Michael Robertson (born February 14, 1946 in

Petworth Petworth is a small town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Chichester (district), Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the junction of the A272 road, A272 east–west road from Heathfield, East Sussex ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

) is a former presenter of the

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 ...

children's television Children's television series (or children's television shows) are television show, television programs designed for children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run during ...

magazine programme ''

Magpie Magpies are birds of the Corvidae family. Like other members of their family, they are widely considered to be intelligent creatures. The Eurasian magpie, for instance, is thought to rank among the world's most intelligent creatures, and is one ...

''.

Early career

He attended

Midhurst Grammar School Midhurst Grammar School was a grammar school and later a comprehensive upper school in Midhurst, West Sussex. The school served pupils aged 11 to 18 who usually joined the school from one of the local intermediate schools. It was replaced in 20 ...

and trained as a teacher before working in a London play scheme. He then worked as a researcher for

Thames Television Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a Broadcast license, franchise holder for a region of the British ITV (TV network), ITV television network serving Greater London, London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until th ...

Children's TV

He co-presented ''

'' from 1972 to 1980, then went on to present an out of school activity programme called '' Freetime''. When ''Freetime'' was dropped by

in 1985, he helped to establish

The Children's Channel The Children's Channel, also known as TCC, was a British-based pan-European children's television channel in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which was owned by Flextech in London, England, UK. It began broadcasting on the original Eutelsat ...

, where he presented a show called ''Roustabout''. Since the 1980s he has produced television programmes for children, including the series '' Wise Up'' and ''Blunt'', and has won several

Children's BAFTA The British Academy Children's Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). They have been awarded annually since 1996, before which time they were a part of the main British Aca ...

s. In 2007, he was awarded the Special Award Children's BAFTA for his work in television. Accepting his award he said

Music

Robertson released the single "The Tango's Over" in 1974 and the single "Then I Change Hands" in 1975. An album also called ''Then I Change Hands'' was also released that year. None of these charted.

References

External links

* * 1946 births Living people People from Petworth English television presenters People educated at Midhurst Grammar School {{UK-tv-bio-stub