It’s been two and a half weeks since the Scott Mills scandal broke, and while the BBC has yet to announce his replacement on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, there is one name everyone’s convinced is the shoo-in: Sara Cox.
Coxy’s the obvious choice: she’s hugely popular, brilliant at her job, has decades of experience and would cause minimal disruption for a station in need of swerving divisive decision-making at all costs. She’s a BBC lifer whose grown from glamorous, charming, wild ladette in the 90s to a maternal, reassuring and reliable part of the old guard. As was the case when Mills took over from Zoe Ball in 2024, the show would not get a reinvention or a bold shake-up with Cox’s appointment – but it would be in very safe hands. There is a significant Radio 2 audience who believe the job should have gone to her in the first place.
So yes, Cox’s suitability for the gig is not in question. What is, is why on Earth she would take it.
Right now, Sara Cox has got it pretty good. Since 2019, she’s been in the drive-time slot, which runs from 4pm to 7pm – extended by an hour during her tenure – which has got to be the least antisocial or physically demanding of all radio shows. The audience is a good one too: her job is to catch listeners as their energy levels wane and give them enough fun features, smart (but undemanding) chat and energy-boosting music to push them over the line to the end of the day. It’s perfect for her – she’s warm, generous, fun, personal, and always keeps the right balance of lighthearted and sincere.
Breakfast, as Cox knows only too well, given she did it on Radio 1 for nearly four years at the turn of the millennium, is another matter. It’s 3am wake-ups, early bedtimes, high-profile guest interviews that require research and very intense pressure, even when the brief is “light touch”, and the service to the listener is trickier. It calls to set the nation up for the day. That is no small feat.
Worst of all is the pressure. That job, the station’s flagship, has become a poisoned chalice. As with, say, the Strictly hosts, whoever is in the hot seat is seen as an avatar for BBC values and a symbol of its future direction, and ends up getting blamed for the success or failure of the entire station and taking a kicking every time the audience figures drop. Which unfortunately, they’re going to. Radio 2 is facing industry-wide challenges far beyond the control of whoever presents one single programme.
Cox is already beloved and has earnt enough respect. She doesn’t need a job like this to boost her career or profile (Photo: BBC/James Watkins)Cox is wise to all this – she’s always been shrewd, and she’s been around long enough. Not only that, but she saw her old friend Zoe Ball get ground down by the job for years. Before she stepped down – to spend more time with her family, after a year in which she suffered ill health and lost her mother – she faced constant criticism for not matching the numbers of Chris Evans before her. Why would Cox, now 51, who has three children between the ages of 15 and 21, subject herself to such a slog?
She hardly needs the exposure. She’s one of the biggest names in broadcasting already. As well as the drive-time show, she’s a successful author, the presenter of various BBC TV shows (past hits include her books magazine show Between the Covers and The Great Pottery Throwdown; her most recent gig was on new model-making series The Marvellous Miniatures Workshop). She’s got a podcast with her childhood best friend Clare Hamilton called The Teen Commandments, in which they look back on their teen years and chat about their experiences now parenting teenagers themselves.
It seems to me that after decades on the front line she’s earnt the trust, respect and likeability to carve out her dream career – everyone I know who’s had interactions with Cox professionally or personally raves about how decent and ego-free she is, and I found her genuine, kind and impressive when I interviewed her. She gets to hang out with her friends, indulge her interests in books, horses and the countryside, and be the face of cosy, good-spirited programmes across TV and radio and calls it a job.
That’s not to say it’s not hard work: it will be. One of Cox’s great talents is that she makes it all look easy. But given she’s mostly interacting with nice, ordinary members of the public, who already love her because she’s so down to Earth, there are much more gruelling jobs at the BBC. She’s calling the shots. Even the endorsement of the biggest job in radio might not be worth sacrificing that.
Money? The BBC’s annual salary report in July 2025 had Mills in the £355,000 – £359,999 bracket, and Cox in the £310,000 – £314,999 bracket. So I imagine, yes, she’d get a pay rise. But if it meant giving up other work commitments as well as her social life, I don’t know that it would be worth it. Plus, this is the BBC, and salaries are hardly likely to go up anytime soon. If Sara Cox – or any BBC lifer with a CV as robust as hers – was in it for the money, she’d have left to cash in at a commercial rival long ago.
So yes, Sara Cox is probably the best woman for the job. But – while I have high hopes that the Breakfast Show’s new presenter might win me back as a listener – I’m not sure it’s the best job for this woman.
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