Tim Franks has presented Newshour, the flagship news and current affairs programme on the BBC World Service, since 2013. It has by far the biggest audience of any British radio news programme - a global and growing weekly reach of more than 20 million. It is syndicated coast-to-coast in the US on hundreds of public radio stations. Before that, Tim spent almost 20 years as a reporter. He cut his teeth reporting on the Troubles in Northern Ireland and ended up as the Today programme's special political correspondent.

Tim spent nine years as a foreign correspondent, based in the Washington, Brussels and Jerusalem bureaux, travelling across Europe and the Middle East. He's covered several major conflicts, from Iraq and Israel-Lebanon, to South Sudan and Ukraine. Tim won one of the most prestigious international war-reporting awards - the Bayeux - for his coverage of war in Gaza. Although he's now based in London, with Newshour, Tim does still regularly report from the field, and has co-presented the programme from locations as diverse as Managua, Beijing, Addis Ababa, Caracas, Washington DC, Berlin and Bujumbura.