On the 15th of January 2026, ITV Sport confirmed Pete Graves as one of two lead presenters fronting its refreshed PDC darts coverage, sharing the role with the newcomer Gabriella Partington and replacing the long-serving Jacqui Oatley, who had departed the role after fronting the Players Championship Finals the previous November.
It was a rare piece of continuity in an ITV line-up that had turned over more or less completely, arriving after Graves had spent close to two decades building exactly the reputation that makes a broadcaster safe to keep.
Graves in the Media
Peter Graves made his ITV debut across the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia World Series double header in the January of 2026, before leading the network’s coverage of the Winmau World Masters at Arena MK in Milton Keynes from the end of the month. He fronts a punditry team built around the five-time World Championship semi-finalist Wayne Mardle, the former world champion Glen Durrant and the ex-Lakeside champion Mark Webster, with a commentary team led by Dan Dawson alongside the talkSPORT pairing of Mark Wilson and Ian Danter.
ITV Darts
It became a settled operation for a broadcaster who had been the newest name in the building more than once before. The role covers the full spread of ITV’s darts calendar, from the World Series events and the World Masters to the UK Open, the World Series of Darts Finals, the European Championship and the Players Championship Finals. It is a deal that runs until at least 2028, after ITV saw off interest from Channel 5 to keep the free-to-air rights. Graves and Partington are expected to alternate across that calendar, with Partington also carrying golf and snooker commitments.
Sky Sports
The fact that Partington will be seen elsewhere on the channel leaves Graves as the more consistently available face of the two in terms of the darts coverage. That was also true at Sky Sports, where Graves spent the better part of two decades. He joined Sky Sports News as a reporter in the February of 2009, moved into a presenting role that June and went on to anchor live football and rugby union matches whilst also co-presenting on Sky Sports News and Sky News. His PDC darts work for Sky ran alongside all of it.
Starting Out
That meant that by the time ITV came calling, he had already presented a World Masters once before, just for a rival broadcaster and a different generation of viewers. None of that experience explains why Graves became a broadcaster in the first place, which had rather more to do with Newcastle United than with darts. Early in his career, he was the club’s head commentator for Metro Radio, working alongside Mick Martin, before a move to Real Radio in 2007. He also wrote, produced and presented a one-hour programme marking Bobby Robson’s 75th birthday.
That was repeated on the former Newcastle and England manager’s death in the July of 2009, which is a detail that says more about where Graves’s loyalties sit than any darts commentary ever could. Few presenters move between three different Sky properties and a national radio station without ever really leaving the North East behind, and fewer still get handed a fourth broadcaster’s darts coverage as a reward for it. That, though, is a sign of just how talented Graves is at his job, that countless production companies have actively sought to give him work.
Life Outside of the Darts
Graves was born on the seventh of April 1982 in Hexham, Northumberland, and has described himself throughout his career as a lifelong Newcastle United fan, which makes his path into sports broadcasting seem less like a career plan and more like an extension of the same obsession. Commentating on every Newcastle match for Metro Radio was, by his own account, as close to a dream job as local broadcasting offered, whilst the Robson documentary in particular came from a true attachment rather than a commission handed to whoever was free that week.
It is that regional loyalty, carried through Real Radio, Sky Sports News, Sky’s football and rugby coverage and now ITV’s darts, that has helped him to build one of the most durable careers in British sports broadcasting. Graves has never been the biggest name in any building he has worked in, with Sky’s darts coverage having been fronted for years by bigger stars than him and ITV’s own line-up change being built around Gabriella Partington as much as around him, but he has outlasted plenty of colleagues who arrived with louder voices. That, in the end, tends to be the more useful skill.