Christopher was born on the Isle of Wight. He graduated with a BA Hons degree in human geography in 2004 and a Masters in television journalism in 2005 (he was tutored by former BBC TV News correspondent Barnie Choudhury).
Christopher began his broadcasting career in local TV, before joining the BBC in 2007, as a broadcast journalist on South Today. Later that year he joined the BBC News channel as a news journalist.
In 2009, he moved to work as a weather producer at the BBC Weather department based at Television Centre.
In February 2011, he moved to Glasgow to be a weather presenter on BBC TV’s Reporting Scotland, working alongside Judith Ralston, Stav Danaos and Cat Cubie.
In 2012, he assisted HRH The Prince of Wales presenting a weather segment during a royal visit to the BBC studios at Pacific Quay.
Like some other BBC regional weather presenters, Christopher had an attachment working in the BBC Weather Centre in London. He made his national debut on the BBC News channel on 28th October 2022 and appeared until 3rd November 2022.
He made his network BBC One debut on the BBC News at One, alongside by Reeta Chakrabarti, on 2nd November 2022. And in the early hours of 3rd November 2022, he presented the pre-recorded Weather for Week Ahead forecast at 2am.
He returned again to London to cover holidays, to present BBC One network weather forecasts, in August 2023, October 2023 and February 2024.
Correspondence
Paul R. Jackson corresponded with Chris in November 2022 and asked how his TV career began:
“I started my broadcasting career on the Isle of Wight. I worked at the local RSL terrestrial channel Solent TV, contributing to their nightly news programme Solent Tonight.
“It was a 20-minute programme solely about – and for – an Isle of Wight audience. It was a fairly unique operation at the time, and probably even by today’s standards.
“I worked there as a producer, reporter and news presenter – before being made news editor. Unfortunately the station and its parent company went into receivership in 2007 and I was made redundant.”
What did you do during your time with the BBC in Southampton?
“I did some occasional reporting, but I mainly worked on the TV planning desk, assisting the main programme TV team on the day and producing breakfast TV bulletins.”
Had you always been interested in the weather and what year did you join the BBC News channel as a weather producer?
“Yes I’d always been interested in weather, though I started my career in news and spent many years working in newsrooms before finding my path into weather.
“I did several Met Office courses whilst a producer at BBC Weather, aimed at the BBC’s Nations and Regions weather presenters.
“I moved to BBC Scotland in February 2011, where I took up the position of senior weather presenter.
“I believe my first on-air date was around 16th February 2011. It was a brand new weather team in Scotland at the time, as all the incumbents left to go on maternity leave within a few weeks of each other.
“The new team I headed consisted of myself, Stav Danaos (now a BBC network weather presenter) and Cat Cubie.”
Did you have much notice re the royal visit? Do you have any memories of the day and what was it like instructing the future King?
“We had about 7 days’ notice of the visit. Initially we weren’t going to be meeting him, just the news staff and the news presenter Sally Magnusson were.
“But the then Head of News, John Boothman, had the bright idea to get HRH to ‘have a go’ at presenting the forecast – and of course it went viral.
“So myself and my colleagues at the time, Gillian Smart and Stav Danaos were drafted in to help. Gillian wrote a script for him to read on the autocue, and I had to show him where to stand, which camera to look at, and how to work the weather clicker.
“Weather on the BBC doesn’t use an autocue script, but we thought it would be a bit mean to make him remember the whole forecast.
“We got Camilla to do the same and have a go, but most people forget that bit!
“He was extremely gracious and seemed very interested in what we did in our day job.
“I think he threw everyone slightly when in passing he commented that he and The Queen (QEII, no less) knew us all, as they tuned in to Reporting Scotland every day when in residence at Balmoral. No pressure.”
Do you have any anecdotes from either studio or locations where things went wrong?
“Things go wrong all the time! Mainly our graphics failing.
“Whist we do have a standby recording ready to play out, sometimes you just have to stand there and do the forecast in front of a blank screen.
“We don’t have any sort of script to read from, so that can be a challenge when there’s no weather charts to help guide you through.
“I’ve been lucky to do weather from all sorts of locations, one of the most memorable being the top of Cairngorm Mountain.”
Personal information
Clips of Christopher on The TV Room
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Online presence
Acknowledgements
PICTURED: Christopher Blanchett. COPYRIGHT: Christopher Blanchett.
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