Anne Diamond announces Breast Cancer diagnosis

Former ATV Today and BBC News presenter Anne Diamond has revealed she has been having treatment for breast cancer over the past six-months.

Speaking on GB News earlier this evening Anne revealed her absence from the debating channel had been due to a Brest Cancer diagnosis and not ‘a cruise’ as had been suggested by viewers on social media. Anne made her last appearance on the weekend breakfast show on the network on January 1st 2023.

Anne told Dan Wootton that her treatment is ongoing, however she is now well enough to return to work.

Anne Diamond was made an OBE in this years’ New Years Honours after campaigning to end cot death, following the tragic passing of her son Sebastian in 1991. Anne began her charity work after she and then-husband Mike Hollingsworth lost their son from sudden infant death syndrome (cot death). Later Anne teamed up with the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID), now known as The Lullaby Trust, and the Department of Health, to launch the successful Back to Sleep campaign.

Anne learned of her cancer diagnosis on the day she was told about her royal honour.

Anne Diamond in a Central News promotion, 1982.

Currently a breakfast host on GB News Anne will return to the broadcaster after a six-month absence for treatment this weekend. She will also appear later this year on ITV1 and STV in the documentary The Real Nolly about the life of ATV colleague Noele Gordon.

Diamond began her television career with BBC West as a reporter before switching to ATV Today and ATV News in Birmingham as a reporter and presenter. Anne remained with the Midlands ITV service when in 1982 it was relaunched as Central Television. She was to be one of the main hosts of the brand-new Central News East service from Nottingham however disputes with unions saw the show fail to air for over a year, in which time Anne departed for the fledgling breakfast service TV-am where she was reunited with former ATV colleague Nick Owen to form a ratings-winning television couple.

Nick Owen and Anne Diamond present Good Morning for BBC One. They had previously hosted Good Morning Britain for TV-am

Anne joined TVS as one of the regulars on The Television Show, and when it was revamped into TV Weekly she became its solo host.

Following the launch by ITV of This Morning in 1988, BBC One daytime was struggling in the morning ratings. Hoping to recapture the ratings hit of TV-am’s Good Morning Britain in 1991 the Beeb launched Good Morning with Anne and Nick. Again it was a hit with viewers, often toppling Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan’s ITV offering. However by 1996 the BBC were seemingly deliberately killing off their morning successes, and along with the Pebble Mill chat show the programme was chopped. In the years between Anne was a regular newspaper reviewer and an occasional talking head on Loose Women.