ITV News West Country: Meet the Team
* IAN AXTON
Ian is an award winning broadcaster and journalist. He started his career as a radio journalist and won the title BT Southern News Broadcaster of the Year. As well as reading news bulletins he presented a weekly current affairs programme and reported from Bosina at the end of the war. He moved from radio news to entertainment when he hosted a music and talk based breakfast show.
The programme received one of the highest percentage shares of radio listening in the UK. His team won a prestigious Sony Radio Award in 1999 and Ian has since been invited onto the panel of judges for the Sony Radio Awards. Ian's move into television came when he joined ITV Meridian as a producer and presenter. His series 'Meridian Missing' won him a Royal Television Society Award in 2004. He joined Meridian Tonight South-East in 2006 to anchor the programme.
He has presented the national news on ITV1 and reported from across the UK for ITV's Lunchtime News, Evening News and News at Ten as well as fronting other ITV shows, including 'Climate Change, Make a Difference' and 'The People's Millions' for ITV1 and 'The Boat Show' for ITV4. Ian grew up in North Dorset where he was an avid viewer of HTV and TSW.
You can follow Ian on Twitter.
* KYLIE PENTELOW
Kylie Pentelow is the co-anchor for ITV News West Country.
She previously presented for the BBC in the East Midlands and worked for the BBC in Oxford, Birmingham, Bristol and also reported for the BBC News Channel.
Kylie's work has spanned all areas of journalism - from breaking news to celebrity interviews, from studio presenting to live broadcasts. She has travelled across the world as a journalist, most recently as the US Correspondent for ITV Daybreak.
Kylie's first reporting job was for The Bath Chronicle and it was then that she discovered her love of the West and vowed to one day come back to live and work here.
When Kylie isn't sitting on the sofa with Ian Axton she loves nothing more than walking her retired greyhound Lulu.
You can follow Kylie on Twitter.
* ELLIE BARKER
Ellie Barker began her career in television at the very bottom making tea (although her family complain she still doesn't leave the bag in long enough). She grew up in Burnham Beeches in Buckinghamshire and had her first taste of the South-West when she went to the University of Bath to study Sociology. She had wanted to be a journalist since she was 12, and her first job was in London as a PA for Robert Kilroy-Silk on the Kilroy programme. She then went on to perfect the art of tea-making at GMTV, where she was a runner. Then she went to the Midlands with a Carlton traineeship and worked at Central TV.
Then it was West for her first appearance at the then HTV in Bristol before she went up north to Edinburgh to work as the Scotland Correspondent for GMTV. A stint in the east followed with a three year job in Cambridge at BBC Look East as a presenter/reporter. But then, due to a new husband and a love of the West, she returned to ITV in Bristol as a correspondent for The West Country Tonight. Now she is the face of our regional Daybreak bulletins. She is married to Wiltshire reporter Robert Murphy and they have a son, Arthur.
You can follow Ellie on Twitter.
* ALEX BERESFORD
Alex joined the team in August 2004 originally as an Autocue Operator for the 6 O' Clock News, before training to join the regional weather team. He's gone from strength to strength. "When we had the Floods in July 2007 and the snow in February 2009 we worked round the clock to keep on top of the developments fuelled on by adrenaline and excitement". He can also be seen presenting the ITV National Weather in London; which he says is a real honour. "It's great being called upon and I'm really thankful for the opportunity to work with the network team as well. It's like playing for your favourite club and then being picked for England".
Alex was also picked as one of 20 Black National Role Models by the Government to work with young Black boys and young Black men to encourage and raise aspirations.
You can follow Alex on Twitter.
* BOB CRAMPTON
It never rains but it pours. Since Bob took over the weather presenting job three years ago, that’s what seems to have happened! Until then it was Sunny… He was born in South Africa, but his parents returned to the UK when he had grown out of short trousers and the family settled in Plymouth. Bob’s father worked as a regional news anchorman for the BBC, so despite the warnings it was natural for him to go into the business. He started at The North Devon Journal in Barnstaple, then a spell reporting back in South Africa on the Soweto riots, before returning to Westward Television and later Television South West. Then it was on the A38 to Bristol and HTV West.
In 26 years only sweeping the floor has eluded him. He’s worked as a news reporter, a presenter, a producer and even directed the evening news. Memories so far? Coming face to face with the Taliban in Afghanistan after the Russian occupiers left; seeing Fred and Rosemary West's faces in court when they first faced mass murder charges in court; reporting on the Penlee lifeboat disaster, and presenting the weather forecast live dressed in knight's armour on St George's Day.
You can follow Bob on Twitter.