Nick Ross

For other people named Nick Ross, see Nick Ross (disambiguation).

Nick Ross
Nick Ross in the BBC Crimewatch studio.
Born	Nick Ross 7 August 1947 (1947-08-07) (age 64) Hampstead, London, England

Nick Ross (born 7 August 1947, Hampstead, London) is a British radio and television presenter across a wide range of factual programmes and during the 1980s and 90s he was one of the most ubiquitous of British broadcasters, but he is best known for his long-running co-hosting of the BBC TV show Crimewatch^[1] which he left on 2 July 2007 after 23 years.^[2] He recently filmed a new series for BBC One and has made documentaries for Radio 4.

Early life

Brought up in Surrey, Ross went to Wallington County Grammar School and then read psychology at Queen's University Belfast. The Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney was one of his lecturers. He graduated with a BA (Hons), later became a Doctor of the University (honoris causa) and he was deputy president of the Student Union and a leader of the student civil rights movement in 1968 and 1969. He started in journalism by reporting on the violence in Belfast for BBC Northern Ireland.

Career

Nick Ross began broadcasting in Northern Ireland while still a student and reported on the violence as the Troubles started. He returned to London and presented British radio programmes such as the BBC's World at One, PM and The World Tonight, and moved to TV in 1979 as a reporter for Man Alive on BBC2. He made several documentaries in a brief stint as a producer. The Biggest Epidemic of Our Times was a powerful polemic on road accidents which was made for Man Alive but transferred to BBC1 and was repeated for many years, and is often cited as one of the most influential TV shows of the period. According to at least one author, by reframing the whole concept of road safety Ross's campaigning transformed public attidues and public policy to such an extent that, "in significant consequence British mortality rates of people under 50 are among the lowest in the world.^[3]" Ross also produced and directed two programmes on drug addiction, The Fix and The Cure, most famous for following an addict called Gina. He presented a law series Out of Court, from which Crimewatch developed (based on a German prototype) in 1984.

Crimewatch made him a household name in the UK and his regular sign-off, "Don't have nightmares, do sleep well", became a well-known catch-phrase. Around the same time his celebrity status was enhanced when he presented Britain's first daily breakfast TV programme, Breakfast Time on BBC1, with Frank Bough and Selina Scott, as well as launching Watchdog as a prime time stand-alone consumer series. He was poached to start a new early evening news programme Sixty Minutes, which proved an unwieldy format but was the BBC's first attempt to unite its news division with current affairs programmers.

He has frequently appeared on other shows, including Have I Got News for You, and on 1 April 1985 Ross made a guest appearance on the final episode of Are You Being Served?.^[4]

In 1989 he was asked to present BBC Radio 4's Tuesday morning phone-in, the name of which was changed from Tuesday Call to Call Nick Ross. He is regarded as having transformed the genre by attracting politicians and others at the centre of news events as well as ordinary listeners so that the programme put callers directly in touch with the people who mattered. He resigned in 1997 for reasons that have never been made clear, but not before picking up an award as best radio presenter of the year. During the 1991 Gulf War he was a volunteer presenter on the BBC Radio 4 News FM service.^[5]

He was attracted by Channel 4 for a time to present A Week in Politics, and then moved to cover the BBC's live broadcasts of parliament in Westminster with Nick Ross. (At one stage in the 1990s he was often doing three mainstream live programmes a day such as Call Nick Ross, Westminster with Nick Ross and Crimewatch.) As one of the star BBC presenters he was used widely in a variety of formats including chat shows, travel programmes and debates, but he was most at home in live studios, often orchestrating large-scale debates. In 2000 he presented a general knowledge quiz called The Syndicate, aired on BBC 1 which pitted two teams across three rounds on general knowledge.^[6] but the show's format could not compete with The Weakest Link.

His co-presenter, Jill Dando, was murdered in 1999 and Nick Ross started a campaign to commemorate her, culminating in the establishment of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London. He is a Visiting Professor, Chairman of the Board of the Institute and an Honorary Fellow of UCL, as well as an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminologists. Ross coined the term Crime Science to promote a practical, multidisciplinary and outcome-focused approach to crime reduction (as distinct from what he claimed was often theory-driven criminology). The concept has since adopted elsewhere with several US researchers calling themselves crime scientists and crime science teaching and research at other universities including at Twente University in the Netherlands. There are currently plans to create a crime science department at the University of Manchester.

