The Wright Stuff is to be renamed after it was announced that the BBC Radio 2 host Jeremy Vine will be taking over as host of the long-running Channel 5 chatshow in the autumn.
Matthew Wright quit as the host of his eponymous morning programme this year after 18 years. He is due to present his final programme this week.
It will then relaunch in September with a new name and fronted by Vine. The show broadcasts for two hours every weekday between 9.15am and 11.15am.
A BBC spokesperson confirmed Vinewould continue to host his flagship Radio 2 phone-in show, which airs from 12-2pm. The presenter will be required to dash across London from ITN’s studios on Gray’s Inn Road in north London, where the Wright Stuff is filmed, to Radio 2’s base in Wogan House, close to Regent Street in west London.
“Matthew Wright has built a brilliant show that’s a big part of the British TV landscape,” Vine said. “I’m delighted to be carrying on all the conversations he has started, with all the guests he’s made me feel I know over the years.”
Vine recently took a voluntary pay cut; before the reduction he was earning between £700,000 and £749,999 at the BBC.
As well as his radio programme he presents the quiz show Eggheads and provides statistical analysis for political events.
Wright quit his Channel 5 show after almost two decades, saying he wished to spend more time with his wife and step away from the rigours of presenting a daily show.
The decision came soon after the Channel 5 show changed production companies to ITN Productions. It also followed a dispute over comments made on the show in March by The Chase star Anne Hegerty about the transgender activist Paris Lees, which went unchallenged by Wright.
At the time MailOnline claimed Wright had refused an instruction from the production company to apologise for the comments on the following day’s programme, prompting him to be replaced by a guest presenter. Ofcom recently cleared the broadcaster of wrongdoing over the incident.
The show has become a flagship programme for Channel 5 and provided a start for many journalists’ careers, including the BBC media editor, Amol Rajan.
