Leon Hawthorne
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Leon Hawthorne (born 11 January 1966) is a British television executive, journalist and presenter. He was a World News anchor for CNN (1996–1999) and a political correspondent for the BBC in Westminster (1999) before founding The Baby Channel, the world's first parenting television network, of which he was CEO until July 2008. From 2007, Hawthorne has focussed on creating niche TV channels for the Internet, including Beauty Zone TV, Book Zone TV and Theatreland TV.
Early life
Hawthorne was born in Bristol, England on 11 January 1966; and went to school in Cardiff and Oxford before going to the University of Liverpool at the age of seventeen (1983–1986) and graduating with a BA Combined Honours degree in Politics and Sociology. Whilst at university, he was Deputy Editor of the student newspaper, the Guild & City Gazette and active in student politics.
Career
Hawthorne's television career started in August 1989 when he joined Thames Television as a researcher on a business and economics show, The City Programme. A year later, he joined the BBC as an Assistant Producer on Business Breakfast and Breakfast News, where he began appearing on camera as a reporter. He moved to Bristol, joining the ITV franchisee HTV West in order to work full-time as a reporter and get more on-screen experience. Here he produced short films on local current affairs and presented HTV News. He created a weekly business programme, Money Week, which he presented. Hawthorne returned to London at the launch of
The Baby Channel
Hawthorne left the BBC to front World News for CNBC Europe in London, which gave him the time to develop a business plan for a new satellite television channel. In 2000,
In 2006, Hawthorne became CEO of Simply Media's channels and production business, where he launched Simply TV as a satellite entertainment channel. Simply also launched a raft of niche web TV channels including Beauty Zone, Health Zone, Food Zone, Astrozone (for astrology), Avenue 11 (a music and showbiz channel) and Simply Entertainment (movie news). Hawthorne also created Borders TV, a web TV service for the UK book retailer; Boots TV for the pharmacy retailer; and all of the video channels on iVillage UK.
Hawthorne sold his stake in both Simply Media and the Baby Channel and resigned in July 2008. Now[when?] working through his own small vehicle, Videobite, Hawthorne has launched Waterstone’s TV for the book retailer and created two channels of his own, Book Zone TV and a theatre channel, Theatreland TV.