Chris Evans has announced on the Radio 2 breakfast programme that his last scheduled show is 21st December, but he would ideally like to end with a Christmas Eve special. This is after eight years as the main presenter of the breakfast show after taking over from Sir Terry Wogan, and 13 years at the Radio 2 station. He broke the news this morning to around nine million listeners, saying that, “I’m going to leave. I’m leaving Radio 2”. He then played The Beatles’ ‘Twist and Shout’ and added that, “You have to keep shaking it up.”
During his time at Radio 2, Evans has also presented The One Show and the Top Gear relaunch in 2016, which received poor reviews. However, this didn’t seem to affect his ratings at Radio 2; he was not only the second highest-paid star at the BBC with a salary of £1.6 million, but also had the most listeners of any UK radio programme.
A further announcement was then made that Evans will be moving to Virgin Radio, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Group. The digital station has around 400,000 weekly listeners compared to Radio 2’s 15 million.
It has not yet been announced who is to be Evans’ successor, but names that have been suggested so far include Zoe Ball, Sara Cox, and Simon Mayo.
Click on the link below to hear how Evans announced that he is to leave Radio 2:
