Former Radio 1 breakfast DJ Sara Cox has been installed as Chris Evans’ official stand-in on the Radio 2 breakfast show.
Cox, already a familiar voice on Radio 2, will be the first choice to deputise for Evans when he is away from the station, which has been criticised for not having a full-time woman presenter in its daytime schedule.
Radio 2 will still not have one, but Cox’s new role, confirmed in an interview with the Daily Mirror on Wednesday, secures another female voice on the station, albeit on an ad hoc basis.
Cox, who presented the Radio 1 breakfast show between 2000 and 2003 when she was a symbol of the so-called “ladette” culture, joined Radio 2 last year to present a Saturday night show, Sounds of the 80s.
She had filled in as a guest presenter on the station but it was her first regular Radio 2 gig.
Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan said in October there is “bound to be a female broadcaster on daytime” on the station but declined to give any guarantees about when.
He admitted the station “feels the heat” from people over the absence of a woman presenter between Vanessa Feltz on the early breakfast show and Jo Whiley’s evening programme which begins at 8pm.
Radio 2 has reported successive record audiences in recent years and had an average weekly audience of just over 15 million listeners in the third quarter of this year, a 17% share of the UK radio audience.
It is nearly 5 million listeners ahead of its nearest rival, Radio 4, which overtook the former nation’s favourite, Radio 1.
Whether this installs Cox as favourite to succeed Evans is another matter. Evans, who took over from Terry Wogan four years ago and grew his breakfast audience to nearly 10 million listeners, is unlikely to be going anywhere any time soon.
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