Nick Ferrari

Early life Ferrari's paternal grandparents emigrated from Switzerland. His father, Lino "Dan" Ferrari, ran a news agency, Ferrari Press Agency, and Nick was keen to work in the media himself. He was educated at Eltham College, a private school for boys in Mottingham in southeast London.

Career

Journalism

Ferrari became a news reporter on the Sunday Mirror in 1981 and subsequently a show business reporter at The Sun and editor of the paper's "Bizarre" gossip page. During this period, he interviewed Roger Moore on the set of the James Bond film Octopussy (1983) for The Sun and appeared as an extra in the movie. A friend of The Suns former editor Kelvin MacKenzie, Ferrari joined him at L!VE TV, where he devised such programmes as Topless Darts, and the weather forecast presented by a dwarf on a trampoline.

Radio Talk Radio Ferrari joined Talk Radio in 1999 as co-presenter of the Big Boys' Breakfast show with David Banks, The show was scheduled between 6 am and 9 am, and focused on entertainment, rather than news content. In late 1999, it was announced that the show would be cancelled as part of the relaunch of Talk Radio as Talk Sport to focus entirely on sports content.

LBC In 2001, Ferrari presented his first breakfast programme on LBC, taking on the role officially in 2004. The programme runs from 7 am to 10 am, taking the format of a news, political debate and discussion show, with the presenter introducing topics before discussing them with both members of the public and experts, via text messaging, email and phone, with the last of the three being the main mode of contact. The programme mixes both light entertainment stories and more serious topics in the news. Ferrari frequently asks first-time callers which station they previously listened to, rejoicing when they have left BBC Radio 4 or BBC London 94.9. Ferrari is also known for deliberately not mentioning the phone number to call the programme while presenting, as he believes it is an unnatural way to speak to listeners.

In the run-up to the 2017 general election, an interview with Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott on Ferrari's show made national headlines, after she had struggled to provide figures for police policy. When questioned on the policy, Abbott stated that 10,000 police officers would cost £300,000, before correcting this to £80 million. Ferrari questioned her further on this figure and pointed out that it would only allow for paying each police officer £8,000. In a subsequent article, Ferrari stated that he had banned Abbott from his show due to her failing to appear for previous scheduled interviews, and had only allowed her to feature to aid the balance of subjects interviewed on the programme. Ferrari was awarded the 2018 IRN Best Interview award for his role in interviewing Abbott. The judges praised him for "[representing] the role of listeners and voters brilliantly".

Television Ferrari presented the discussion programme Forum on Press TV, an Iranian news channel. He quit his show on the station on 30 June 2009 in protest at the reporting of the Iranian presidential election on 12 June 2009.

In 2006, Ferrari also made an appearance on the BBC/HBO comedy show Extras. as well as the Arqiva Breakfast Show of the year in 2010. Ferrari was also awarded the Sony Speech Broadcaster of the year in 2009. and the Arqiva Gold Award in 2010 for "outstanding contribution to the industry over the last twelve months". Ferrari indicated, however, that he would not stand, as he "did not want to leave the listeners". This role was eventually taken by Boris Johnson, who won the election.

Ferrari does not recycle, because the number of recycling bins means "you've lost your front garden", he told the BBC's Daily Politics in 2010.

Ferrari voted to Leave in the 2016 EU membership referendum, but did not agree with the government's settled status fee (which was later scrapped).

In September 2019, Ferrari said, after a visit to Israel, "I'd been given an insight into a country that I've always admired and I now revered".

Regulatory issues In 2003, the Broadcasting Standards Commission upheld a complaint against Ferrari, finding that his programme's "active reinforcement of prejudiced views about asylum seekers had exceeded acceptable boundaries for transmission." Following this, and at a time of frosty relations between Ferrari and the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, the Mayor wrote to the Managing Director of LBC 97.3 asking what measures had been implemented to ensure the situation would not arise again. Livingstone then appeared regularly on Ferrari's programme to answer questions from listeners.

In 2015, Ferrari was investigated by Ofcom after he said on his radio programme that the November 2015 Paris attacks were "a Muslim problem" and told a Muslim caller to "go some place else" if the caller did not agree with UK foreign policy. Ofcom found that Ferrari was not in breach of any broadcasting rules, saying "We found the caller was given an opportunity to rebuke Mr Ferrari's offensive comments, while two other callers also challenged Ferrari in strong terms. In addition, the presenter made clear that he was not characterising all Muslims as extremists or criminals."

Personal life Ferrari is a supporter of Leicester City.

He married Sally Templeton in 1985; the couple had two sons but later divorced. He married his long-term partner, Clare Goodwin, on 9 August 2025. He lives in Blackheath, London.