Nicky Campbell
Nicholas Andrew Argyll Campbell OBE is a Scottish broadcaster and journalist. He has worked in television and radio since 1981 and as a network presenter with BBC Radio since 1987.
Early life
Campbell was born in Portobello, Edinburgh, on 10 April 1961, and was taken for adoption at just a few days old. His biological parents were both Irish. His unmarried mother, Stella Lackey, originally from Longford, was an Irish Protestant matron at a Dublin hospital. She was single when Campbell was conceived during a secretive affair. She travelled from Ireland to Edinburgh, where she gave birth to her son. His biological father, Eugene Hughes, was a Catholic policeman, 14 years Stella's junior, and was an Irish Republican from Belfast. Eighteen months before Nicky was born, Stella gave birth to his half-sister, Esther, also taken for adoption.His adoptive mother, Sheila, was a psychiatric social worker, and his adoptive father, Frank, a publisher of maps.
Campbell grew up in Newington, Edinburgh, and was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, an independent school. In July 2022 he disclosed that he witnessed and experienced sexual and violent physical abuse there, which had a "profound effect on life". He studied history at the University of Aberdeen and graduated with a 2:1 degree.
Career
Radio
In his 2021 memoir, One of the Family, Campbell describes his lifelong obsession with radio and how he and his best friend at the time, the actor Iain Glen, would call various Radio Forth phone-in shows pretending to be different characters.He started working for Northsound Radio in Aberdeen while still at university there, making commercials and writing jingles. In 1983 he was offered his own show, The World of Opera, which aired every Sunday night at 9pm. On one occasion the DJ presenting the late-night pop show after him did not turn up and Campbell had to provide cover. Shortly after this he was offered the station's breakfast show, which he presented until 1986, when he sent a tape to Capital Radio in London and was given the Saturday afternoon show. He then took over the weekend breakfast show from Roger Scott and was used as a daytime "dep" for all the main daytime programmes.
The Capital Radio roster at the time included Roger Scott, Kenny Everett, Alan Freeman, Chris Tarrant and David "Kid" Jensen. It was while standing in for Tarrant and also Jensen that the head of music at BBC Radio 1, Doreen Davis, poached him from Capital, and he joined the network in October 1987.
He first presented the late-night Saturday programme but was soon moved to the weekend early show. Towards the end of 1988 he was offered the weekday late night slot which was named Into the Night. He played a wide variety of music and hosted an eclectic selection of guests for long interviews. These included Frank Zappa, David Icke, John Major, the Bee Gees and the Reverend Ian Paisley. He was also regularly joined by Frankie Howerd in the last years of the comedian's life. In August 1993, Campbell also briefly took over a Sunday morning show, following the on-air resignation of Dave Lee Travis.
Campbell left the network briefly in October 1993 to care for his sick wife. He then returned in January 1994 to present the weekday Drivetime show, and in 1995, he took over the afternoon show.
In 1997 he joined the news and sport network BBC Radio 5 Live, when offered the job by Roger Mosey, the station's head. He presented the mid-morning phone in show for five years before replacing Julian Worricker in the breakfast slot in January 2003, co-presenting initially with Victoria Derbyshire. In 2001, when Radio 2 wanted a replacement for Jimmy Young, he said that he was the BBC's choice and detailed a series of meetings between himself and the controller of Radio 2. However, the BBC later said that Campbell had initiated the meetings himself, and his public revelations about private negotiations was criticised by Director General Greg Dyke. From 2004 to 2011, he co-presented the programme with Shelagh Fogarty. In May 2011, Fogarty left the breakfast show and was replaced by Rachel Burden. Campbell started presenting a one hour at 9am phone-in Your Call after the main show. Burden and Campbell presented together until 2021, when Campbell moved to a two-hour phone-in programme from 9am to 11am every weekday morning.
Between April and October 2023 his show was broadcast on the BBC News Channel, the iPlayer and BBC Two. and is still regularly televised for the most contentious and popular issues.
His radio career also includes notable work for Radio 2. In January 2019 Campbell presented Engelbert; 60 years of song, a musical retrospective and in-depth interview with Engelbert Humperdink. Following the success of that programme he interviewed Francis Rossi of Status Quo for another Radio 2 special – Here we Are and Here We Go which was broadcast in May 2019. In August of that year, as part of the Radio 2 Beatles pop-up station he presented an hour-long interview live from Abbey Road studios with Giles Martin – A Day in the Life – Nicky Campbell meets Giles Martin.
