Julia Somerville

Julia Mary Fownes Somerville (born 14 July 1947) is an English consumer affairs journalist co-presenting the BBC One daytime television programme Rip Off Britain. She began her journalistic career with magazine publisher IPC and edited a computer group house magazine ITT Creed. She moved into broadcast newsreading and reporting, starting in radio and eventually moving to television where she was known, for many years, as a television newsreader and reporter for the BBC and Independent Television News (ITN). Somerville joined the BBC as a radio news sub-editor in 1972 and became Labour Affairs correspondent for BBC Radio 4 in 1981 before co-presenting the BBC Nine O'Clock News bulletin from 1984 to 1987. She joined ITN in 1987 as the reader of the ITN News at 12:30 lunchtime bulletin before becoming a co-presenter of News at Ten in 1989. Somerville co-presented News at Ten's short-lived analyst segment Focus on Britain in late 1992 until it was dropped from the bulletin. She presented the Yorkshire Television current affairs programme 3D from 1993 to 1998. Somerville left ITN in 2001 and rejoined the BBC in 2010 and began co-presenting Rip Off Britain.