Jake Humphrey

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Jake Humphrey

Jake Humphrey is a British television presenter best known for his work on CBBC. Born on 7th October 1978 in Peterborough, U.K., he later moved to Norwich as a child with the rest of his family and attended the Hewett School. During his time at school he also worked as a paperboy and became interested in the media. His first proper job was working for Anglia TV as a runner, followed by transferring to Rapture TV where he presented the original incarnation of G@mers.

Though he failed an audition for CBBC's Blue Peter, he became a regular on CBBC in 2001, firstly as assistant presenter for "Against All Odds," a documentary show containing reconstructions of real-life action-packed events involving children, and later the sole presenter for Rule The School, a show in which children and teachers reversed roles. These shows led to him becoming one of the main studio presenters for CBBC in 2002, both on the terrestrial BBC channels, and the new CBBC digital channel. The same year also saw Humphrey become the main presenter of "Against All Odds" (which would cease in 2004) as well as a further series of Rule The School (which would cease in 2005). The final half of 2002 saw Humphrey's popularity boosted when he hosted the CBBC coverage of reality TV music show Fame Academy with fellow CBBC presenter Holly Willoughby. Over the years, Humphrey and Willoughby would become not just mere presenters, but an integral part of this project, partipating in many activities relating to the programme including learning to sing! They covered both series' of the programme for CBBC in 2002 and 2003, as well as the celebrity edition for Comic Relief in 2003. Humphrey also covered the 2005 celebrity Comic Relief edition with fellow CBBC presenter Sophie McDonnell since Willoughby had begun working for rivals CITV the previous year.

Since 2002 Humphrey's popularity has increased further and he is undoubtedly one of the most popular, long-standing members of CBBC. As well as further series' of "Against All Odds," "Rule The School" and the CBBC coverage of Fame Academy, he also presented The Saturday Show for the 2004 and 2005 series' with fellow CBBC personalities Angellica Bell and Simon Grant. His least favourite part of the Saturday Show was being sat in the gunge tank during Gunge GBH - when he occasionally lost the game he usually pleaded not to be gunged but was cruelly humiliated nonetheless. Mess was often found in this programme, and it certainly wasn't unusual to see Jake getting a custard pie in his face. He began presenting Newsround's new sister programme called Sportsround on 10 September 2005. On being appointed anchorman for Sportsround Jake said "I'm sports mad and it really is a dream come true to land this job". He likes beer, cake, Norwich City F.C. and his mum's cooking. Humphrey is also a match summariser for the BBCs football results service Final Score.

In November 2006 Jake's rise to stardom continued when he hosted popular BBC Sport programme Football Focus. Initially as cover for Manish Bhasin who is spending 8 weeks covering the Eng v Australia Ashes series. His first show was praised in The Guardian Newspaper as '...very assured and credible...'.