In his time at Radio 5 Live, Campbell has covered four Olympic Games, three Football World Cups and three European Championships and every general election and referendum since 1997. He has won many awards for his radio work. In 1999 he was voted Variety Club Radio Personality of the year. He has won several Sony Awards, including five gold, and in 2017 he and Rachel Burden won the Aria Award for "Best Speech Presenter Breakfast".
In 2014 Campbell was inducted into the Arqiva Radio Academy Hall of Fame, which recognises the "immense contribution that celebrated broadcasters and presenters have made to UK audio and radio over many years."
In 2024 he presented a 5 part series for BBC Radio 3. In the programme Nicky Campbell and his guest share and explored how classical music has soundtracked their worlds as parents, children and caregivers.
In 2024 Campbell wrote and presented a three part series on BBC Radio 4 - How Boarding Schools shaped Britain. the influence and lasting impact of Boarding Schools on Britain - the British ruling class and class system in particular. The series was produced by Louise Cooper.
Television
In 1986, he had a short stint on Music Box, the pan-European 24-hour cable and satellite television channel while he was with Capital Radio.Campbell's first mainstream television was shortly after he joined Radio 1 in 1987 when he hosted a pop quiz on Grampian Television, The Video Jukebox. The team captains were Gaz Top and Jaki Graham.
In 1989, he presented the channel Travelling Talk Show from Volgograd in the Soviet Union. The audience discussion programme addressed the implications of reform under Mikhail Gorbachev and the effects of Glasnost and Perestroika on ordinary Soviet citizens. The Travelling Talk Show also went to Bogotá to hear from ordinary Colombians about Pablo Escobar, the Medellín and Cali cartels, and the country's narcotics wars.
From 1988 to 1997, Campbell was on the roster of regular presenters of Top of the Pops on BBC1.
In 1990, he worked again for Grampian Television, making You'd Better Believe It, a quick-fire trivia quiz identifying "some very famous faces".
When the British rights to the Wheel of Fortune were secured by Scottish Television, Campbell got the presenting job after piloting against Eamonn Holmes, and he hosted the show from 1988 to 1996. His co-presenters were first Angela Ekaette, then Carol Smillie, and for his final season, Jenny Powell. The programme, made prior to satellite broadcasting, aired on ITV reaching audiences of up to 12 million. The UK broadcast rights for the old episodes have in recent years been secured by Challenge TV, and all eight series he presented are regularly shown on the free-to-air network.
In 1992, he anchored Goal on Sky TV. This was a World Cup-based football quiz featuring teams comprising Geoff Hurst, Martin O'Neill and Terry Yorath and in which Campbell posed questions on footage from previous tournaments.
In 1993, he studio-anchored the Big Race, an ITV adventure show in which a team led by the former Blue Peter presenter Peter Duncan drove overland across Europe to Russia, ending up in Siberia and finally crossing the Bering Strait through Alaska and then on to New York months after starting out.
Also in 1993, Campbell hosted Strictly Classified for Granada Television. This was a studio-based magazine show centred around quirky stories from the classified ads in local newspapers. His co-hosts were Pauline Daniels and Jeff Green.
In 1995, he made the Nicky Campbell Show, a short-lived chat and entertainment programme for BBC Scotland, and in 1996, was a presenter/reporter on Ride On, the Channel 4 motoring magazine.
He made a film for the BBC Two documentary series Leviathan in 1998 entitled Braveheart, in which he looked at Edward I of England and William Wallace and explored the historical roots of Scottish antipathy, real or imagined, towards the English.
In 1999, he was one of the presenters of the Rugby World Cup for ITV.
Between 1990 and 2001, he presented Central Weekend, the influential and controversial late-night debate show on Friday night in the Central Television region. Known for the confrontational nature of its studio audience and provocative topics, Campbell was the main presenter but over the years co-presenters on the debate show included Anna Soubry, Adrian Mills, Sue Jay, Claudia Winkleman, Kaye Adams, John Stapleton, Roger Cook, Paul Ross and Sheila Ferguson. During one debate, Campbell was attacked live on camera by an irate participant in a debate on women's football. Campbell had reprimanded him for using a misogynistic term, threatening him with the "red card". The assailant, Robert Davey, was subsequently charged and given a 12-month prison sentence.
London's ITV franchise Carlton Television and also network ITV made versions of the programme, Carlton Live and Thursday Night Live, which were shown between 1996 and 2002. These were also hosted by Campbell. He presented one series with Richard Littlejohn and then all subsequent ones with Andrew Neil.
In 2001, he took over as presenter/reporter on Watchdog, the long-running consumer affairs show. He remained there until 2009 when he and Julia Bradbury were replaced by Anne Robinson. Before Bradbury his co-host had been Kate Gerbeau.
