Rob Burley

Rob Burley (born 1969) is an English television producer, currently the BBC's editor of live political programmes. He is the editor of The Andrew Marr Show, Politics Live, Newscast on television, Newswatch and The Westminster Hour.

Not to be confused with Rob Curley.
Rob Burley
Born1969 (age 51–52)[1]
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Nottingham
OccupationTelevision producer
EmployerBBC
Notable work
The Andrew Marr Show
Politics Live
The Andrew Neil Show
Newscast
Newswatch
The Westminster Hour

Biography

Burley grew up in the 1970s and 1980s and was interested in politics from a young age. He obtained a degree in American studies from the University of Nottingham.

He began his career as a researcher for the Labour Party Member of Parliament Paul Flynn. He joined ITV in 1996 and rose to become editor of their political shows The Sunday Edition and Jonathan Dimbleby. He also worked on Tonight, hosted by Trevor McDonald. He joined the BBC in 2008[2] and became executive editor of Question Time, deputy editor of Newsnight and assistant editor of BBC Breakfast. In 2018, he became the BBC's editor of live political programmes,[3] succeeding Robbie Gibb. The role is based in Westminster and led Burley to take responsibility for the programmes Daily Politics, Sunday Politics, This Week, The Westminster Hour and Newswatch.[4] When Daily Politics ended in 2018, Burley became editor of Politics Live, and later editor of The Andrew Neil Show and executive producer of the podcast Brexitcast on television.

The first episode of Politics Live generated criticism online because it featured a panel of five women. Burley said he had "zero shame" about the episode and that they had "invited people and they said yes and then we realised our best line-up was all female".[5]

Following a November 2019 edition of Question Time, claims arose that a Brexit and Boris Johnson supporter in the show's audience was Burley's son. The fact-checking organisation Full Fact said the false claim originated from a spoof Twitter account. The audience member's real identity was revealed to be a 19-year-old Conservative Party member, Layton J Smith.[6]

Brexitcast was renamed Newscast after the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union on 31 January 2020. The final edition of Brexitcast was released on 1 February 2020, with the first edition of Newscast airing on 6 February.

Burley lives in Brighton and supports Liverpool F.C.[1]

Bibliography
  • Burley, Rob; Maitland, Jonathan; Rhodes Byrd, Elana (2003). Eva Cassidy: Songbird: Her Story by Those Who Knew Her. Gotham Books. ISBN 978-1-59240-035-5.

References
  1. Walker, James (28 January 2019). "BBC Politics Live boss Rob Burley says balancing every show across political parties would be 'really boring'". Press Gazette. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  2. Simons, Ned (8 July 2017). "The Editor Of The Andrew Marr Show's Weekly One Man Twitter Battle Against Accusations Of BBC Bias". HuffPost UK. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  3. Wilson, Amy (15 February 2018). "Rob Burley named Editor of Live Political Programmes at the BBC". ResponseSource. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  4. Kakar, Arun (14 February 2018). "Andrew Marr editor to head up live political programmes at BBC as Victoria Derbyshire editor leaves for Channel 4 Dispatches". Press Gazette. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  5. Lyons, Kate (4 September 2018). "'Zero shame': Politics Live editor defends all-female line-up on new BBC show". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  6. Mayhew, Freddy (6 November 2019). "Claim Question Time put BBC editor's son in audience as Brexit supporter debunked as hoax". Press Gazette. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
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