In 2005, he was awarded BAFTA’s highest honour, the BAFTA Fellowship. He was honoured by the Museum of the Moving Image in New York in 1998 and by the Museum of Broadcasting in New York in 1999.
Born in 1939, Sir David was part of the Cambridge Footlights while at university and first made his name with BBC television's satirical That was the Week that was (TW3) in the early 1960s.
He went on to present a string of topical review programmes including The Frost Report where he first used the phrase "Hello, good evening and welcome".
He was later a co-founder and presenter of the UK breakfast television station, TV-am in 1983 and presented 500 editions of the Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost for the BBC.