Presenter CV Examples & Writing Guide

One page, built for a news editor or programme controller who will watch 40 seconds of your showreel before reading anything. The name and stations are invented. The hours, audience figures and segment counts are the sort of numbers you can get from your programme logs and audience reports.

For presenting work, the tape decides. Your CV exists to get the showreel opened and to explain what the showreel does not show: the formats you can hold, how long you have done it and how much of the show you run yourself.

• Put the showreel link in the contact line, not at the bottom. Use a plain URL that works on a phone.
• Lead the showreel with you on air, live, in the format you are applying for. A 20-second montage of graphics loses the viewer before you speak.
• Keep it to 2 to 3 minutes for news and 90 seconds for entertainment or lifestyle work, then keep longer full segments in a second link for anyone who wants them.
• Label the clips on your CV where it helps: 'showreel includes a live weather insert, a two-way with a reporter and a studio interview'.
• If you host podcasts or a stream, give the show name and the audience number rather than a follower count alone.
• Never send an unlisted file that expires. Host it somewhere permanent and keep the same address on every application.

• Live hours. Anyone can look good in an edit. Live presenting, live outside broadcasts and continuous streaming are what prove you can hold air when something breaks.
• How much you do alone. Self-shooting reporting (video journalism), self-opping the desk, editing your own clips and writing your own copy all raise your value in a small newsroom.
• Format fit. News, sport, lifestyle, radio drivetime, shopping channel, corporate video and live game presenting are separate skills. Say which one you are applying for and shape the top of the page to match.
• Audience numbers. Average audience, weekly reach, concurrent viewers, monthly views. Media people think in these units and almost nobody puts them on a CV.
• Availability and location. Early mornings, weekends, bank holidays and relocation. A breakfast show hire lives on a 3.30am alarm and the editor wants to know you understand that.

“The showreel gets you looked at, the CV tells me whether you can survive a shift. I want live hours, whether you write your own copy and whether you have been on air when something went wrong. A page of adjectives about being passionate and dynamic gets nothing from me.”

'Excellent communication skills' is the least useful line in this trade, because every applicant claims it and it is the job itself. Replace it with equipment, systems and formats.

• On-air craft: live presenting, ad-lib, autocue reading, talkback earpiece work, two-ways with reporters, interviewing, panel moderating, crowd and event hosting, voiceover and commercial reads.
• Newsroom and studio systems: iNews or ENPS, radio automation such as Zetta, WideOrbit or RCS, playout systems and vision mixers, Adobe Audition or Pro Tools, Premiere Pro for your own clips.
• Field and self-shooting: DSLR or mirrorless camera, lav and shotgun mics, lighting for a self-tape, live streaming setups, mobile reporting apps.
• Editorial: news writing, media law (defamation, contempt of court) and Ofcom Broadcasting Code awareness, fact-checking, show prep, running order and clock discipline.
• Audience work: social publishing, vertical clip editing, community management, reading analytics for reach and completion.
• Languages, accents and regional knowledge, especially bilingual presenting, which pays and travels well.

Live game presenting is one of the few presenting jobs that hires in volume and trains from scratch. Studios run 24 hours, so they screen for camera presence, energy at 4am and reliability, and they will teach you the game rules.

• Say plainly that you can work rotating shifts including nights, weekends and bank holidays. This decides more applications than presenting talent does.
• Any customer-facing role counts: bar work, front of house, retail, cabin crew, teaching, tour guiding, croupier work. Give the volume of people you dealt with per shift.
• Languages are money here. List every language you can present in and your level honestly, because the audition will test it.
• Mention comfort on camera for long stretches and any streaming, acting, dance, modelling or theatre background.
• If you have already worked in a studio, give rotation length, rounds per shift, concurrent viewers and your quality review scores.
• Studios run identity and background checks, and gambling regulators set their own rules for staff in some roles. Say if you already hold any gambling licence and check what the regulator requires where the studio operates.

Nobody is hired straight into a presenting chair, but the entry routes are real and they all leave evidence you can put on a page.

1. 1Make tape. Student radio, community radio, a student TV station, a podcast with a real publishing schedule, a local sports stream. Two months of weekly shows gives you both experience and a showreel.
2. 2Take the job next to the microphone. Broadcast assistant, production runner, promotions team, camera operator. Stations promote from inside constantly, and you learn the clock.
3. 3Self-shoot three pieces to camera: a news read, an interview and an unscripted piece. It is the standard homework a producer will set anyway.
4. 4Write the entry-level CV around hours and formats, not titles: '80 hours of live student radio across 2 years' beats 'passionate about broadcasting'.
5. 5Say your availability for overnights and weekends, which is where first shifts are handed out.
6. 6Keep the page to one side and put the showreel link at the top, exactly as an experienced presenter would.

• One page. Media hiring managers read fast and they are going to watch the showreel anyway.
• PDF, single column, plain headings. Do not build the CV as an image; applicant tracking systems cannot read it.
• On a UK CV you do not attach a photo or a date of birth, and you leave out marital status. On-camera work is the one field where a headshot is normal, but it belongs with your agent's materials or as a separate file if the casting call asks for one, not embedded in the CV.
• In the US this document is called a resume and the job title is often host or anchor; the structure above still works, just switch to US spelling and conventions if you are applying to US stations.
• Group short freelance gigs under one heading, such as 'Freelance hosting, 2023 to 2025', then list clients and formats below it, so the page does not look like job-hopping.
• Give the station or programme name and whether it is local, regional or national for broadcast roles. People in this industry read reach as a level.