Aasmah Saira Mir (/ˈæzməˈmɪər/Urdu: عاصمہ سائرہ میر; born 7 October 1971) is a Scottish television and radio broadcaster and journalist who co-presents the Monday-Thursday breakfast show on Times Radio.
Mir was born in Glasgow to first-generation Pakistani immigrants on 7 October 1971[2][3] and brought up in the affluent suburb of Bearsden from the age of ten, where she attended Bearsden Academy.[4][5][6] She graduated from the University of Bristol with an honours law degree in 1993.[7]
In 1995 Mir had a brief stint as a reporter for the Daily Record and Sunday Mail, then became a radio researcher. In 2005 and 2006 she was a columnist for the Sunday Herald.[7]
Mir, whose sister Uzma was already working for BBC Scotland, first appeared in an episode of a 1992 BBC Scotland show called The Insiders presented by Gordon Kennedy.[2] After graduation she joined Scottish Television aged 21 as a trainee and read the early morning news bulletins[2] and later presented the main news show.[2]
She presented a couple of editions of an Asian documentary strand for BBC Two called East[7] in 1996 and some items on Desi DNA.[7] In 1998 she became a reporter for Central TelevisioninNottingham.
Mir also presented episodes Just Write on Channel 4 and Around Scotland on BBC Two.[7] In 2010 she was a newspaper reviewer on GMTV with Lorraine and Lorraine.[4]
In 1999 Mir moved to London as a producer for BBC Radio London and started doing freelance news-reading shifts for the national radio station BBC Radio 5 Live. She joined the station full-time in July 2001.
Mir presented the Midday News on 5 Live, Monday to Friday, until 9 January 2009. In 2009 she presented some Friday editions of Good Morning Scotland.[2] Also in 2009 she presented a series of programmes for BBC Radio 4onScotland's Year of Homecoming,[2][8] as well as Colour Me White for Radio 4, and Gay Life After Saddam for Radio 5 Live. In 2010 she replaced Anita Anand as a presenter of Radio 5 Live's Drive programme. For one week in March 2012 she sat in for Jeremy Vine on his BBC Radio 2 programme.
On 27 September 2012 Mir announced on Twitter that she planned to leave BBC 5 Live after 11 years with the station. Mir presented her last 5 Live Drive on 9 November 2012. On 29 October 2012 Mir presented an edition of BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and for a while replaced Julia Hartley-Brewer on the LBC 97.3 afternoon programme.
From 2012 to 2020 she was a copresenter of BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live.[9]
In April 2020 she was announced as a presenter for Times Radio when the station launched on 29 June 2020. She copresents Monday to Thursday breakfast with Stig Abell.[10]
She was married to Piara Powar, the executive director of Football Against Racism in Europe.[12][13] She gave birth to a daughter at the age of 44. In 2021 Mir divorced Powar, stating that "this was my decision so I cannot wallow for too long".[1][14]
