Chris Aldridge is a continuity announcer and newsreader for

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

Biography

He grew up in Horsham,

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

. After one term studying medicine at

London Hospital Medical College Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, commonly known as Barts or BL, is a medical school, medical and dental school in London, England. The school is part of Queen Mary University of London, a constituent college of the federal Un ...

, Aldridge studied mathematics at Bedford College (University of London). He joined the BBC in 1985, working in the production and archiving departments of Radio 3. He became a newsreader at Radio 5, then a Radio 4 staff announcer in 1995. He spent 2002 training new staff; then returned to the station as a senior announcer alongside Harriet Cass, taking over from

Peter Donaldson Peter Ian Donaldson (23 August 1945 – 2 November 2015) was an English newsreader on BBC Radio 4. Early life Donaldson was born in Cairo, Egypt, and moved to Cyprus in 1952 at the time of the overthrow of King Farouk. He was a frequen ...

. He sometimes reads and presents the Six O'Clock News on BBC Radio 4. In 2021, Chris Aldridge stepped down from his role as senior announcer but remains on Radio 4 as a freelance announcer and newsreader. On 8 September 2022, Aldridge announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II on

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

. He is married with two children; the family are members of their local Baptist Church. His hobbies include digital photography, playing the

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

and jogging.

References

External links

BBC profile, with photo

BBC News articleWhat it’s like being a Radio 4 newsreader
a
Radio Times

Photo on a 1985 Radio Sound Trainee Course

Photo from a 1994 Trainee Audio Assistant course

Chris reads through the morning papers in February 2005
Living people People educated at The College of Richard Collyer Alumni of Bedford College, London Radio and television announcers BBC newsreaders and journalists BBC Radio 4 Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-radio-bio-stub