Looks won't help you here. Photograph: Corbis
Sally Traffic was not amused. Given that Sally Boazman, the travel reporter on Radio 2, is happy to allow colleagues and listeners to call her Sally Traffic, you'd guess she had a healthy sense of humour and didn't take life, including her on-air persona, too seriously. And you'd be right. Well, most of the time.
But earlier this week on the Chris Evans show, there was the unmistakable sound of Sally Traffic's nose being put ever so slightly out of joint. Snooker legend Dennis Taylor - yes, he of the fabulously oversized specs - was a guest on the show. Whatever he was supposed to be talking about didn't seem to interest him much - all Taylor wanted to discuss was the most beautiful voice on radio. The voice, he thought, that should be on all the time; the voice you listen to and swoon helplessly. The voice of Rebecca Pike, that is, the show's business reporter and star of the daily Fox the Fox feature.
Sally Traffic, Taylor would later add by calling back into the show, was his second favourite voice on radio. Boazman dismissed this news with amusing disdain - amusing because there sounded to be a genuine narky edge to it. Voice, to the radio broadcaster, is all. It replaces the looks, hair-do, outfit, demeanour, body language and personality of TV presenters - everything, apart from voice, that we use to decide if the person on screen is pleasing to us. On radio, even with web cams (which are mostly absolutely rubbish), the voice is all you have to tempt, delight and keep listeners.
So who has the loveliest voice on radio these days? Is it the voice itself, inviting and sultry-sounding (Charlotte Green), or is it the way the voice delivers what it says (Eddie Mair)? Whose voice are you always pleased to hear and why does it root you to the spot?