In 2001, days after the September 11 attacks, Campbell went to New York to host a discussion on the aftermath for Panorama, and that year, he also presented some episodes of Newsnight.
In 2002, he anchored Your NHS from London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, when the BBC devoted much of the day to a look at the NHS, culminating with Campbell's interview with Prime Minister Tony Blair.
In 2003, Campbell fronted David Blaine: The Event as Blaine began an endurance stunt inside a transparent Plexiglas box suspended on the south bank of the River Thames.
In 2004, he launched Now You're Talking, the replacement to the morning Kilroy studio discussion show after the BBC had sacked Robert Kilroy-Silk.
In 2005, he presented The Last Word, a late-night topical debate show from Glasgow.
In 2006, Campbell appeared in the singing show Just the Two of Us, with Beverley Knight.
In 2007, Campbell returned to the game show world for The Rest of Your Life on ITV, a show devised by Dick de Rijk who also created Deal or No Deal. It first aired on ITV in May 2007. In each game, a couple tried to win a prize consisting of a series of monthly cheques whose length and value were determined by random choices of which squares on the studio floor to light up.
Campbell featured in an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? that aired 11 July 2007, where he was seen tracing his adoptive family's roots in Scotland and Australia. The research also uncovered his father's involvement in the Battle of Kohima in 1944.
Campbell hosted The Big Questions, an ethical and religious debate show which ran on BBC One on Sunday morning for 14 series between 2007 and 2021. This amounted to almost 900 studio debates.
In 2009, he presented the second series of the BBC Two quiz show Battle of the Brains.
2011 was when Long Lost Family came to British television, a show which he has presented with Davina McCall through 14 series. In The Times, Carole Midgley wrote of the show; "Nicky Campbell and Davina McCall have the knack of squeezing out enough emotion to make it a full box of Kleenex show, but stopping short of it being too schmaltzy. Stories this gobsmacking need no ramping up." The programme has launched over 700 searches for missing relatives. It remains one of ITV's highest rating factual shows. Campbell and McCall also present Long Lost Family – What Happened Next and Long Lost Family – Born without Trace which helps foundlings abandoned as babies. The team, led by Ariel Bruce, solve the mystery of their beginnings through DNA testing and detective work. In 2013, Long Lost Family won the Royal Television Society Award for best popular factual programme and in 2014, the BAFTA Award for best feature. In 2021, the programme won best Lifestyle Show in the TV Choice Awards. The same year, Born Without Trace won the BAFTA for best feature, and in the same year, the programme won a Golden Rose for best Factual and Entertainment show at the Rose d'Or International Awards.
In 2025 Long Lost Family again was a winner at the Link TV Choice awards, voted from by readers.
In 2013, Campbell returned to BBC1 consumer journalism co-hosting Your Money Their Tricks with Rebecca Wilcox and Sian Williams.
In 2014, Campbell made the documentary series Wanted: A Family of My Own for ITV.
The programme's sought to dispel the myths and misconceptions surrounding what is often seen as the "complicated" process of adoption, and was granted unprecedented access to the workings of eight local authorities, as well as the lives of parents and children at various stages of the adoption process.
In 2017, he made a documentary for the Women at War series for BBC One with his adoptive mother Sheila Campbell. He found out more about his her role in World War II and her experiences as a radar operator on D-Day. Also that year, he took part in All Star Musicals for ITV, performing Razzle Dazzle from the musical Chicago Live! at the London Palladium.
In 2019 and 2020, he presented both series of the BAFTA-nominated Operation Live for Channel 5. This followed life-changing surgery live, in real time, including a brain operation, a total knee replacement and open heart surgery.
In 2021, Campbell presented Manhunt: The Raoul Moat Story on ITV1. This was the inside story of how Moat was tracked down, all in the glare of 24-hour rolling news. In June 2023, Campbell's documentary made by Summer Film, Secrets of the Bay City Rollers, was released on ITV, STV and ITVX. The Guardian described the film as "one of the most disturbing accounts of abuse imaginable…a sensitively told tale of horrific cruelty". The Times said it was "brave" and "shocking" and "moving". The Telegraph review described the documentary as "horribly fascinating…..a story of unimaginable horror".
In November 2023, Campbell presented the State Opening of Parliament for the BBC from the Palace of Westminster. Also in the same month he appeared in the BBC Panorama documentary "My Teacher the Abuser: Fighting for Justice", recounting the abuse he suffered at the hands of Edinburgh Academy teacher Iain Wares, who has been accused of abusing dozens of boys during the 1960s and 1970s.
In February 2024, Campbell participated in the fifth series of The Masked Singer UK as the character "Dippy Egg". He was eliminated and unmasked in the sixth episode.