Sir Trevor McDonald

 

Trevor McDonald is the main presenter of ITN's flagship programme, News at Ten, the nation's most watched nightly news programme. He had been one of the presenting team since the beginning of 1990, prior to the launch of the programme's current format at the end of 1992 which saw him become the sole presenter.

BARB data issued at the beginning of this year showed that during 1997 News at Ten attracted an average nightly audience of just over 6 million viewers, which makes it the sixth consecutive year that News at Ten has beaten the BBC's Nine O'clock News.

In March 1998 Sir Trevor was awarded the Gold Medal by the Royal Television Society for his outstanding contribution to television news. In Mid-1997, he was voted the 'most authoritative and trustworthy' newsreader by Radio Times readers in a survey on viewing habits in which 40,000 people took part. Also in 1997 he won the prestigious Newscaster of the Year award from TRIC (Television & Radio Industries Club) for the second time (he was a previous winner in 1993.

Sie Trevor McDonald was named Most Popular Newscaster by viewers at the 1996 National Television Awards which he has presented for the last two years and was also voted viewers' favourite news presenter in research carried out by the media information services company, Paradigm. 25% of the 1,600 viewers questioned chose Trevor above all the others, with his nearest rival scoring just 4%.

In April 14997 Sir Trevor McDonald was given an Honorary Degree of Doctor of the University from the Open University and in July 1997 he received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from Nottingham University and an Honorary Degree of Doctor of the University from the University of Surrey. In November 1997 he received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from Southampton Institute.

He has written biographies of West Indian players Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd and his own autobiography, Fortunate Circumstances, was published in October 1993. Trevor's love of poetry resulted in the publication of an anthology entitled Favourite Poems in October 1997