Janet Street-Porter CBE
Street-Porter onLoose Women in 2024
Born	Janet Vera Bull (1946-12-27)27 December 1946 (age 79)[1] Brentford, Middlesex, England
Education	Lady Margaret School
Alma mater	Architectural Association School of Architecture
Occupations	Broadcaster journalist writer producer media personality
Years active	1967–present
Spouses	Tim Street-Porter ​ ​ (m. 1967; div. 1975)​ Tony Elliott ​ ​ (m. 1975; div. 1977)​ Frank Cvitanovich ​ ​ (m. 1979; div. 1981)​ David Sorkin ​ ​ (m. 1997; div. 1999)​ Peter Spanton ​ (m. 2026)​
Janet Street-Porter's voice from the BBC programmeDesert Island Discs, 23 November 2008[2]
Website	Official website

Janet Vera Street-Porter (néeBull; born 27 December 1946) is an English broadcaster, journalist, writer and media personality. She began her career in 1969 as a fashion writer and columnist at theDaily Mail and was appointed fashion editor of theEvening Standard in 1971. In 1973, she co-presented a mid-morning radio show withPaul Callan onLBC.

Street-Porter began working on television atLondon Weekend Television in 1975, first as a presenter of a series of mainly youth-oriented programmes. She was the editor and producer of theNetwork 7 series onChannel 4 in 1987, and served as aBBC Television executive from 1987 until 1994. She was an editor ofThe Independent on Sunday from 1999 until 2002, but relinquished the job to becomeeditor-at-large.

Since 2011, Street-Porter has been a regular panellist on theITV talk showLoose Women. Her other television appearances includeQuestion Time (1998–2015),Have I Got News for You (1996–2025),I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! (2004),Deadline (2007),Celebrity MasterChef (2013), andA Taste of Britain (2014). Street-Porter was appointed aCommander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the2016 Birthday Honours for services to journalism and broadcasting.

Street-Porter was born inBrentford,Middlesex (now in theLondon Borough of Hounslow). She is the daughter of Stanley W. G. Bull, an electrical engineer who had served as a sergeant in theRoyal Corps of Signals in theSecond World War, and Cherry Cuff Ardern (née Jones), who wasWelsh^[3] and worked as aschool dinner lady and in the civil service as a clerical assistant in a tax office.^[4] Her mother was still married to her first husband, George Ardern, at the time, and was not to marry Stanley Bull until 1954, hence Street-Porter's name being recorded as Ardern in the birth records. She was later to take her father's surname.^[4]

Street-Porter grew up inFulham,West London, andPerivale,Middlesex; the family moved there when she was 14. They stayed in her mother's home town ofLlanfairfechan inNorth Wales for their holidays.^[4] Street-Porter attended Peterborough Primary and Junior Schools inFulham and Lady Margaret Grammar School for Girls (nowLady Margaret School) inParsons Green from 1958 to 1964, where she passed eightO-levels and threeA-levels in English, History and Art. She also took an A-level in pure mathematics, but did not pass the exam. Whilst studying for her A-levels, she had an illegal abortion.^[5] She then spent two years at theArchitectural Association School of Architecture, where she met her first husband, photographer Tim Street-Porter.^[4][6]

Street-Porter began her career as a fashion writer and columnist on theDaily Mail, and was appointed as the newspaper's deputy fashion editor in 1969 byShirley Conran.^[7] She became fashion editor of theEvening Standard in 1971.^[6] When theLondon Broadcasting Company (LBC) local radio station began to broadcast in 1973, Street-Porter co-presented a mid-morning show withFleet Street columnistPaul Callan.^[8] The intention was sharply to contrast the urbane Callan and the urban Street-Porter. Their respective accents became known to the station's studio engineers as "cut-glass" and "cut-froat". Friction between the ill-matched pair involved constantone-upmanship.

In early 1975, Street-Porter was launch editor ofSell Out, an offshoot of the London listings magazineTime Out, with its publisher and her second husband,Tony Elliott. The magazine was not a success.^[9]

Street-Porter began to work in television atLondon Weekend Television (LWT) in 1975, first as a reporter on a series of mainly youth-oriented programmes, includingThe London Weekend Show (1975–79), then went on to present the late-night chat showSaturday Night People (1978–80) withClive James andRussell Harty. She later producedTwentieth Century Box (1980–82), presented byDanny Baker.^[6]

Street-Porter was editor of theNetwork 7 series onChannel 4 from 1987, which was awarded aBAFTA for its graphics the following year. Also in 1987,BBC2 controllerAlan Yentob appointed her to become head of youth and entertainment features, making her responsible for the twice-weeklyDEF II. She commissionedRapido andRed Dwarf,^[10] and cancelled the long-running music seriesThe Old Grey Whistle Test.^[11]

In 1992, Street-Porter provided the story forThe Vampyr: A Soap Opera, theBBC's adaptation ofHeinrich August Marschner's operaDer Vampyr, which featured a new libretto byCharles Hart. Street-Porter's approach did not endear her to critics, who objected to her diction and questioned her suitability as an influence on Britain's youth.^[10] In her final year at the BBC, she became head of independent commissioning. She left the BBC forMirror Group Newspapers in 1994 to become joint-managing director, withKelvin MacKenzie,^[10] of the ill-fatedL!VE TV channel. She left in October 1995, four months after L!ve had begun broadcasting.^[6] In 1996, Street-Porter established her own production company. Since that year, Street-Porter has appeared several times on the BBC panel showHave I Got News for You and topical debate seriesQuestion Time.

