Claudia Winkleman has announced she’s leaving BBC Radio 2.
The news came during her show on Saturday morning, saying she’s wanting to spend more time with her kids, and her last show will be in March 2024.
Romesh Ranganathan, who currently presents For The Love Of Hip Hop for Radio 2 and BBC Sounds each Saturday morning (midnight – 1am) will launch a new Saturday morning show (10am – 1pm) in April 2024.
Claudia says: “I absolutely love Radio 2 and it’s been a privilege to host the Saturday morning show for three years. I will miss our amazing guests, our brilliant listeners and the one and only Sally Traffic. The truth is my children are growing up inordinately fast so I have decided to follow them around at home before they leave for good. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who works on the show, I will continue to visit with badly made biscuits and will pester the bosses to present the odd special.
“I couldn’t be happier that Romesh is taking over Saturday mornings on Radio 2. He is brilliantly laugh out loud funny, and I’ll listen every single week as my kids beg me to leave them alone.”
Romesh says: “In my many years working as a maths teacher thinking ‘what would happen if I gave this up’, I never imagined I’d be sandwiched between Dermot O’Leary and Steve Wright on the UK’s most popular radio station every Saturday morning. I’m grateful to Claud for wanting to spend more time with her kids, and enabling me to spend less time with mine, and I look forward to finding out what the nation is up to at that time, as well as speaking to some familiar faces. It’s going to be fun. Probably.”
Claudia first joined Radio 2 in Spring 2008 to host Hot Gossip, a comedy quiz series, before moving to Friday nights to host the Claudia Winkleman Arts Show. In 2016, Claudia presented Claudia on Sunday (7-9pm) and then moved on to Saturday mornings in February 2021.
Romesh will continue to host For The Love of Hip Hop, which he launched in 2021, produced by Folded Wing, for Radio 2 and BBC Sounds.
Romesh Ranganathan will continue to be produced by TBI Media.
This story first appeared on radiotoday.co.uk