Michael Gibson (born 29 October 1980 in

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

) is a TV presenter and documentary director. He presented the ''

MTV Select ''MTV Select'' was an interactive music television program airing on MTV Europe, MTV channels across Europe and later on MTV Japan, MTV Canada, and MTV India. The show was hosted by a VJ (media personality), VJ, and viewers were able to contact ...

'' television program which aired weekday afternoons on

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

across

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Career

Early career

After spending some time working as a runner at

Talkback Thames Talkback Thames (stylised as talkbackTHAMES) was a British television production company, a division of Fremantle (part of the RTL Group, which in turn is owned by Bertelsmann). It was formed by the merger of Talkback Productions and Thames Tel ...

, Gibson was hired by

to work as a presenter and began presenting MTV Select in the UK and Europe in 2006. He then went on to work as a researcher at Betty TV, working on Freaky Eaters. He worked as a freelance editor, working with big corporate clients like Belvedere Vodka and Nokia. He left London and started teaching media for a few years, then setting up a business renting out a video guestbook for special events in 2011. He now works at the BBC and just finished on series 12 of Dragons' Den.

Personal life

Gibson was diagnosed with

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

at the age of 18. It is rare for someone to be diagnosed with Parkinson's at such a young age. Michael lived in denial about his condition for six years. He then pitched a documentary proposal to

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

, who commissioned him to make a documentary following Michael's journey with Parkinson's. ''All shook up: Parkinson's at 25'' aired on

in 2006.

Sources

Thisislondon.co.ukMTV.co.ukBBC.co.ukParkinsons.orgBBC.co.ukMMU.ac.uk
1980 births Living people People from Blackburn English television presenters {{england-tv-bio-stub