Legendary ITV broadcaster Roger Cook dies aged 83
Roger Cook, the award-winning investigative journalist who fronted ITV's The Cook Report, died on 13 June 2026 aged 83 after a short illness, his family and ITV said. Born on 6 April 1943 in New Zealand, Cook built a reputation for confronting scammers and rogue traders on camera and for doorstepping subjects. His career earned a BAFTA special award and included notorious moments such as a 1981 Newsnight clip where an antiques dealer struck him with a metal bar. Cook transformed British investigative TV with hard-hitting consumer investigations that exposed scams and chart-fixing and influenced generations of reporters.
Sad news. The Cook Report was extreme TV journalism. I've never seen anything else like it. The people and stories Cook unearthed were so outrageous that the first time I saw a clip from one episode I mistook it for Brass Eye. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Chris Baraniuk9No question that Brass Eye riffed on it, of course. But Cook was the real deal! He faced personal injury and very serious threats doing his work. Lifted the veil on some extremely shady criminal activity, and I don't think we have an equivalent lens today, tbh.
Whisperin’ Bob Chuckle Snr2He had balls of steel
