Michael Aspel - Definition and Overview

Michael Aspel (b. 1933) is a television and radio presenter who was popular in the United Kingdom throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Aspel was born in Wales and secured his first journalistic job working for the Cardiff morning daily, the Western Mail, in the late 1950s.

From there he went to the BBC as a newsreader, becoming one of the country's most familiar faces during the 1960s and 1970s, as a regular presenter of the evening news. He moved on to a wide variety of light entertainment roles in UK commercial broadcasting. These included his children's TV series, Ask Aspel. He presented Capital Radio's mid-morning music and phone-in programme in London in the station's 1970s hey-day as well popular programmes such as Give Us A Clue and his own chat show on ITV.

His career took a severe knock after his Aspel chat show was seen to offer too much to Planet Hollywood and Matthew Freud's PR company to secure an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, he took on the mantle of Eamonn Andrews as presenter of This is Your Life, and continued to present the programme on the BBC until recently. He now presents the Antiques Roadshow.

He is a supporter of the charity Cancer Research UK.