Sam Nixon and Mark Rhodes, known collectively as Sam & Mark, or simply Smark, are an English popular music and television presenting duo. They previously competed on the second series of Pop Idol in 2003, where they finished third and second, respectively, behind winner Michelle McManus. Since then, Sam & Mark have had a successful career as TV presenters, hosting various BBC programmes such as TMi, Top of the Pops Reloaded and Copycats. Also they presented, and still do, a show called Sam and Marks' Guide to Dodging Disaster.
After Pop Idol, they decided to form a duet and signed with Simon Fuller, the man behind the Spice Girls' fame. They quickly released as a single a cover of The Beatles' song "With a Little Help from My Friends", released on Fuller's label 'S'. The song entered the UK Singles Chart at #1. The follow-up single "The Sun Has Come Your Way" released by UMTV, only reached Number 19 in the charts. Consequently, the pair were dropped from their record label.
Despite this reversal, the two have managed to carve a successful television career for themselves, hosting various programmes on the BBC, most notably Saturday morning children's shows TMi and Top of the Pops Reloaded. They made their national television debut on ITV1. Sam & Mark hosted CBBC's weekday morning breakfast show, Level Up for four months from 3 April 2006 to 1 September 2006. On 16 September 2006, they hosted the first episode of TMi, a new Saturday morning TV show for the BBC on BBC Two and the CBBC Channel, alongside presenter Caroline Flack. The third series of the show ended in December 2008 and the BBC have confirmed a fourth series of the Saturday morning series for CBBC. In 2007, Sam & Mark presented a show on CBBC called Do Something Different. Beginning on 3 January 2009, Sam and Mark's Who Wants to be a Superhero? began to air where children had to compete to be a new superhero for Stan Lee. They were also asked to perform on Children In Need 2007.