Wogan the best radio host ever

Much-missed star tops poll ahead of John Peel

HIS warm Irish brogue and sly but gentle humour entertained millions of fans for more than five decades.

Now, four years after he died, the late Sir Terry Wogan has been hailed as Britain’s greatest radio broadcaster of all time.

The BBC star took the title with 25 per cent of a public poll, ahead of the late John Peel with 21 per cent and Tony Blackburn on 18 per cent.

Sir Terry, who first appeared on the BBC in 1966, hosted Radio 2’s breakfast show from 1972 to 1984 then from 1993 until 2009. In

‘Popular and witty commentator’

between he hosted a prime-time TV chat show on BBC1.

He later took over a Sunday morning Radio 2 slot interviewing celebrity guests and was also a popular host of BBC Children in Need and a witty commentator on the Eurovision Song Contest. He died from cancer, aged 77, in 2016.

Other radio stars in the top ten include Chris Evans in fourth place and the late Kenny Everett in fifth, but other big names such as Noel Edmonds, Johnnie Walker and Bob Harris miss out.

Radio 2 breakfast host Zoe Ball is the only woman in the top 10 at No 7. In the survey, 1,500 adults were asked to tick their favourite radio broadcasters from a list – with one in four picking Wogan as one of their choices.

The poll found Britons listen on average to three hours 12 minutes of radio per day. A third said they preferred listening to the radio rather than watching TV or streaming services.

A spokesman for hi-fi firm Ruark Audio, which commissioned the survey to mark 100 years since the UK’s first entertainment broadcast, said: ‘ The three highest ranking broadcasters neatly encapsulate what as a nation we love about radio.’