Adrian Chiles

Adrian Chiles (born 21 March 1967) is a British television and radio presenter who worked as the chief presenter for football coverage at ITV Sport from 2010 until 2015. Previously Chiles worked for the BBC where he was best known for co-hosting The One Show with Christine Bleakley.

His journalistic training and love of football resulted in the development of a career in two streams of broadcasting when he was at the BBC: fronting general and notably business programmes such as The One Show, Working Lunch and The Money Programme; and sports programmes like Match of the Day 2. His radio programme Chiles on Saturday for Radio 5 Live was awarded the sports category Gold Medal at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2002.

Chiles was born in Quinton, Birmingham, to an English father and Croatian mother, and moved a few miles away to Hagley, Worcestershire at the age of four. A feature of his presentations is his Birmingham accent. He also speaks Croatian, despite having a self-confessed imperfect understanding of the language's verbs, declensions, and cases. Chiles started his education at Haybridge High School, and then worked in his father's scaffolding business, before graduating with a degree in English literature from the University of London (studying at Westfield College, now part of Queen Mary, University of London).

Before going to university he was a keen amateur actor, appearing in the Crescent Theatre (Birmingham)'s musical production of Mary O'Malley's Once A Catholic and Sandy Wilson's The Cheese. After university, while waiting for his broken leg to heal from an amateur football incident he applied for and failed both Civil Service exams, before being asked to apply for MI5 — he failed the second interview. He studied journalism at Cardiff and then worked, at one time, as a sports reporter for the News of the World.

BBC

Chiles joined the BBC, originally for work experience on Business Breakfast.

Chiles' experience from Financial World Tonight led to him fronting the BBC Two business show Working Lunch, where he came to popular notice.

He has since created, scripted and fronted a variety of other programmes for the BBC, including for BBC Two the 2003 series So What Do You Do All Day? a look at the lives of the rich and famous, and Asian Millionaires. For BBC One he created and fronted Royal Millions, an investigation of the Queen's finances, as well as reports for Panorama and various documentaries.

From 2006-2009, Chiles presented the spin-off series of the popular UK television show The Apprentice called The Apprentice: You're Fired! in which he interviews the latest candidate to be fired. He left the BBC in 2009, and was replaced by Dara Ó Briain.

During August 2006 Chiles co-presented a pilot of a new BBC One early-evening magazine programme, The One Show. The programme was re-commissioned for 2007 with Chiles returning as host, leaving Working Lunch. Chiles' last appearance on The One Show was on 30 April 2010 and his favourite guest from the programme, rock singer Robert Plant, appeared again. His final show also saw video tributes to an emotional Chiles from Prime Minister Gordon Brown and political leaders David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

In April 2007, Chiles was a guest host of BBC One's satirical news quiz, Have I Got News for You.

In January 2016, Chiles returned to the BBC, where he fronted a 2-part religion/travel series My Mediterranean with Adrian Chiles for BBC Two. In July 2016, he presented a special edition of Panorama called "Why We Voted to Leave: Britain Speaks" for BBC One. In November 2016, he fronted one-off documentary Whites v Blacks: How Football Changed a Nation for BBC Two.

Chiles will co-present The Nature of Friendship, a three-part documentary series with Christine Bleakley. The series will air on BBC Northern Ireland in 2017.

BBC Sport

When the BBC won back the rights to Premier League football, Chiles became the host of Match of the Day 2 on Sundays. In the run-up to the 2006 World Cup, he was an integral part in BBC Three's African Cup of Nations coverage. He was also a member of the BBC's World Cup team often bringing viewers late night highlights. He was a main presenter of the BBC's Euro 2008 coverage and was one of the anchors of the morning 2008 Olympics coverage from Beijing.

ITV

After news media speculation suggesting that the BBC wished to increase the popularity of The One Show on Fridays by introducing Chris Evans alongside Christine Bleakley in an extended one-hour format, Chiles was said to be discussing a contract with ITV. After Evans was confirmed as the new Friday presenter in a revamped one-hour format, Chiles left the BBC for ITV in a four-year contract, speculated to be worth £1million per year. Chiles left the BBC on 30 April 2010.

From May 2010, Chiles fronted ITV's football coverage. He made his ITV debut on 24 May 2010, presenting the England v Mexico friendly at Wembley (England won the match 3-1).

On 6 September 2010 he made his first appearance on Daybreak, ITV's new breakfast television programme. The show failed to capture a larger market share than its competitor Breakfast, and on 18 November 2011 it was announced that Chiles would be axed from the show. He was replaced by Dan Lobb.

In January 2011, Chiles began presenting That Sunday Night Show on ITV, which returned for a second series in September 2011.

His contract with ITV came an end on 20 April 2014. However, he signed a new contract to purely host ITV's football coverage. The new contract included a wage cut of £1 million per year.

On 23 January 2015, it was announced that Chiles had left his role as ITV's football host with immediate effect. He has not returned to the channel since.

In his early career at the BBC, Chiles became an assistant producer and, by 1993, was presenting Radio 4's Financial World Tonight.

He began presenting and producing his own show Chiles on Saturday for Radio 5 Live, which was awarded the sports category Gold Medal at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2002.

In November 2013, Chiles returned to Radio 5 Live, co-presenting Drive on Fridays with Anna Foster.

In October 2014, he became the Monday and Tuesday host of new programme 5 Live Daily, 10 am - 1 pm; with Peter Allen hosting Wednesday to Friday.

Chiles is the author of We Don't Know What We're Doing. Published in 2007, the book recounts the stories of a varied cast of avid West Bromwich Albion supporters whom Chiles met over the course of the 2005/06 season, at the end of which the team was relegated from the Premier League. The book also documents Chiles' own obsession with his beloved "Baggies."

He was the World Record holder for highest number of kisses received in 60 seconds from 2007 until 2009, with 78.

In 2004, Chiles appeared with Johnny Vegas and Mackenzie Crook in the film Sex Lives of the Potato Men in a cameo role as the host of a sex party.

He appeared on the second series of Al Murray's Happy Hour as himself, and also had a cameo as himself in Series Two of That Mitchell and Webb Look.

On 23 November 2009, Chiles released a 2 Good 2 Bad: The World Cup DVD based on the popular segment from Match of the Day 2.

In 2010, Chiles appeared in the official video for 'The Uprising' by Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.

Chiles married Jane Garvey, now a regular presenter of Woman's Hour on Radio 4, in September 1998 in Swansea. Chiles and Garvey have two daughters. In June 2008, the couple separated; they divorced in October 2009.

He is a convert to Roman Catholicism. During Lent 2015, he attended Mass daily and at a different church each time; a total of 46 different churches in 46 days.

He is a well known supporter of West Bromwich Albion Football Club, where he is a season-ticket holder and presenter on some of the club's official DVDs. Both of his cars have WBA in their registration and he has a stained glass West Bromwich Albion crest above his door.

Chiles plays the double bass, as revealed when he dueted with violinist Nigel Kennedy playing "Fever" on The One Show. On 7 May 2008 his co-presenter on The One Show, Christine Bleakley, sang part of a song with Chiles accompanying on piano. He claims that his "Brummie" accent worked in his favour at the BBC.

Charity work

In March 2008, Chiles embarked on a charity cycling trip with footballer Alan Shearer from Newcastle upon Tyne to London via West Bromwich for Sport Relief. The duo raised £371,065 for their feat.

In 2010, Chiles grew a beard, which was later shaved off by his One Show co-host Christine Bleakley for Sport Relief, raising £60,000 in the process.