The 50 best BBC radio broadcasters of all time
From Sandi Toksvig and Graham Norton to Kirsty Young and Terry Wogan, industry figures helped us compile a list of masters of the medium to celebrate the 50th anniversary of BBC radio
15 Danny Baker
Perfect pitch
A true creative genius, Baker has leapt around the stations in his time, bringing joy, silliness, authenticity and a deep love of language, music and sport to his every broadcast.
14 Melvyn Bragg
The History Man
In Our Time is the intellectual jewel in Radio 4’s crown, and as the man who has presided over its entire 19-year run — a bulwark against any tendency to dumb down — Bragg rightly enjoys special status.
13 John Humphrys
Truth to power
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The Today programme’s reputation for setting the agenda — political and otherwise — rests in large part on Humphrys’s supreme interviewing skills. No politician has ever relished the prospect of a grilling from one of the BBC’s true journalistic greats.
12 Kirsty Young
A shore touch
She’s presided over Desert Island Discs for 11 years and established herself as the show’s definitive presenter — probing, alert, sympathetic. Poise personified.
11 Brian Redhead
Northern light
His comment one morning that the weather would be “brighter in the north than the south, like the people” might have been his finest moment. He spanned more than 20 years on Today and his voice became one of the best-loved in all radio.
