Jeremy Vine - Radio 2

#Radio After 35 years on air with “the JY prog” Jimmy Young had to be, almost literally, dragged kicking and screaming from Broadcasting House. The protracted search for his successor had been publically played out for over a year. Jeremy Vine, some 44 years JY’s junior, took over the BBC Radio 2 lunchtime show on 6 January 2003. Unlike Jimmy’s entertainment background Jeremy’s experience was mainly in TV journalism.

Famously Jimmy never spoke to “the listener”, preferring instead to read out their phoned-in responses to the day’s show. Jeremy would not only handle the live interviews but took the phone calls too, although there is no evidence of this in this first show. The playlist seemed to change too, “I do love music”, he told the Radio Times, “and not just New Order, Joy Division and Elvis Costello”. His first record was by Bruce Springsteen and during the first half-hour he played, well how about that, Elvis Costello!