Sir Terry is still top of the pops with fellow presenters

Terry Wogan has been voted the best radio presenter of the last half century, in a poll of BBC colleagues to mark the 50th anniversary this week of Radios 1,2,3 and 4.
By The Newsroom
Published 26th Sep 2017, 01:00 BST
Updated 26th Sep 2017, 10:22 BST
Sir Terry WoganSir Terry Wogan
Sir Terry Wogan

Sir Terry hosted the Radio 2 breakfast show for a total of 28 years, in two stints.

His successor, Chris Evans, whose £2m earnings put him at the top of the corporation’s list of most highly paid staff this year, placed only 26th on the poll of his peers.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

John Peel was rated second, ahead of Woman’s Hour host Sue MacGregor and Annie Nightingale, the first female presenter on Radio 1.

Kenny Everett is the only other disc jockey in today’s top ten, which includes Alistair Cooke, whose weekly Letter From America was a fixture on Radio 4 and its predecessor, the Home Service.

The list also includes news presenters Jane Garvey, Eddie Mair and Jenni Murray, and the former bandleader Humphrey Lyttelton, who hosted Radio 4’s comedy I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue for 35 years until his death in 2007.

Also listed were Melvin Bragg at number 14, Victoria Derbyshire at 35, Graham Norton at 39, Sandi Toksvig at 44 and Paul Merton at 47.

The poll took in the votes of some of the BBC’s best known broadcasters, including John Humphrys, Jeremy Vine, Steve Wright and Kirsty Young.

Related topics:Terry WoganBBCRadio 4