Today’s big news: Radio 4’s John Humphrys to quit
R4 legend to retire from Today after fronting show for 32 years
TO MAnY listeners, John humphrys harrumphing in the morning is as integral to Radio 4 as the pips that sound every hour.
They have grown accustomed to hearing him interrupt politicians, berate his bosses and — just occasionally — put his foot in it.
now the Mail can disclose that the veteran presenter plans to quit the Today programme this year, after spending more than three decades on the daily news digest. Mr humphrys, 75, who has fronted the current affairs show for 32 years, has ‘indicated’ to BBC bosses that he will leave in the autumn.
Last night, he told the Mail he had not handed in his notice, but he said he ‘assumes’ he will go in 2019: ‘I’m assuming it’ll be this year. That’s what I’m assuming, but I haven’t fixed a date . . . It’s not easy to leave a job you’ve been doing for 32 years. It’s more than half my professional life.’
he added: ‘It’s not like I’m an ambitious youngster with many, many more challenges ahead of me or something like that. I’ve always taken the view — and this is the problem in a way — that I would carry on doing it either until they threw me out or had enough of me, or that I’d got bored of it or stopped enjoying it. none of those things has happened.
‘I still enjoy it enormously. I know that sounds ridiculous. There are mornings in mid-February when you don’t want to get up at half past three. But, equally, there are other things I want to do with my life, and one has to make the decision sooner or later.’
By the autumn, Mr humphrys will have — potentially — covered Brexit for the BBC.
he will also be gearing up to publish a book about his time on the programme. Provisionally titled The Today Files, it is due in September or October and will be ‘a factor’, Mr humphrys said.
Leaving the Radio 4 programme will allow him up to promote the new publication.
his departure will also pave the way for a fresh shake-up of the Today programme line-up. It will
‘It’s more than half my professional life’
be the second major change in two years, following Sarah Montague’s 2018 job swap with former World At One host Martha Kearney.
The programme has faced huge pressure to change its presenters after it was thrust into the spotlight by the 2017 gender pay row.
The BBC was forced to admit Mr humphrys and nick Robinson were two of the Corporation’s biggest earners, taking home nearly £1 million a year between them.
Meanwhile, Mishal husain was on £250,000 and Miss Montague did not even make the Corporation’s so-called ‘rich list’ because her salary is less than £150,000.
Since then, Mr humphrys has attempted to level the playing field with colleagues by volunteering to take a succession of pay cuts.
The veteran journalist earned between £600,000 and £650,000 in the year to April 2017, covering his roles on Today and Mastermind. he surrendered around half of his salary, putting him on between £250,000 and £300,000 — not far above some of his co-hosts.
Mr humphrys has arguably also sparked more fear in politicians and other public figures than any other broadcaster. But he has also had difficult moments of his own. In 2003, a so-called ‘two-way’ interview with journalist Andrew Gilligan claimed that the Government deliberately sexed up a dossier in support of the Iraq war.
The report by Mr Gilligan later sparked the hutton Inquiry and dealt a bitter blow to the BBC’s relationship with the Government.
It is not clear who will replace Mr humphrys, but bosses will be under pressure to ensure his successor can interrogate public figures with the same rigour — without being so combative they refuse to come on in the first place.