Tina Daheley announced her tina daheley radio 2 departure on Tuesday, stepping down as the newsreader on Radio 2’s breakfast show after seven years. Her exit closes an 18-year run of early mornings across radio just as Sara Cox prepares to take over the programme in a couple of weeks.
Daheley said the job had been one of the greatest privileges of her life and that it was humbling to be trusted with the news on “the biggest breakfast show in Europe.” She also said her breakfast run ends at Radio 2, while her career began on 1Xtra with Trevor Nelson’s breakfast show.
Seven Years On Radio 2
Seven years on the breakfast show followed earlier work for Zoe Ball, Scott Mills, Chris Moyles, Nick Grimshaw and Trevor Nelson, giving Daheley a place across several of the station’s biggest morning shifts. She later posted that she had spent “18 years and six back-to-back breakfast shows,” and said she was looking forward to “a lie-in.”
2007 was the year she began her career, first reading the news on 1Xtra and Radio 1 before moving to Radio 2. That path matters because it shows how deeply embedded she became in the broadcaster’s morning output, not just on one programme but across the ’s breakfast timetable.
Sara Cox Takes Over
A couple of weeks after Daheley’s announcement, Sara Cox is due to become the new permanent host of the Radio 2 morning show. Cox wrote on Instagram that “18 years was incredible and that Daheley was a pro,” while Zoe Ball and Dermot O’Leary also left praise on Daheley’s post.
No replacement has been announced yet for Daheley when Cox launches her breakfast show, leaving a small but real gap in the on-air setup. Gary Davies has been covering the Radio 2 breakfast show since Scott Mills was sacked by the in March, and Daheley will still stand in for Jeremy Vine’s lunchtime show when he is away.
Morning Shift
Daheley’s move is less a clean exit than a reshuffle inside radio’s morning line-up. She is leaving the flagship breakfast role, but not the broadcaster, and the unfinished piece is straightforward: who will read the news when Cox starts her run on the show.
