Matt Smith (born 26 April 1967) is a British broadcaster, who worked with

ITV Sport ITV Sport is a sport producer for ITV. It was formed following the merger between Granada Sport and Central Sport.BT Sport BT Sport is a group of broadcasting of sports events, pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports#Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe properties, Warner Bros. Dis ...

's coverage of

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

, Champions League,

Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

, Conference Football and England Under 21 matches.

Early life

Smith is a Modern Languages and Political Studies graduate from

Sheffield City Polytechnic Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The university is based on two sites; the City Campus is located in the city centre near Sheffield railway station, while the Collegiate Cr ...

, where he studied from 1985–89.How to be ... Matt Smith
''The Guardian'', 28 February 2005 During that time, he spent a year in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

as part of his studies. He was then offered an internship with the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, before moving on to the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'' as a television producer.

Career

Radio

After leaving the ''Financial Times'', Smith joined the Business Unit at

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

, and presented business reports on

John Inverdale John Inverdale (born 27 September 1957) is an English broadcaster who works for both the BBC and ITV. During his radio career, he has presented coverage of many major sporting events including the Olympic Games, Wimbledon, the Grand National a ...

's programme on

Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcast ...

. He gained his first sport–presenting role on Chris Evans' ''Radio 1 Breakfast Show. Smith presented BBC Radio Four's final children's programme, ''

Go 4 It ''Go4It'' was a British children's magazine programme broadcast on Sunday evenings at 7.15pm on BBC Radio 4, and one of the few speech-based shows on British national radio aimed at younger listeners. It was broadcast between 2001 and 2009. His ...

''. Until May 2008, he presented ''Weekend Breakfast'' on

with

Rachel Burden Rachel Mary Ann Cecilia Burden (born 22 January 1975 in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, England) is a newsreader, radio news reporter and presenter. She has presented the BBC Radio 5 Live weekday breakfast show since 2011. She is ...

, along with occasional cover on the ''Drive'' 4pm–7pm weekday show.

Television

At the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

, Smith worked initially on ''

Midlands Today ''Midlands Today'' is the BBC's regional television news service for the West Midlands. It was launched in 1964 and is presented by Mary Rhodes, Nick Owen, Elizabeth Glinka, Rebecca Wood and Shefali Oza. Overview ''Midlands Today'' is produc ...

'', ''

Breakfast Breakfast is the first meal of the day usually eaten in the morning. The word in English refers to breaking the fasting period of the previous night.Anderson, Heather Arndt (2013)''Breakfast: A History'' AltaMira Press. Various "typical" or "t ...

'', and

BBC News 24 BBC News (also known as the BBC News Channel) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel for BBC News. It was launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 5:30 pm as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic telev ...

, before moving onto ''Football Fever'', ''World Snooker'', and international events including the

Sydney Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug language, Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport ...

and ''Euro 2000'', before joining ITV in the summer of 2001. Smith was one of the presenters on the

ITV Sport Channel ITV Sport Channel was a short-lived digital sport television channel, that was owned by Carlton Communications and Granada plc. It was launched on 11 August 2001 and closed on 12 May 2002, precipitating ITV Digital's collapse over a month late ...

. After that he hosted coverage of UEFA Cup live matches and UEFA Champions League highlights. In the past, he has presented ''

The Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the En ...

'' highlights programme every Sunday on

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

, and UEFA Champions League Live matches on

ITV4 ITV4 is a Television in the United Kingdom, British free-to-air television channel which was launched on 1 November 2005. It is owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc, and is part of the ITV (TV network), ITV network. The channel h ...

until ITV lost the respective contracts. He has also occasionally presented

ITV Granada ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was it ...

's weekly football show, ''

Soccer Night ''Soccer Night'' is a regional television football programme on ITV in United Kingdom between the 1990s and 2008. Early history The programme concept began in 1990 on Granada Television in North West England. ''Granada Soccer Night'', which was ...

''. During the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, Smith hosted a panel-based show featuring debate and World Cup highlights every evening during the tournament. At Euro 2004, he was the senior reporter based with the England team. Smith has also hosted '' On The Ball'' and ''Speed Sunday'', and has reported at ITV's boxing coverage. He is also the main presenter of ITV's

Darts Darts or dart-throwing is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small projectile point, sharp-pointed projectile, missiles known as dart (missile), darts at a round shooting target, target known as a #Dartboard, dar ...

coverage since the sport returned to the channel in 2007 after a long absence, presenting the

Grand Slam of Darts The Grand Slam of Darts is a darts tournament organised by the Professional Darts Corporation and is known as the Cazoo Grand Slam of Darts for sponsorship purposes. The PDC also invited the best performing players from its rival, the British Dar ...

, European Darts Championship, UK Open, The Masters and The Players Championship alongside Chris Mason and Alan Warriner-Little. He also presented Snooker for ITV4 and was the main presenter of ITV coverage of IPL Cricket from 2010–2014 until they lost the rights to Sky Sports. Smith regularly appeared on

as well as the main

channel. However, he left ITV at the end of the 2015 football season as ITV lost the rights to live coverage of UEFA Champions League and Europa League matches. He was replaced by Jacqui Oatley. While at ITV, Smith covered 4 World Cups, 3 European Championships, hosted coverage of FA Cup Finals, Champions League Finals, Europa League Finals, England Internationals, European Qualifiers, International Friendlies,

African Cup of Nations The Africa Cup of Nations referred to as AFCON (french: Coupe d'Afrique des Nations, sometimes referred to as CAN, or TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons), and sometimes as African Cup of Nations, is the main internati ...

IPL The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...

Cricket, Snooker and Pdc Darts. After his contract finished with ITV in 2015, he became freelance. He now works for

BT Sport BT Sport is a group of broadcasting of sports events, pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports#Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe properties, Warner Bros. Dis ...

working on

, Champions League,

, Conference Football, England Under 21 coverage as a presenter. He also hosted the

BDO World Darts Championship The WDF World Darts Championship is a world championship competition in darts, organised by the World Darts Federation. It would previously organised by the British Darts Organisation (BDO), who held it 43 times from 1978 to 2020. The champio ...

2017 for BT Sport. Since 2015 he has also returned to the BBC News Channel (formally BBC News 24) as a sports reporter/presenter and has also presented shows such as Kick Off and Weekend Sports Breakfast for Talksport.

Personal life

Smith is a fan of

Liverpool Football Club Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has p ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Matt Living people British television presenters English radio personalities British sports broadcasters BT Sport presenters and reporters 1967 births Television presenters from Liverpool Alumni of Sheffield Hallam University Darts people