 17 years of being the main face of the show. This was said to be part of a cost-cutting exercise by ITV. On 4 June 2010, Smith presented her last show.

Film

Smith appeared briefly as herself in the partially-improvised comedy 1994 film There's No Business... , which starred the comedy duos Raw Sex (Simon Brint and Rowland Rivron) and The Oblivion Boys.

Other work

Smith has written for a number of national newspapers and magazines, including a beauty column for "Femail" in the Daily Mail and articles in Essentials magazine, Good Housekeeping , and Woman and Home.

Smith has produced three yoga videos: Penny Smith's Power Yoga, Penny Smith's Essential Guide to Yoga presented alongside Howard Napper and Penny Smith's Yoga Masterclass.

Personal life

Smith married journalist Tony Birtley on Saturday 12 May 1984 at St Wulfram's Church, Grantham, the reception was held in Colsterworth; [13] the best man was Daily Star reporter George Dearsley. The couple moved to Nassington in north-east Northamptonshire, where they were married for three years; [14] [15] they divorced in 1987. [16] Her parents Graham and Christine, who married in 1955, [17] lived in Colsterworth in the 1980s; her father had an engineering business in Grantham, later moving to Cyprus in the late 1980s.

She counts Rory Bremner and Paul McKenna amongst her ex-boyfriends. Since September 2001, Smith has been in a long term relationship with the actor Vince Leigh. [18]

Smith lives in Notting Hill, West London.

Bibliography

Articles

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Rippon</span> English television presenter (born 1944)

Angela May Rippon is an English television journalist, newsreader, writer and presenter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Garraway</span> British broadcaster

Kathryn Mary Draper Garraway is an English broadcaster and journalist. In the 1990s, Garraway was a journalist for ITV News Central and later a co-presenter of ITV News Meridian. From 2000 to 2010, she co-presented GMTV. Currently, Garraway is the presenter of Mid Mornings with Kate Garraway on Smooth Radio and newsreader and co-anchor of the ITV Breakfast programme Good Morning Britain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GMTV</span> Former UK breakfast television franchisee

GMTV, now legally known as ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited, was the name of the national ITV breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 to 3 September 2010. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of ITV plc in November 2009. Shortly after, ITV plc announced the programme would end. The final edition of GMTV was broadcast on 3 September 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lorraine Kelly</span> Scottish presenter and journalist

Lorraine Smith is a Scottish television presenter. She has presented various television shows for ITV and STV, including Good Morning Britain (1988–1992), GMTV (1993–2010), This Morning, Daybreak (2012–2014), The Sun Military Awards (2016–present), STV Children's Appeal (2016–present), and her eponymous programme Lorraine (2010–present).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jayne Middlemiss</span> English TV presenter and former model

Jayne Middlemiss is an English television and radio presenter. She began presenting music television shows including The O Zone and Top of the Pops in the mid-1990s, as well as other television and radio shows, including on BBC Radio 6 Music. She has won both Celebrity MasterChef and reality show Celebrity Love Island.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiona Phillips</span> English journalist and TV presenter (born 1961)

Fiona Phillips is an English journalist, broadcaster and television presenter. She is best known for presenting the ITV Breakfast programme GMTV Today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Stapleton (English journalist)</span> English broadcaster and journalist

John Martin Stapleton is an English journalist and broadcaster. He is known for his work as a presenter and reporter on ITV breakfast television in addition to hosting Nationwide and Watchdog for the BBC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Davies (British journalist)</span> British television presenter and newsreader

Anne Christina Davies DL is a British television presenter and newsreader, currently solo presenting BBC East Midlands Today'.

