It was announced on September 7: Terry Wogan is due to step down from presenting the long-running Wake up with Wogan breakfast show at the end of the year and Chris Evans will be moving to the slot from his present Drivetime show, also on Radio 2.
Both have big fan bases but Wogan’s is bigger. Chris has five million regular listeners and Wogan has eight million. The BBC presumably hope that Evans will bring his five million and gain some survivors from Wogan to maintain present listening figures, but not everybody thinks this will happen. ‘Evans is all very well in the afternoon when your brain is fried’, said one Drivetime listener, ‘but to have him first thing in the morning would be unbearable’.
Funnily enough it turns out that in my new-found-land of the countryside there is Chris Evans’ history just around the corner. My daughter does ballet in the same village that he and Billie Piper lived in during his years of disgrace! To get to my home group, I drive past the very pub where he was discovered drinking when he had phoned in sick! They should probably give it a blue plaque.
