David Dimbleby - Career

Career

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. An incident in 1969 led to Dimbleby, then freelance, being called in by the BBC's Director of Television. During President Richard Nixon's visit to Britain, 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 was one of 70 signatories to the advertisement advocating the decriminalisation of cannabis use, written by campaigner Stephen Abrams, which appeared in The Times on 24 July 1967.

He 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 held to have ridiculed the Labour opposition and led to a major conflict between the BBC and the Labour Party; Dimbleby had his name removed from the credits for concessions that were made. In 1974, he became the presenter of Panorama, which had been presented by his father.

In 1980, he appeared in an episode of comedy show The Goodies as "David Dimbumblum" in which he parodied himself, after being caught on camera during the 1979 election night coverage eating a sandwich, by carving and eating a roast turkey during an election parody. The 1979 General Election Night results programme for the BBC was the first to be anchored by Dimbleby, and he has continued in this role for the next seven general elections. He is also seen on BBC Budget specials, and was a presenter of the BBC early evening weekday current affairs series Nationwide, on which he famously addressed Paddy Ashdown as "Panty Ashdown". During the same period (beginning in 1979), Dimbleby has also been the anchor for the BBC's European Elections 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. 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).

Since 1994, David Dimbleby has been chairman of Question Time, the BBC's Thursday evening topical debate programme. This is the role in which he is now best known. One of the most memorable moments from Question Time was when Dimbleby accidentally referred to Robin Cook as "Robin Cock", to which Cook responded by jokingly referring to Dimbleby as "David Bumblebee".

Dimbleby has also covered outside broadcast events of national importance, such as the State Opening of Parliament, the Trooping the Colour, the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, and In 1999, he opened BBC 2000 Today, the BBC's coverage of the millennium celebrations, from Greenwich, England. He commentated on the funerals of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997 and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 2002, and the state visit of U.S. President George W. Bush to Britain the following year. In 2002, Dimbleby hosted the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II coverage. A profile by Ben Summerskill for The Observer in 2001 quoted an unnamed former Cabinet Minister who had observed Dimbleby's career for many decades: "I suspect he has an almost medieval view, that the Queen governs through Parliament... There are a few quarrels among the subjects - over which he presides very capably - but they have very little to do with what Britain is really about."

There were reports in 2004 that Dimbleby was shortlisted for the Chairmanship of the BBC. However, the position was eventually awarded to Michael Grade. As early as 1987, he was a contender for the position of Director General of the BBC (losing out to Michael Checkland) and for the chairmanship in the Corporation's tumultuous period following 2001, which went to Gavyn Davies. He has instead remained, according to Mark Duguid for the BFI's screenonline website, best known for his "gravitas, journalistic integrity and consummate professionalism" and as "a paragon of impartiality" as a narrator and moderator, of British politics. He remains outspoken about the Corporation he has served for much of his life.

In 2005, he hosted a BBC One series, A Picture of Britain, celebrating British and Irish paintings, poetry, music, and landscapes. In June 2007 he wrote and presented a follow-up, the BBC series, How We Built Britain, in which he explored the history of British architecture by visiting a region of Britain and its historic buildings each week. David Dimbleby has, as of February 2010, recently started to present a new series on BBC One, Seven Ages of Britain. In early editions of the programme, he has looked at the Bayeux Tapestry and exhibits to do with Thomas Becket.

On 12 November 2009, Dimbleby missed his first Question Time in over 15 years, having been taken to hospital as a precaution after being briefly knocked out by a rearing bullock at his farm in Sussex.

Dimbleby hosted the third of three televised election debates featuring the leaders of the three main political parties held in the run up to the 2010 general election. On the night of the 2010 Election, Dimbleby hosted the BBC coverage, along with Jeremy Vine, Jeremy Paxman, Nick Robinson, and Emily Maitlis. Presenting from a specially built set in BBC Television Centre Studio 1, he was an anchor and involved commentary contributions, guest interviews, and introducing live outside broadcasts. He presented the election in 2010 for 18 hours.