In late 2007, Ross left Crimewatch, soon followed by his co-presenter Fiona Bruce. The replacement presenter, Kirsty Young, was about 20 years younger than Nick and the BBC were accused of ageism over these changes.^[7][8] His 23 years as the main Crimewatch anchor marks him as one of the longest-serving presenters of a continuous series in TV history.

He spent a year creating a major BBC One series The Truth About Crime^[9] which aired in mid-2009 and explained the fall in crime rates and how offending can be reduced further. The show was described by The Times as an "outstanding... sane, insightful and compellingly argued documentary series."^[10]

He has since been making other TV shows, such as Secrets of the Crime Museum, and science programmes for BBC Radio 4.

Away from broadcasting

Ross has had a role on several government committees (including the Committee on the Ethics of Gene Therapy, the Gene Therapy Advisory Committee, the NHS National Plan Task Force, the National Crime Prevention Board and the Crime Prevention Agency Board). He was a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1999-2005 and a member of the Council's Working Party on Ethics of research involving animals^[11] (2003-2005). He has a wide range of outside interests including ethics (notably medical ethics), promoting science and evidence-led health-care, crime prevention, road safety and fire safety.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Society of Medicine, he has been a member of the Committee on Public Understanding of Science, chairman of the Royal Society Prizes for Science Books (twice), Guest Director of the Cheltenham Science Festival, chairman of the National Road Safety Committee of ROSPA and is an affiliate of the James Lind Alliance. He is Chairman of the Wales Cancer Bank Advisory Board, president of several charities including HealthWatch and Tacade, and a Trustee of Crimestoppers, of Sense About Science and of the UK Stem Cell Foundation. He was a member of the Ethics Standards Advisory Panel for onCore (the UK tissue bank), and an adviser to Crime Concerna and Victim Support. He served two terms as an Ambassador for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) 2004-11.

He is President of the Kensington Society and of the London Accident Prevention Council, a patron of Prisoners Abroad (a registered charity which supports Britons detained overseas), and a range of other charities including Animal Care Trust, British Wireless for the Blind Fund, Heartbeat, Jewish Association for the Mentally Ill, Kidney Research Aid Fund, Myasthenia Gravis Association, National Depression Campaign, Missing, NICHS, Raynauld's & Scleroderma Association, Resources for Autism, SaneLine, Simon Community Northern Ireland, and Young at Heart.

In 2003 he was tipped by The Sun newspaper as a candidate for Mayor of London, and his name was mentioned again for the 2008 election,^[12] and though he declined to put his name forward for nomination^[13] he wrote a manifesto for London's evening paper^[14] and chaired one of the key public debates.

In 2011 he was tipped as a possible Crime Commissioner for London.^[15]

He is considered to be in the top rank of chairmen and moderators for corporate and government meetings. His wife, Sarah Caplin founded ChildLine, was Deputy Secetary of the BBC and a senior executive with ITV, the British commercial broadcaster. They have three sons: Adam, Sam and Jack.

Preceded by None

Co-host of Crimewatch with Sue Cook, Jill Dando & Fiona Bruce 1984-2007

Succeeded by Kirsty Young

References

1. ^ Ross to depart from Crimewatch - Greater London Online
2. ^ Nick Ross says goodbye - Times Online - 3 July 2007
3. ^ Morgan, Adam, "Eating The Big Fish", Wiley, London, 2009, pp134-136
4. ^ IMDB Ross on British sitcom
5. ^ Sound Matters - Five Live - the War of Broadcasting House - a morality story
6. ^ The Syndicate - UK based gameshow
7. ^ Ross quits BBC's Crimewatch in row over ageism - This is London: Showbiz News
8. ^ [1]
9. ^ [2]
10. ^ http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6730705.ece Andrew Billen, The Times, 29 July 2009, T2 page 14
11. ^ Ethics of research involving animals Nuffield Council on Bioethics' official website
12. ^ Nick Ross urged to stand for Mayor Evening Standard
13. ^ My mayoral manifesto - the A-Z of what needs doing Evening Standard
14. ^ My mayoral manifesto - the A-Z of what needs doing
15. ^ [3] Independent

External links

• www.nickross.co.uk - Personal website
• Nick Ross at the Internet Movie Database

Persondata
Name	Ross, Nick
Alternative names
Short description	British radio and television presenter
Date of birth	7 August 1947
Place of birth	Hampstead, London, England
Date of death
Place of death