BUERK: I’D BE GREAT ON TRAITORS AFTER WORKING FOR BBC...

Ex-newsreader eyes reality TV role

VETERAN broadcaster Michael Buerk reckons his decades at the BBC would make him a perfect fit for a stint on the traitors.

The 77-year-old former newsreader says of the hit back-stabbing reality show: “If you survive 50 years at the BBC, you can stab people in the front.”

Michael reveals he has turned down several offers to appear on Strictly Come Dancing. But he says he would love to appear on a proposed celebrity version of The Traitors, Claudia Winkleman’s other reality series.

Michael, who hosts Radio 4’s The Moral Maze, says: “I do think it will fit my skillset, being treacherous.”

He adds he is happy to leave the dancing to newsreader pals such as Angela Rippon and John Sergeant, both 79 – who have appeared on Strictly.

Michael says: “I am the only one who hasn’t done it. I have been asked four, five times maybe. But I can’t dance. There is an element of humiliation there but I can handle that.

“The small problem is that there is a strategy about these things and I kind of think the only role I could play is the bumbling, knob-footed idiot. It has been done. John Sergeant did it.

“I don’t feel there is a gap for me. I would be a gap you see, and not a star.

I think I will save the public from the embarrassment.

“I believe it is intense. I did cast an eye over it in earlier years. And it did seem to be hard work.

“I thought the whole point of reality TV was that you just hung around, showed off, got humiliated, well paid and buggered off.

“But Strictly Come Dancing struck me as a bit more effort.”

Michael worked on the news on BBC1 from 1976 to 2003, having joined the broadcaster in 1970.

Treachery fits my skillset.. after 50 years at the BBC, you can stab people in the front

Michael Buerk on appearing on a celebrity edition of the traitors