He was the host of The Krypton Factor for its original 18-year run (1977–1995) and was the chief anchorman for the BBC regional news programme North West Tonight from January 1997 to October 2011.
Two years later, Burns began presenting the nightly news programme UTV Reports, first as a stand-in for regular frontman David Mahlowe and later as a chief anchor, during the early stages of The Troubles.
Burns's national profile began with his association of ITV's game show The Krypton Factor which he presented for eighteen years from 1977 to 1995.
During the 1980s Burns also reported from the political party conferences for the ITV network, and presented the Channel 4 current affairs series Irish Angle.
[5] He appears as a guest on the show when The Chain[6] reaches a significant milestone, for example, for the 5,000th (musically based) item on 3 March 2015 which was the single "Dancing Queen" by ABBA.