Strictly ballroom Bill

Bill and Karen are training four hours a day

You can't say that Breakfast's Bill Turnbull doesn't like a challenge.

He's taken part in the London Marathon in fancy dress and danced for Children in Need.

Now we can reveal that he's one of the twelve competitors to take part in the new series of the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing which starts on 15 October.

And he joined Natasha and Dermot in the Breakfast studio on Monday, along with his professional dancing partner Karen Hardy.

You can watch Bill in the studio and catch a short demonstration of his fancy footwork after a few training sessions

Bill said that the training was already beginning to take over his life, but he was still keen to show what he had learnt already.

Of course this is not the first time Breakfast has been represented on Strictly Come Dancing.

Natasha won the very first series with her dance partner Brendan Cole, but this year's expanded competition will see 12 couples competing against each other in the run up to Christmas.

You can find out about all the couples, and previous competitions from the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing website:

Strictly Come Dancing

But in an ironic twist to this year's dance-off, Bill will have to compete against rival breakfast television presenter Fiona Phillips from GMTV.

And while that might motivate Bill, he says his strategy is to take things one round at a time.

He's already been practising four hours a day and that's on top of his early starts when he presents Breakfast from Friday to Sunday.

Even on those days, the work goes on, despite starting at 5am.

"Everyone thought it would be a good idea" said Bill adding that it had been hard to concentrate when presenting the programme.

Bill said he had sounded out Natasha who told him to do it, and said she would help him along the way: "The competition is going to be very hot, including Olympic athlete Colin Jackson" added Bill.

Describing his professional dance partner Karen, Bill said she's like Mary Poppins:

"Very kind but firm, like Mary Poppins... but stricter; she's got an amazing international reputation."

We'll be following Bill's progress over the coming week's, Strictly Come Dancing starts on BBC One, Saturday 15 October