Matt Baker

Seven-and-a-half years on Blue Peter established Matt Baker as one of the best loved and most versatile presenters in the show's history, winning him two BAFTA awards for Best Children's presenter and a Royal Television Society award.

Matt is a key face across the BBC as the co-host of The One Show Monday to Thursday evenings and ongoing co-presenter of BBC1's top rating Sunday night Countryfile series. He also presented Secret Britain for BBC1 and was a finalist in Strictly Come Dancing 2010. Matt also took part in the Strictly Live Tour where he won a record-breaking number of shows.

Matt was born in Durham where he grew up in the Dales on his family's sheep farm. His love of the countryside and animals made him the natural choice for fronting such shows as Animal Rescue Squad for Five, One Man and His Dog, Summer Countryfile Diaries, Crufts, Animal Rescue and a BBC ONE natural history series.

Matt left Blue Peter in 2006 and began fronting BBC Daytime shows, including the BBC1 City Hospital series. His other BBC credits include hosting the Evacuation series, and two series of The Stables Live 8. He presented Jonny Wilkinson's Hotshots rugby plus Jonny's rugby training DVD. He has also starred in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the London Palladium and Sunderland Empire and as Prince Charming in Cinderella at the Sheffield Lyceum.

As a boy, Matt was a British gymnastic and sports acrobatics champion, later joining the BBC Grandstand team as a world gymnastics presenter and commentator. He is also a hang-gliding world record holder. Matt is a regular commentator at the Glasgow Grand Prix Gymnastics and European Gymnastics Championships for BBC2 as well as the London Marathon for BBC1. He was a key commentator for BBC's coverage of the gymnastics events at the 2008 Olympic Games from Beijing and the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships 2009 from London's O2 Arena.

Matt's exceptional physical prowess has allowed him to complete an impressive number of television challenges: he trained as a stunt man in Florida; spent a gruelling week with the Royal Marine Commandos, successfully passing their recruits' course, and later completed the Para's P Company selection tests. He also made the final of BBC Sport Relief's charity show jumping series Only Fools on Horses. He is now on cycling 484 miles from Edinburgh to London on The One Show Rickshaw Challenge for Children in Need.