Chiles to host 5 Live show twice a week after Barnett’s Radio 4 move
ADRIAN CHILES has been confirmed as the permanent host of BBC Radio 5 Live’s weekday midmorning show on Thursdays and Fridays following the departure of Emma Barnett.
Naga Munchetty has taken over the slot from Monday to Wednesday.
Chiles already hosted a midmorning show on the station on Friday and now he also takes to the airwaves on Thursdays, from 10am to 1pm.
Chiles previously presented The One Show, the Friday edition of 5 Live’s drivetime show and 5 Live’s Chiles on Saturday.
BBC Radio 5 Live controller Heidi Dawson said: “Adrian is a wonderful broadcaster who our audience trust and respect.
“He has that unique ability to put listeners at ease and make them smile, whilst remaining relentless in his questioning of those in positions of power.”
Munchetty made her debut on Monday, promising her listeners they would soon “get to know each other”. Her show featured interviews with the team behind the Oxford University- AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, the refugee housed by Gary Lineker, and pregnant woman expecting during the pandemic.
Barnett hit the headlines this week when actress Kelechi Okafor pulled out of Woman’s Hour, which Barnett now presents.
Okafor had been due to speak to Barnett about the Me Too movement but tweeted saying she had decided not to appear, after overhearing the presenter “talking ( badly) about me to the producers”.
Barnett issued a statement on Twitter saying she “stands by my questions to my team and to Kelechi”.
It came after Okafor was reported to have said it was wrong for presenter Reggie Yates to apologise for comments he made about Jewish people in 2017, which led him to step down as a host of Top Of The Pops.
Okafor was due to speak to Barnett – who is three days into her new job as host of the BBC Radio 4 programme – about the Me Too movement and why it is still needed among marginalised communities.
Barnett said her guests were “entitled to make their own decisions about whether to appear on a programme”, but that she wanted to add “some detail” to the accounts circulating on social media.