Saima Mohsin is a British Pakistani journalist and presenter born and raised in South London. She has been a Sky News presenter since 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christine Lampard</span> TV presenter

Christine Louise Lampard is a Northern Irish broadcaster. She has presented various television programmes with Adrian Chiles, such as The One Show (2007–2010) and Daybreak (2010–2011), while with Phillip Schofield she has presented Dancing on Ice (2012–2014) and This Morning. Lampard has also presented factual series for ITV including Off The Beaten Track (2013) and Wild Ireland (2015). Since 2016 she has been a presenter of the ITV lunchtime chat show Loose Women.

Charles Alexis Nove is a British radio broadcaster who currently presents the weekday breakfast show for classical music station Scala Radio.

Aasmah Saira Mir is a Scottish television and radio broadcaster and journalist who co-presents the Monday-Thursday breakfast show on Times Radio.

Michael Wilson is a British TV presenter. Wilson was Business Editor for Sky News and could be seen at the London Stock Exchange talking to various people about the big news in business as well as looking at stock markets across the World. He became a Freeman of the City of London in 2005 and was voted Broadcast Business Journalist in the same year. Michael is television's longest serving business editor.

Helen Fospero is an English television presenter and journalist, best known for her presenting roles on shows such as GMTV, Daybreak, and Lorraine.

Emma Catherine Crosby is a British television newsreader and journalist.

<i>Daybreak</i> (2010 TV programme) Weekday breakfast television programme on ITV

Daybreak is a British breakfast television programme that was broadcast on ITV from 6 September 2010 to 25 April 2014. Daybreak replaced GMTV, which aired its last weekday edition on 3 September 2010. Daybreak launched three days later.

This is a timeline of the history of breakfast television in the United Kingdom.

References

  1. ↑ "Eastwood-born Penny Smith of GMTV on her new novel". This is Nottingham. 20 November 2008. Archived from the original on 5 February 2009. Retrieved 4 June 2010.
  2. ↑ Smith, Penny (1 January 2008). Coming Up Next By Smith, Penny (Author)Paperback. HarperCollins. ISBN   9780007268894.
  3. ↑ The TV That Made Me , s1 e17
  4. ↑ "Uppingham Church of England Primary School". Uppingham Primary School. Retrieved 4 June 2010.
  5. ↑ "PENNY SMITH: 'I won't give up my day job' – Environment". Peterborough Today. 2 March 2006. Archived from the original on 25 September 2009. Retrieved 4 June 2010.
  6. ↑ GMTV stars Penny Smith and John Stapleton leave the sofa in cut backs Mirror, 4 March 2010
  7. ↑ Tears as Penny Smith leaves GMTV BBC News, 4 June 2010
  8. ↑ "BBC - Radio 2 announces schedule changes - Media Centre". www.bbc.co.uk.
  9. ↑ Presenter Penny Smith to join BBC London 94.9 FM BBC, 10 December 2012
  10. ↑ Plunkett, John (23 October 2015). "Vanessa Feltz to take helm at flagship BBC Radio London show". The Guardian– via www.theguardian.com.
  11. ↑ "Eamonn Holmes signs up for show on talkRADIO". talkRADIO. 6 March 2016. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  12. ↑ "Penny Smith to host Drivetime on Scala Radio". 18 February 2021.
  13. ↑ Grantham Journal Friday 18 May 1984, page 21
  14. ↑ Grantham Journal Friday 14 October 1983, page 10
  15. ↑ Daily Mirror Friday 22 January 1999, page 30
  16. ↑ Grantham Journal Friday 16 April 1993, page 19
  17. ↑ "England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005 - Ancestry.co.uk". search.ancestry.co.uk.
  18. ↑ "Londoner's Diary: Glamour and Trump at the Costa Book Awards party". Evening Standard. 1 February 2017. Retrieved 18 August 2022.
  19. ↑ Coming Up Next: Penny Smith. ASIN   0007268890.
  20. ↑ After the Break: Penny Smith. ASIN   0007315287.
  21. ↑ "Penny Smith at Vipopedia, biography, posters". Vipopedia. Archived from the original on 26 May 2012. Retrieved 4 June 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.