Bradford-born broadcaster Colin Brazier has left journalism after 40 years to pursue his “dream” of becoming a farmer.
Brazier signed off from his LBC show on Friday with the announcement that he was leaving the industry to study farming at the Royal Agricultural University, which is based in Gloucestershire.
He had presented LBC’s weeknight 10pm to 1am show for less than six months, signing up after he was shunted from his GB News show in a schedule shake up in September 2022. The presenter joined GB News at launch in June 2021 and served a stint in the 8pm slot vacated by Andrew Neil before moving to the 4pm drivetime programme at the start of 2022, when GB News launched its radio simulcast.
Prior to GB News the Emmy Award-winning, BAFTA and Royal Television Society-nominated presenter worked for Sky News for 24 years, for around the second half of that time as an anchor and before that in roles including Europe correspondent, political correspondent, and covering the royal beat and Iraq.
Brazier began his career in journalism at the Bradford Star in the 80s, and has also made several appearances as a newsreader in movies, perhaps most famously in the Bourne Legacy in 2012.
One of Brazier’s most memorable on-screen moments came when he looked through a victim’s suitcase at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines MH17 in July 2014. Ofcom described the move as a “significant lapse of judgement” that breached its code, but took no further action on account of the apologies that had already been issued by Sky and the presenter himself.
Brazier probably has fonder memories of Sky’s decision to nominate him for the RTS Presenter of the Year Award in the same year, or the 2016 Emmy Award he picked up for his coverage of the refugee crisis which saw him tear gassed by Hungarian police in the course of his reporting from the border with Serbia.
Brazier has already updated his X/Twitter profile to describe himself as a “Trainee tractor driver” although his LinkedIn still lists him as a “Presenter/Broadcaster.”
