Mark Durden-Smith

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2007)

Mark Durden-Smith (born 1 October 1968) is a British television presenter. He began his presenting career as host of Sky Sports live rugby union coverage, which included weekly English Premiership fixtures, domestic and European cup competitions and Internationals Tests, including the English home Six Nations matches in 1998. He has a background in entertainment and journalism, starting his career at GLR and BBC regional newsrooms before becoming a researcher for Saturday Night Clive and Clive Anderson Talks Back. He moved to Sky Sports in 1996, presenting a wide range of programmes.

Later, through working for Sky, he became one of the original presenters of the morning Channel 4 programme, RI:SE, when it launched in 2002. After this he has presented the British qualifying rounds for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, as well as presenting Drop the Celebrity, and ITV2 coverage of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, Soapstar Superstar and Hell's Kitchen. He also hosted the American show, American Princess. He appeared in some editions of the quiz show HeadJam.

In 2004, he hosted the The Match for Sky One, returned to Australia for a fourth series of ITV2's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Now, presented Double or Nothing for Sky One, and Hell's Kitchen Extra Portions for ITV2, and also hosted the The Police Bravery Awards for Sky One.

In 2005 he returned to present ITV2's Hell's Kitchen Extra Portions, presented Package Holidays Undercover for ITV 1 and a second series of The Match for Sky One.

In 2006 he filmed the third series of The Match with Zoe Ball for Sky One and hosted Millionaire Manor the National Lottery show for BBC1. He also presented the sixth series of ITV2's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Now.

On 9 March 2007, it was announced that he is to join ITV Sport to front the network's coverage of the 2007 University Boat Race on 7 April. This coverage won the RTS sports award for best outside broadcast and best sports feature for its University Boat Race coverage.^[1]

It was announced in June 2007 that Mark is to front a new ITV series, Wish You Were Here...? Now and Then, a 25-part series where Durden-Smith revisits destinations, originally visited by his mother and other presenters in the original series of Wish You Were Here...?, to see how much they have changed. [1]

In November 2007 he appeared as the UK based presenter of the seventh series of ITV2's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Now.

Mark is the son of Judith Chalmers and sports commentator Neil Durden-Smith, and is a married father of twin boys and girl.