Zoe Ball is leaving her role as presenter of BBC Radio 2’s breakfast show after six years in the seat. The announcement of her departure was made in November and she attributed her decision to her focus on family and desire to distance herself from early morning starts. Ball revealed in the same month that she had undergone treatment for TMJ disorder, which caused her to wake up with “awful headaches.” Ball’s replacement, Scott Mills, will assume his new role in January after hosting the station’s afternoon show.
Ball took a six-week break from hosting the breakfast show in the summer, following the previous spring’s hiatus following her mother’s death. Upon announcing her departure, she said that she would remain “in the Radio 2 crew.” Ball became Radio 2’s first full-time female breakfast presenter in 2019 when she succeeded Chris Evans.
On her show earlier this week, Ball was moved to tears by a seemingly impromptu message of support from singer Robbie Williams. “The transformative thing you do and the kindness you exude is important, and has been important and will be important to people’s lives,” Williams said. “Congrats to you.” Ball’s role marked the second time she had a female breakfast show role, having been the first female host of the Radio 1 breakfast show in 1998.
Industry figures showed that Ball’s audience had slipped from nine million when she joined to 6.28 million this summer. Nonetheless, her BBC salary for the 2023/24 period, between £950k and £954,999, made her the company’s highest-paid female on-air presenter, with outbound Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker second overall.
In announcing her departure, Ball pledged that her final show would be timed swiftly ahead of Christmas and in her characteristically cheerful fashion, promised “plenty of fun and shenanigans.
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