In 2000, Street-Porter was nominated for the Mae West Award for the Most Outspoken Woman in the Industry atCarlton Television's Women in Film and Television Awards.^[6] In 2007, Street-Porter starred in anITV2 reality show,Deadline, serving as a tough-talking editor who worked with a team of celebrity "reporters" whose job it was to produce a weekly gossip magazine. She decided each week which of them to fire.^[12]

In 2011, Street-Porter became a regular panellist onITV's chat showLoose Women. In 2013, she appeared inCelebrity MasterChef reaching the final three, and returned again for a Christmas special in 2020, in which she was crowned the winner.^[13] She also appeared on the television showQI. Street-Porter co-hostedBBC One cookery programmeA Taste of Britain with chefBrian Turner, which ran for 20 episodes in 2014.^[14]

Street-Porter has appeared on many reality TV shows, includingCall Me a Cabbie andSo You Think You Can Teach; the latter saw her trying to work as a primary school teacher.^[15] She conducted numerous interviews with business figures and others forBloomberg Television.^[15]

Street-Porter became editor ofThe Independent on Sunday in 1999. Despite derision from her critics, she took the paper's circulation up to 270,460, an increase of 11.6 per cent.^[6] In 2001, Street-Porter became its editor-at-large, as well as writing a weekly column and regular features.^[16][17]

Following thedeath of Ian Tomlinson, Street-Porter dedicated her editor-at-large column inThe Independent on Sunday to painting a picture of Tomlinson as a "troubled man with quite a few problems":

Knowing that he was an alcoholic is critical to understanding his sense of disorientation and his attitude towards the police, which might on first viewing of the video footage, seem a bit stroppy.^[18]

A rambler, Street-Porter was president of theRamblers' Association for two years from 1994. She walked across Britain fromDungeness in Kent toConwy in Wales for the television seriesCoast to Coast in 1998.^[6] Street-Porter also walked from Edinburgh to London in a straight line in 1998, for a television series and her book,As the Crow Flies.^[19] In 1994, for the documentary seriesThe Longest Walk, Street-Porter visited long-distance walkerFfyona Campbell on the last section of her round-the-world walk.

In 1966, Street-Porter appeared as an extra in the nightclub scene inBlowup, dancing in a silver coat and striped trousers. In 2003, she wrote and presented a one-woman show at theEdinburgh Festival titledAll the Rage.^[20] She published the autobiographicalBaggage in 2004, about her childhood in working class London. Its sequel is titledFallout.^[20]Life's Too F***ing Short is a volume which presents, as she puts it, her answer to "getting what you want out of life by the most direct route."

Street-Porter has been married five times. While studying architecture she married fellow student and photographer Tim Street-Porter,^[6] with whom she stayed until 1975 when she went on to marryTime Out editorTony Elliott. Her third marriage was to film directorFrank Cvitanovich, who was 19 years her senior, before a brief marriage in her fifties to 27-year-old David Sorkin. Before marrying Sorkin, she lived withDEF II presenterNormski for four years.^[22] In 1999, she began a long-term relationship with restaurateur Peter Spanton, who became her fifth husband on 31 January 2026. She has no children but has spoken frankly about having twoabortions in the 1960s.^[23]

She currently lives inHaddiscoe^[24] inNorfolk, as well as inKent and London. She previously had a home inNidderdale,North Yorkshire.^[25][26] An active member of the Nidderdale community, she contributed her time and energy to a number of local causes. She was the president of the Burley Bridge Association, leading a campaign for a crossing over theRiver Wharfe, linking North andWest Yorkshire.^[27]

During theCOVID-19 pandemic, Street-Porter regularly appeared as a guest onThis Morning to review the political decisions taken by the government, alongsideMatthew Wright, via video call from her home in Kent.^{[citation needed]}

Street-Porter was diagnosed withbasal-cell carcinoma, a type ofskin cancer, in January 2020. On 23 June 2020, she announced the news onLoose Women (from home, via video call, owing toCOVID-19 restrictions).^[28]

• Scandal! (1981)
• The British Teapot (1983)
• Coast to Coast with Janet Street-Porter (1998)
• As the Crow Flies: A Walk from Edinburgh to London - in a Straight Line (1998)
• Baggage: My Childhood (2004)
• The Walk of Life (2005)
• Fall Out (2007)
• Life's Too F***ing Short (2008)
• Don't Let the B*****ds Get You Down (2009)

Street-Porter was appointedCommander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to journalism and broadcasting.^[29]

• Janet Street-Porter atIMDb
• Janet Street-Porter at theBFI'sScreenonline
• Official website
• Desert Island Discs episode, BBC Radio 4, November 2008
• Janet Street-Porter 2008 Interview

• 1946 births
• Living people
• Alumni of the Architectural Association School of Architecture
• BAFTA winners (people)
• BBC executives
• British women autobiographers
• British women television producers
• Channel 4 people
• Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
• Daily Mail journalists
• English autobiographers
• English columnists
• English fashion journalists
• English people of Welsh descent
• English television executives
• English women columnists
• English women journalists
• English women newspaper editors
• English women television presenters
• English women television producers
• ITV people
• Journalists from London
• People educated at Lady Margaret School
• People from Brentford
• People from Fulham
• People from Parsons Green
• People from Perivale
• People from South Norfolk (district)
• Television personalities from the London Borough of Hounslow
• Television producers from London
• The Independent on Sunday editors
• Walkers of the United Kingdom
• Writers from the London Borough of Ealing
• Writers from the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
• Writers from the London Borough of Hounslow

• Webarchive template wayback links
• All articles with dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from February 2015
• Pages containing London Gazette template with parameter supp set to y
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use British English from December 2021
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Use dmy dates from March 2021
• Articles with hAudio microformats
• Articles with hCards
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from May 2025