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Name: Esther Rantzen
Field:
Broadcaster
Productions:
An Audience With Esther Rantzen
An Audience with Gyles Brandreth
Biography: Esther Rantzen OBE
Esther Rantzen graduated from Oxford and joined the BBC where her first job was in radio as a sound effects assistant. From there she moved to television, first as a clerk, then as a researcher for the consumer programme Braden’s Week.
In 1973 Esther was appointed producer/presenter of That’s Life! which drew audiences of more than 18 million and was on the air for twenty-one years. In addition to That’s Life!, Esther created an produced The Big Time, a documentary series which launched the career of successful singer Sheena Easton.
She also made a number of pioneering programmes on subjects such as British women’s experience of childbirth, stillbirth, drugs and child abuse. While preparing the programme on child abuse in 1986, she invented the concept of ChildLine, a telephone helpline for children in trouble or danger who dare not ask for help elsewhere. ChildLine now has ten counselling centres across the UK and answers more than one and a half million calls a year.
She has received a number of professional awards for her achievements in television, including the Royal Television Society’s Special Judge’s Award for Journalism, and membership of the Hall of Fame. From the British Academy of Film and Television she has received the Dimbleby Award for factual presentation; she was the first woman to receive it. The Variety Club of Great Britain made her the BBC TV Personality of the Year, she received the Snowdon Award for services to disabled people, and in 1991 was awarded the OBE for services to broadcasting.
She continues to work actively with a variety of charities in addition to ChildLine, of which she is the Chair. She also helped to create the Association of Young People with ME, of which she is President.
For seven years she presented Esther, her own talk show on BBC2, and is currently presenting the weekly ITV programme That’s Esther, which continues her campaigning work, especially for disabled people.
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