Nikki Bedi

Nikki Bedi is an international television and radio broadcaster with a passion for making arts and culture accessible. She has covered the arts across the globe for over two decades and interviewed some of the world’s biggest names and talents, celebrities and industry heavyweights.

Nikki currently curates, writes and hosts The Arts Hour, the BBC World Service’s flagship arts and culture program, which provides global arts coverage, with a range of film, culture and entertainment stories. Over the last few years she has been to thirty different cities across the world with The Arts Hour on Tour - bringing the country’s biggest and brightest artists, actors, authors, musicians, comedians, directors, architects, poets, choreographers together for a spirited debate before a live audience.

Nikki describes herself as ‘glocal’, with her work both global and local, and as ‘Indo-Anglian’. Born to an Indian father and English mother, Nikki actually began her career in Mumbai as both a stage and film actress and worked with some of India’s finest directors.

Nikki’s foray into the world of presenting came when the UK’s Channel 4 gave her a talk show in 1994, Bombay Chat. Its success prompted Star TV in Asia to give her a primetime chat show called Nikki Tonight in 1996, which became Asia’s most widely viewed and also most controversial talk show.

After spending time living in Los Angeles, Nikki returned to the UK to become the face of Universal’s film channel, The Studio, hosting their flagship movie show and also presented the live daily movie show Worldwide Screen on NOW TV. She joined the BBC as a presenter in 2003 and has rarely been off their airwaves since hosting all kinds of TV and radio shows.

Recent BBC television work includes The Road To Englistan, a special in-depth television interview with actor Riz Ahmed in New York and the topical arts and entertainment program Front Row. Nikki also hosts a Sunday morning show on BBC Radio London, is a regular interviewer and presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Loose Ends.