Fred Dinenage


Frederick Edgar Dinenage MBE is an English television presenter, broadcaster and author. He has had a TV career spanning more than 50 years.

Early life and education

Dinenage was born in Birmingham. He was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School, an independent school in Portsmouth.

Career

Dinenage has appeared as presenter of many British television programmes, such as Tell The Truth, How and its successor How 2, as well as the BBC quiz show Pass The Buck and Gambit. He is also a newsreader, for many years presenting Meridian Tonight for ITV Meridian, alongside Debbie Thrower. He joined Meridian in 1993, though he was inherited as chief male news anchor of Meridian Tonight's predecessor programme Coast to Coast, on the TVS franchise which preceded Meridian. He co-hosted Coast to Coast alongside Fern Britton and Mai Davies, and Meridian Tonight alongside Natasha Kaplinsky, Debbie Thrower and Jane Wyatt.
Dinenage spent a brief period in the late 1970s covering regional sport for Yorkshire Television. He also appeared as a relief presenter of the networked ITV Saturday afternoon show, World of Sport, something which earned him an appearance on the children's Saturday show Tiswas. He also has his own weekly column featured on the magazine of the Southampton local newspaper Southern Daily Echo.
Alongside his television career, Dinenage has written several factual books, including ghosting on autobiographies My Story and Our Story for the Kray twins. He is a keen football follower and was on the board of directors at Portsmouth between 1998 and 2007. He was a team captain on the ITV game show Never Had It So Good, shown in 2002. He also narrated Driver's Eye Views for railway filming company "Video 125".
Dinenage became co-anchor of a new pan-regional edition of Meridian Tonight on Monday 9 February 2009, presenting alongside former South East anchor Sangeeta Bhabra. In February 2014 he celebrated his 50th anniversary as reporter/presenter with ITV, announcing that he hoped to continue broadcasting into the future. Fred Dinenage: Murder Casebook, a crime documentary series on 20th century murders was first broadcast on the Crime & Investigation Network in 2011.
His series 'Britains Most Evil Killers' has been criticised for its prurient and sensationalist nature, and has been investigated by Ofcom.
Dinenage was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Birthday Honours, for services to broadcasting.

Family

Dinenage's daughter Caroline is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Gosport and the current Digital and Culture Minister.