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David Dimbleby
David Dimbleby (born 28 October 1938) is an English journalist and former presenter of current affairs and political programmes, best known for having presented the BBC topical debate programme Question Time. He is the son of broadcaster Richard Dimbleby and elder brother of Jonathan Dimbleby, of the Dimbleby family. Long involved in the coverage of national events, Dimbleby hosted the BBC Election Night coverage from 1979 to 2017, as well as United States presidential elections on the BBC until 2016. He has also presented and narrated documentary series on architecture and history.
Dimbleby was born in East Sheen, Surrey, the son of the journalist and Second World War war correspondent Richard Dimbleby, by his marriage to Dilys Thomas, from Wales. He had three siblings: two brothers, Jonathan Dimbleby, also a television current affairs presenter, and Nicholas (died 2024), and a sister, Sally. David Dimbleby was educated at two independent schools, the Glengorse School in Battle, East Sussex, and Charterhouse in Godalming, Surrey, where he was a contemporary of the journalist Adam Raphael. The two younger Dimblebys both made their television débuts in the 1950s in the BBC's first holiday programme Passport, at a time when the whole family would visit resorts in Switzerland or Brittany. A holiday programme for the home counties, called No Passport, was also broadcast.
After learning French in Paris and Italian in Perugia, Dimbleby read Philosophy, politics and economics at Christ Church, Oxford and graduated with a third-class degree. While at Oxford he was President of the Christ Church Junior Common Room, a member of the Bullingdon Club – a socially exclusive student dining and drinking society – and also editor of the student magazine Isis.
Dimbleby joined the BBC as a news reporter in Bristol in the 1960s and has appeared in news programmes since 1962, early on co-presenting the televised version of the school quiz Top of the Form, and was a reporter on the BBC's coverage of the 1964 general election with his father as linkman. Richard Dimbleby died the following year.
On 24 July 1967, Dimbleby was one of seventy signatories to an advertisement in The Times advocating the decriminalisation of cannabis use, which had been written by campaigner Stephen Abrams. An incident in 1969 led to Dimbleby, then freelance, being called in by the BBC's Director of Television. During U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to the UK, a reference by Dimbleby to UK and US government heads' "expensively hired" press secretaries "whose job is to disguise the truth" was given much attention by the British press.
Dimbleby became involved in a number of projects that combined his established role as presenter and interviewer with documentary making. An early example of this was Yesterday's Men (1971), a film which the BBC recognises "ridiculed" the Labour opposition and led to a major conflict between the Corporation and the Labour Party; Dimbleby had his name removed from the credits because of the concessions that were made. In 1974, he became the presenter of Panorama, which had been presented by his father.
Dimbleby anchored the BBC's overnight coverage of the 1979 general election, and continued in this role until the 2017 general election, for a total of ten general elections. In addition to election coverage, he also hosted BBC Budget specials, and was a presenter of the BBC early evening weekday current affairs series Nationwide. During the same period (beginning in 1979), Dimbleby has also been the anchor for the BBC's European Parliament election results programmes and in 2008 and 2012, anchored the BBC's coverage of the US election night.
Dimbleby was the main presenter of the BBC's political series This Week Next Week (1984–88), broadcast on Sunday early afternoons, as a competitor to ITV's established Weekend World series. As early as 1987, he was a contender for the position of Director-General of the BBC (losing out to Michael Checkland). This Week Next Week was replaced in 1988 by the On the Record, a political series presented until 1993 by his younger brother, Jonathan Dimbleby. Meanwhile, he continued to work in documentaries, including The White Tribe of Africa (1979), an award-winning four-part history of South Africa's Afrikaans community and the rise of apartheid, An Ocean Apart (1988), an examination of the history of Anglo-American relations, and Rebellion! (1999), a history of Britain's troubled relations with Zimbabwe.
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David Dimbleby
David Dimbleby (born 28 October 1938) is an English journalist and former presenter of current affairs and political programmes, best known for having presented the BBC topical debate programme Question Time. He is the son of broadcaster Richard Dimbleby and elder brother of Jonathan Dimbleby, of the Dimbleby family. Long involved in the coverage of national events, Dimbleby hosted the BBC Election Night coverage from 1979 to 2017, as well as United States presidential elections on the BBC until 2016. He has also presented and narrated documentary series on architecture and history.
Dimbleby was born in East Sheen, Surrey, the son of the journalist and Second World War war correspondent Richard Dimbleby, by his marriage to Dilys Thomas, from Wales. He had three siblings: two brothers, Jonathan Dimbleby, also a television current affairs presenter, and Nicholas (died 2024), and a sister, Sally. David Dimbleby was educated at two independent schools, the Glengorse School in Battle, East Sussex, and Charterhouse in Godalming, Surrey, where he was a contemporary of the journalist Adam Raphael. The two younger Dimblebys both made their television débuts in the 1950s in the BBC's first holiday programme Passport, at a time when the whole family would visit resorts in Switzerland or Brittany. A holiday programme for the home counties, called No Passport, was also broadcast.
After learning French in Paris and Italian in Perugia, Dimbleby read Philosophy, politics and economics at Christ Church, Oxford and graduated with a third-class degree. While at Oxford he was President of the Christ Church Junior Common Room, a member of the Bullingdon Club – a socially exclusive student dining and drinking society – and also editor of the student magazine Isis.
Dimbleby joined the BBC as a news reporter in Bristol in the 1960s and has appeared in news programmes since 1962, early on co-presenting the televised version of the school quiz Top of the Form, and was a reporter on the BBC's coverage of the 1964 general election with his father as linkman. Richard Dimbleby died the following year.
On 24 July 1967, Dimbleby was one of seventy signatories to an advertisement in The Times advocating the decriminalisation of cannabis use, which had been written by campaigner Stephen Abrams. An incident in 1969 led to Dimbleby, then freelance, being called in by the BBC's Director of Television. During U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to the UK, a reference by Dimbleby to UK and US government heads' "expensively hired" press secretaries "whose job is to disguise the truth" was given much attention by the British press.
Dimbleby became involved in a number of projects that combined his established role as presenter and interviewer with documentary making. An early example of this was Yesterday's Men (1971), a film which the BBC recognises "ridiculed" the Labour opposition and led to a major conflict between the Corporation and the Labour Party; Dimbleby had his name removed from the credits because of the concessions that were made. In 1974, he became the presenter of Panorama, which had been presented by his father.
Dimbleby anchored the BBC's overnight coverage of the 1979 general election, and continued in this role until the 2017 general election, for a total of ten general elections. In addition to election coverage, he also hosted BBC Budget specials, and was a presenter of the BBC early evening weekday current affairs series Nationwide. During the same period (beginning in 1979), Dimbleby has also been the anchor for the BBC's European Parliament election results programmes and in 2008 and 2012, anchored the BBC's coverage of the US election night.
Dimbleby was the main presenter of the BBC's political series This Week Next Week (1984–88), broadcast on Sunday early afternoons, as a competitor to ITV's established Weekend World series. As early as 1987, he was a contender for the position of Director-General of the BBC (losing out to Michael Checkland). This Week Next Week was replaced in 1988 by the On the Record, a political series presented until 1993 by his younger brother, Jonathan Dimbleby. Meanwhile, he continued to work in documentaries, including The White Tribe of Africa (1979), an award-winning four-part history of South Africa's Afrikaans community and the rise of apartheid, An Ocean Apart (1988), an examination of the history of Anglo-American relations, and Rebellion! (1999), a history of Britain's troubled relations with Zimbabwe.
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