Dermot O'Leary

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Sean Dermot Finton O'Leary (born 24 May 1973), better known as Dermot O'Leary, is a television and radio presenter.

Born in Colchester, England to Irish Catholic immigrants, he was an altar boy and attended Catholic schools. He studied for a BA degree in Media and Television, with modules in Politics at Middlesex University, gaining a 2:2. Dermot also attended the Sir Charles Lucas Art College in Colchester. He went onto study at Colchester Sixth Form College.

He started as a DJ with BBC Radio Essex before becoming a television runner and moving onto presenting at Channel 4, and was part of the original presenting line up of the channel's T4 strand, before moving on to present Big Brother's Little Brother (the companion show to Big Brother) on E4 from 2001 onwards. As of 2006, the show became less popular due to the huge success of fellow Big Brother sister show Big Brother's Big Mouth, hosted by Russell Brand.

He presented a Radio show for London's indie Rock station XFM throughout 2002. Dermot joined BBC Radio 2 in September 2004, presenting a Saturday afternoon show entitled Dermot's Saturday Club. From September 2005 onwards, he has presented a Saturday evening show for Radio 2.

The show was broadcast from 5-7pm on Saturdays, but from November 18th 2006 goes out from 4.30-6.30pm on BBC Radio 2.

In interviews (including two with the British newspaper, The Guardian), O'Leary has made it clear that he does not regard himself as English or British, but as Irish, and holds traditional Irish affinities: Guinness and Celtic and regularly travels to Ireland. He is also a committed Arsenal supporter, and hosted their 501 Arsenal Goals DVD.

His favourite magazine is Prospect and he is a dedicated campaigner for Make Poverty History, and visited Sierra Leone with CAFOD accompanied by his own father, Sean O'Leary. Dermot is also a patron of the male cancer awareness campaign, 'Everyman'

He ran the 2005 London Marathon (his third) under four hours for the first time.

Dermot currently presents the UK version of the game show 1 vs 100 - which is also combined with the National Lottery draws every Saturday (as of September 2006).