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Presenter

From Countdown
Revision as of 20:45, 19 September 2008 by 90.199.30.106 (talk)
Richard Whiteley presented almost 4000 episodes.

A presenter is a professional TV personality that presents Countdown. There have been 4 major presenters in the history of Countdown, Carol Vorderman, Richard Whiteley, Des Lynam and Des O'Connor.

Carol has presented every episode, except for a few early episodes when the role of number-checker was split between her and Linda Barrett, and a Christmas special where she was a contestant against Richard Whiteley. Her job is to put up and announce the letters after the contestants requests them. She also writes down the solutions to the numbers games and often shows the correct solution if the contestants cannot solve it. Until 1989, Carol handled the numbers game only, with other hostesses, mainly Cathy Hytner, running the letters game, but she now does both. Since the death of Richard, she also introduces the guests instead of Des doing it.

Richard Whiteley, Des Lynam and Des O'Connor have all played the role of Countdown host. Their job is to link between Dictionary Corner and the contestants, by first prompting which contestant is to choose the letters or the numbers, then starting the clock, then asking the contestants for their words or solutions before finally throwing to Dictionary Corner to see if the words are valid. They have five minutes at the beginning of the show, often to read out a poem or a joke, and read out the two Teatime Teasers in between the breaks. Richard hosted the show between 1982 and 2005, presenting 3959 episodes before he passed away. Des Lynam took over in 2005 and only hosted 303 episodes. Des O'Connor took over in 2007 has now hosted more than 200 episodes.