Chris Eakin is one of the nation‘s most experienced live broadcasters. Few have clocked up so many hours in the studio and on location. He was one of the launch presenters of BBC News 24 in 1997.
In 20 years of daily live TV, he has specialised in outside broadcasts both in the UK and around the world. He has fronted BBC News coverage at Westminster and at Stormont in Belfast on historic peace days. He was live in Tavistock Square on the day of the London bombings and was main anchor at the Glasgow airport terror attack. He has become known for his energetic coverage of floods and bad weather - famously chasing the Environment Agency chairman live on air in the Somerset Levels, almost falling into a swollen river.
On the chaotic night of summer riots spreading across London, he single-handedly steered the News Channel‘s coverage, dealing calmly with the abundance of rumours and dearth of facts. Six months later, Chris chaired a Local Government Association debate on the riots.
On the foreign front, he has presented BBC News from Beirut, when Israel and Hezbollah clashed, and from Belgrade when Milosevic died.
He presented the News Channel‘s evening newspaper reviews and has frequently presented BBC1 weekend bulletins as well as taken the News Channel onto BBC1 and BBC World with major breaking stories.
Chris was born in Northern Ireland in 1961 and began his career on Wirral Newspapers. He worked as a freelance and then as a reporter on the Daily Post in Liverpool, winning Reporter of the Year for an investigation into a high-profile businessman. He became Assistant News Editor at the age of 25.
He freelanced at the Daily Mail in Manchester, then joined Central TV and then BBC Look North where he won Royal Television Society NE Reporter of the Year two years running. He has reported inner city riots in Liverpool‘s Toxteth and Newcastle‘s Meadowell.
Outside work, his main passion is sailing. He is author of the critically acclaimed ˜A Race Too Far‘, the true story of the attempt to be the first person to sail round the world non-stop and single-handed. In 2014, he sailed across the English Channel with the winner of that race, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, crewing the yacht and filming for a BBC documentary. He has sailed in the South Atlantic to the Beagle Channel in Patagonia and in 2015 he was part of a team which successfully sailed the Arctic Circle‘s North West Passage.