Jon Kay

Since joining the famous red sofa as a full-time host in 2022, Jon has played a key role in the BBC One team anchoring live coverage of major national events including the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the Coronation of King Charles III.

A true all-rounder who is interested in everything and everyone, Jon has fronted a wide range of live programmes including BBC One’s Crimewatch, Radio 4’s Saturday Live, 5Live Drive – and a mid-Atlantic edition of The One Show marking the centenary of the Titanic disaster.

Jon has been a journalist for more than thirty years. You name it, he’s covered it – from crime scenes to courtrooms, riots to red carpets. He has worked as a correspondent in Los Angeles and Washington, as well as reporting from South Africa, Australia, Central America, Iraq – and every part of the UK.

With a first class degree in Politics from Exeter University, Jon has interviewed the Prime Minister inside 10 Downing Street and criss-crossed the United States presenting a series of road-trip reports for the US Presidential election. Straight-talking and unstuffy, Jon is highly experienced at interpreting and explaining complex and challenging subjects for global and national audiences.

During the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, Jon co-presented a series of prime-time BBC One special programmes explaining the lockdown rules to an anxious nation. He has also fronted live outside broadcasts dealing with the cost-of-living crisis – chairing debates which include economists, politicians, business leaders and members of the public.

His style is reassuring, relatable, human and, when appropriate, cheeky. He famously discovered “Brenda from Bristol” while conducting vox-pops in the street during the 2019 General Election (“Not ANOTHER one!”)

People are always at the heart of Jon’s work. A trusted and empathetic broadcaster, in recent years he has led the BBC’s news coverage of the Madeleine McCann case and won a Royal Television Society documentary award for his BBC Panorama investigation which reunited a young man from Baghdad with the family who he thought had been killed in the Iraq War.

Jon’s award-winning true-crime series Fairy Meadow – about the mysterious disappearance of Cheryl Grimmer from an Australian beach – is one of the BBC’s most popular podcasts, with millions of global downloads. Judges at the British Podcast Awards praised Jon’s compassion and sensitivity. His online articles about this story and many others regularly appear in the most-read section of the BBC website.

Jon is passionate about children’s literacy and is currently the face of the UK’s biggest writing competition, 500 Words. In that role, he has promoted the contest across the media, in schools across the UK and is chairing the final judging panel at Buckingham Palace.

Born in Hull and brought up near Manchester, Jon has lived and worked all over the UK. He now splits his time between Salford and Bristol, where he lives with his wife, three children and elderly cocker spaniel.