Pamela Ballantine

Pamela Ballantine is a television presenter and newspaper columnist from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who has hosted a range of UTV programmes for over 35 years. After completing a secretarial course at Belfast's College of Business Studies, she secured a post as a secretary at Downtown Radio. It was in this position that, by chance, she was called upon to stand-in to read her first live radio news bulletin when the regular presenters were out of the office covering stories. She was later headhunted by BBC Radio Ulster where she became a presenter on her own morning show, before becoming a continuity announcer at UTV, and later a newsreader. Since the 1980s, Pamela Ballantine has hosted various news, magazine, and game shows for UTV including UTV Life, Farming Life, Ulster Schools Quiz, and Hot Pursuits. Outside of her television career, Pamela has also starred in pantomimes, including playing the Fairy Godmother in a production of Cinderella at the Grand Opera House in 1998. In 2022, she was awarded a Special Lifetime Achievement Award by Women in Business at a ceremony in Belfast. 

This archive was kindly donated by Pamela Ballantine for the extraORDINARYwomen project at the Linen Hall Library and is comprised of newspaper articles and interviews.