TV star is 'in the right place at the right time'

OLD Elizabethan Murray Dron has hit the big time. Until late last year, the 32-year-old was the presenter of Channel TV's Report Sport.

But he gave all that up, moved to London and after working for ITN, managed to land a plum job presenting on the new 24-hour Setanta Sports News channel.

'I'm absolutely thrilled,' said Dron.

'When I was at ITN I was reporting but not on air. When the opportunity arose to go back in front of the camera with a national broadcaster, I had to take it.

'I went for an interview and I got it.'

After boarding at Elizabeth College, the Jerseyman studied media at university before joining the Jersey Evening Post as a sports reporter.

He was also seconded for some time to the Guernsey Press.

'I wanted to be a sports writer from an early age,' he said.

He was at the Jersey paper for more than three years.

Then, in October 2003, he moved to Channel Television to host their weekly Report Sport show.

A natural in front of the camera, it was not long before Dron was also presenting the evening news.

But it was this move away from sport that eventually forced his hand.

'Channel was a really great place for someone to get a vast amount of experience of doing live television,' he said.

'But my passion was always sport and then I was becoming more involved with news. I decided I wanted to move back into sport but at a higher level at national and international rather than local.

'So I took a leap of faith and moved to London without a job but I had contacts at ITN.'

Dron went and saw the head of news at ITN, Jonathan Munroe, who gave him some freelance work as a sports reporter.

During his stint at ITN, Dron covered the cricket and rugby World Cups, Premier League football and the Tour de France among other things.

He also did Formula One and was working when Lewis Hamilton won his first race in Canada.

He got to meet the F1 star as well.

'Working for ITN was a real eye opener,' said Dron.

'My first day there I was sat at my desk watching the cricket World Cup and someone behind me asked me how the West Indies were getting on. I turned round and it was Sir Trevor McDonald.

'We then chewed the fat about West Indies cricket for 10 minutes.'

It was announced in September that ITN had won the contract to produce the new Setanta Sports News.

More than 60 jobs were created and after a successful interview, Dron found himself as a part of the small presenting team for when the channel launched on Thursday 29 November.

'Their set up date to get on air after winning the contract was 11 weeks and that is not a lot of time to set up a channel from scratch,' said Dron.

On their first day they were the first to interview Harry Redknapp following his arrest for alleged corruption in football.

And after a few teething problems, which can be expected for a brand new channel, SSN is now firmly up and running a 24-hour rolling news service.

'I'm enjoying life in London and I'm loving work at the moment and the chance to be at the start of a brand new channel is an opportunity that doesn't come round very often,' he said.

'I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time.'