John Mountford (born 14 February 1949 in

Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England. It has an estimated population of 259,965 as of 2022, making it the largest settlement in Staffordshire ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

) is a British television executive and former broadcaster. His father, Arnold Mountford, was an acclaimed international expert in British

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porce ...

. Mountford studied

English literature English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian d ...

Queen's University Belfast The Queen's University of Belfast, commonly known as Queen's University Belfast (; abbreviated Queen's or QUB), is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as part of ...

. In 1973 he enrolled on a studio manager's training scheme at

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is a British Public broadcasting, public service broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcas ...

in London, soon progressing to producing and presenting programmes on the international

radio network There are two types of radio network currently in use around the world: the one-to-many (simplex communication) broadcast network commonly used for public information and mass media, mass-media entertainment, and the two-way radio (Duplex (teleco ...

. In the 1970s he worked on

BBC East BBC East is one of BBC's English Regions covering Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and parts of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire (including the City of Milton Keynes). It is headquartered in The Forum ...

's daily morning radio programme '' Roundabout East Anglia'', a regional opt-out from the ''Today'' programme on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

. In a gradual move to

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

, he became a researcher on '' The Book Programme'' and '' Sixty Minutes''. In 1983 Mountford was amongst the line up of presenters on the BBC's first breakfast television show, '' Breakfast Time''. He was also a reporter for

Esther Rantzen Dame Esther Louise Rantzen (born 22 June 1940) is an English journalist and television presenter who presented the BBC television series ''That's Life!'' for 21 years, from 1973 until 1994. She works with various charitable causes and founded t ...

's ''That's Family Life''. Mountford was the inaugural voice to air at the launch of BBC Radio Norfolk in 1980 where he continued to have a regular show for several years alongside co-hosting

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and Flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includ ...

's Friday night magazine show, ''Weekend''; famously 'baring all' on a nudist beach in the opening title sequence of the programme. He began to scale down his broadcasting commitments during the late 1980s. Mountford is currently

chief executive A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of a production company in Norwich making television advertising and branded video content for social media applications.

References

External links

The JMS Group
1948 births Living people Alumni of Queen's University Belfast BBC people Mass media people from Staffordshire People from Stoke-on-Trent {{UK-tv-bio-stub