Clare Balding to host weekly chat show on BT Sport

The Channel 4 racing anchor, who was lauded for her presenting work on 2012’s Olympic and Paralympic Games, will host and co-produce a new weekly magazine show for BT Sport featuring interviews and discussion of major sporting issues.

Talking about the new show, Balding said: “I’d like to thank BT for giving me the opportunity to present my own magazine show featuring interviews with iconic sports stars and sports discussion.

“I’m enthused by BT’s vision for sports coverage in the future and particularly their support of women’s sport, an issue about which I feel very strongly. This is an exciting new venture for me and I can’t wait to get started.”

Simon Green, BT’s head of sport, added: “We’re thrilled to have signed Clare for BT Sport. She excels at presenting a variety of different sports and she showed last summer what an accomplished live performer she is, so we wanted to give her an opportunity to anchor her own weekly flagship show for BT Sport.

“She shares our desire to highlight more women’s sports on our channels, so she’s the perfect choice.”

BT Sport, a new stable of channels which will launch this summer, has acquired the rights to show 38 live Premier League football games, including 18 of the “top clashes”, for three years from August 2013. The channels will also air 69 live rugby union games and up to 800 hours of women’s tennis.

In addition to her BT Sport show, Balding will continue to present programmes for both Channel 4 and the BBC.

Balding is currently Channel 4’s main racing presenter and also hosts the Saturday evening game-show Britain’s Brightest on BBC1.

BBC Formula One presenter Jake Humphrey was also recently announced as one of BT Sport’s line-up of presenters.