The BBC Radio 2 presenter Zoe Ball has announced she is stepping down from her breakfast show after six years to be replaced by Scott Mills.
“After six incredible years on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, it’s time for me to step away from the very early mornings and focus on family,” she told listeners on Tuesday.
Ball later revealed that Mills, who hosts the mid-afternoon slot, would be her successor, with her last show on Friday 20 December.
The move is part of a wider shuffle on Radio 2, the BBC’s most popular station, reaching about 13.3 million people a week, with Trevor Nelson taking up Mills’s former slot, making him the first black presenter in Radio 2’s daytime schedule.
Ball, 53, took over the Radio 2 morning programme in 2019 from Chris Evans. She was absent from the airwaves for nearly two months over the summer when Mills stepped in, returning in September amid speculation about her future on the station.
Announcing her departure on air, Ball said: “I’ve decided it’s time to step away from the early alarm call and start a new chapter. You know I think the world of you listeners and it truly has been such a privilege to share the mornings with you.”
She was the first female host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show in 1998, a post she held until 2000. Ball co-hosted the BBC’s Saturday morning children’s magazine Live & Kicking alongside Jamie Theakston for three years from 1996.
In an official statement, she said: “After six incredible years on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, it’s time for me to step away from the very early mornings and focus on family. It’s been a privilege. I think the world of you listeners and I’m grateful to my bosses here for their support, especially this year.”
Ball said of her last show: “Just in time for Christmas with plenty of fun and shenanigans. While I’m stepping away from the Breakfast Show, I’m not disappearing entirely – I’ll still be a part of the Radio 2 family, with more news in the new year.
“I’m excited to embrace my next chapter, including being a mum in the mornings, and I can’t wait to tune in on the school run!”
Ball has presented the BBC spin-off show Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, and ITV’s reality competition show Mamma Mia! I Have a Dream. She is also reportedly keen to do more television work with her son Woody after the pair appeared together on Channel 4’s Celebrity Gogglebox.
Mills, who moved from Radio 1 to Radio 2 in 2022 to replace Steve Wright, said: “Zoe and I have been such good friends now for over 25 years and have spent much of that time as part of the same radio family here at Radio 2 and also on Radio 1. She’s done an incredible job on this show over the past six years, and I am beyond excited to be handed the baton.
“It feels ever since recording my first shows as a kid for an audience of one, my mum, all roads since have led to this amazing opportunity. It really is a lifelong dream come true to follow in the footsteps of Sir Terry [Wogan], Chris and Zoe to be the new presenter of the Radio 2 Breakfast Show.”
Commenting on his new slot, Nelson, 60, said: “It’s going to be great being on daytime. It’s the ultimate privilege as a broadcaster to entertain the nation on the biggest station in the UK every day. I’m looking to have lots of fun and will be bringing a bit of soul to the new show. Regular listeners will be pleased to know that my ‘guess the artist’ game, Five Seconds to Name, will be coming with me, so hopefully newbies will enjoy playing along.”
Elsewhere on the station, DJ Spoony will extend his weekly edition of The Good Groove – currently Friday nights from 9pm to 11pm – to four weekly shows on Monday to Thursday from 10pm to midnight, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Kitchen Disco will be extended from one to two hours on Friday nights from 9pm to 11pm.
