Katy Hill is an English television presenter who has worked in TV and radio in the UK since 1995, best known for presenting the longest running children's programme Blue Peter and the BBC Children's Saturday flagship morning show Live & Kicking.
Early life and education
Born in Poole, Dorset, her father, Chris Hill, was then a curate at a local church. Hill has two siblings, an elder brother Simon and a younger sister Naomi. She gained 9 'O' levels and 4 'A' Levels at St. Edward's Church of England School in Romford, London, and worked in a record shop before she started presenting. Hill worked for free at the local radio station BBC Essex, to gain the experience required to become a presenter.
Career
Hill began her media career with voluntary work in Essex at EastWard Hospital Television, and presented Katy's Capers on BBC Essex, before transferring to Nickelodeon. Whilst working for BBC channel controllers and the Head of Children's Television as a secretary, she bombarded the editor of Blue Peter with showreels, which resulted in her winning an audition place. On 23 June 1995, Hill joined the Children's BBC TV programme Blue Peter and left on 19 June 2000. Her assignments included living in Mongolia with a family for a week, training with the England football squad for a World Cup special, joining the Cirque du Soleil and making things from yoghurt pots and sticky-backed plastic. She won the 2000 Children's BAFTA Award for Best Presenter, for her time on Blue Peter. She returned to Blue Peter for one episode on 30 March 2010 for the final programme to feature the dog Mabel. As a result of her work on Blue Peter, Hill also presented Live & Kicking, Top of the Pops, Football Fever and The Millennium Quiz Show with Michael Parkinson. She also presented the BBC's Holiday and went on to present the weekend breakfast show on 95.8 Capital FM. Hill has written for numerous magazines including a regular column for Cosmopolitan Hair & Beauty, Hello! and Closer. In both 2000 and 2001, she presented the final of BBC One's A Song for Europe, the competition to select the United Kingdom's entry for the annual Eurovision Song Contest. In 2004, she appeared on the Channel 4 reality TV show, The Games, in which she came overall second in the female contenders, winning five out of the seven required disciplines. After Neil Fox quit as the long-running host of the networked Hit40UK, Hill - previously one of his stand-ins - was recruited, initially to co-host with Simon Hirst aka "Hirsty", each Sunday, from the studios of Capital Radio in London. Hill chose to leave after a year due to other commitments, and Hirsty eventually went on to host the programme alone. She co-presented the concert held in Trafalgar Square where the host of the 2012 Olympics was announced, for which London was a candidate. When London was announced as the victor, Hill was seen cheering and shouting with joy with Olympian Kelly Holmes. She is the face of Arm & Hammer and has already done three campaigns for the company. In May 2010, Hill joined women's lifestyle website iVillage.co.uk as a weekly blogger. Katy now hosts her own lifestyle and parenting blog at www.katyhill.com In late December 2010, Hill acted as relief co-presenter on ITV's breakfast channel Daybreak. Between February 2015 and July 2017 she co-presented Heart Breakfast for Heart Radio in the Four Counties region with former Blue Peter colleague Stuart Miles.
Personal life
Hill married childhood sweetheart and record producerAndrew Frampton in 1999. The marriage lasted two years before they divorced. Hill then began dating fellow Live & Kicking TV presenter Trey Farley. They became engaged after he proposed to her while on holiday in Venice, and the couple married in Tuscany on 4 July 2004. They now live in Los Angeles, and have a daughter, Kaya Sky, born in 2006, and a son, Akira, born in 2007.
