Moira Clare Ruby Stuart
Moira Clare Ruby Stuart CBE is a British presenter and broadcaster. She was the first African Caribbean female newsreader to appear on British national television, having worked on BBC News since 1981
1949
London, UK
British/Caribbean
1988: voted Best Newscaster of the Year (1988) by the TV and Radio Industries Club Awards.
1989: voted Best Television Personality by the Women of Achievement Awards.
1994: named Best Female Television Personality by the Black Journalists’ Association.
1997: named Best Media Personality by The Voice newspaper.
2001: appointed OBE
2002: named Media Personality of 2002 at the EMMA Awards.
2003: named one of 100 Great Black Britons.
2006: received an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, the university where her grandparents met.[48]
2008: named Oldie Autocutie of the Year for her outstanding contribution to television by The Oldie magazine.
2012: awarded the degree Honorary Doctor of Letters by De Montfort University.[70]
2013: received an honorary doctorate from Canterbury Christ Church University.[71]
2020: received Harvey Lee Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting at Broadcasting Press Guild Awards.[72][73]
2021: appointed CBE for services to media.
She was educated in London until she was 13, attending Our Lady’s Convent RC High School, Stamford Hill. She then moved with her family to Bermuda for a time, returning at the age of 15 to London, where she attended college.
Stuart began working with the BBC in the 1970s and was a production assistant in the radio Talks and Documentaries department. She was a continuity announcer and newsreader for both BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 2, reading her first Radio 4 news bulletin in 1978. In 1980 she played Darong in series one of game show The Adventure Game. She moved to television news in 1981, when she co-presented News After Noon.
Stuart is acknowledged as having been the UK’s first female African Caribbean television newsreader. Since 1981, she has presented on every news bulletin devised on BBC Television, apart from the Ten O’Clock News. She has also appeared on The News Quiz and presented the news on the BBC’s Breakfast with Frost programme each Sunday and its successor programme Sunday AM with Andrew Marr. She presented the news for BBC Breakfast during the first half hour of the programme, three days a week, followed by short half-hourly roundups throughout the rest of the three hour long show. However, BBC Breakfast moved to a new studio with a new look on 2 May 2006 and the entire news content was presented by two main presenters. Stuart retained her slot on BBC’s Sunday AM show and continued to present some weekend television bulletins on BBC One. She also worked on other long-form programmes for other BBC channels, including BBC Four.
In April 2007 it was announced that Stuart would be leaving Sunday AM, resulting in the loss of a regular slot on broadcast TV. This prompted an angry backlash, accusing the BBC of ageism and sexism. The BBC initially declined to comment on why she was no longer being used, but rumours circulated within the BBC and commercial newsrooms that Stuart had been removed because she was considered too old at 57, although Anna Ford had continued anchoring the BBC One O’Clock News until her retirement at 62. This was denied by Director General of the BBC Mark Thompson when he was questioned by a House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport select committee. Thompson stated that “BBC News, News 24, the radio networks, have changed over the years and the traditional role of the newsreader, as opposed to a correspondent or presenter, has virtually died out over the services…. We tend to use journalists across BBC news programmes … to read the news headlines.”
Stuart’s 26-year career with BBC Television News was brought to a close on 3 October 2007, when the BBC announced her departure. In total, her experience had spanned 34 years of BBC radio and TV.
In April 2009, the departing head of BBC News, Peter Horrocks, was quoted as saying “I regret the way some viewed her departure. Many people came to believe that Moira left for reasons of ageism, or other -isms. This was never the case.”
On 21 November 2009, it was reported in The Guardian that Chris Evans wanted Stuart to read the news bulletins on his new BBC Radio 2 show from January 2010, when he was due to inherit the slot from Terry Wogan. On 6 January 2010, it was confirmed that she would return to BBC News, reading the news for The Chris Evans Breakfast Show, starting on 11 January 2010. She presented her last bulletins for the show on 14 December 2018.
It was subsequently announced that she had joined Classic FM from February 2019, to present the news on weekdays during the breakfast show, and from July 2019 would be presenting her own Saturday afternoon show, Moira Stuart’s Hall of Fame Concert. Stuart, who described the move as “a wonderful opportunity to take a whole new journey, with people I really like and admire”, made her debut on Classic FM on 11 February 2019.
Parents – Harold Stuart and Marjorie Gordon
Siblings – Sandra and Sharon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moira_Stuart#Early_life Accessed 21/03/2022
https://www.wiki.ng/en/wiki/moira-stuart-biography-age-family-husband-partner-bbc-radio-2-salary-news-472527 Accessed 21/03/2022
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/radio/radio-presenters/moira-stuart-had-athletic-relationships-kinds-people/ accessed 21/03/2022
