{"id":547288,"date":"2026-04-23T23:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547288\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T23:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:41:10","slug":"sara-cox-is-too-good-for-radio-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547288\/","title":{"rendered":"Sara Cox is too good for Radio 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

She didn\u2019t need to do it. She really didn\u2019t<\/a>. But here we are anyway, with arguably radio\u2019s safest pair of hands coming in to clean up a mess BBC Radio 2 shouldn\u2019t have allowed to happen in the first place.<\/p>\n

This afternoon, Sara Cox has been announced as the new presenter of Radio 2\u2019s <\/a>Breakfast Show<\/a>. Headline news, of course, because the Breakfast Show is not just the station\u2019s flagship programme, but also attracts 6.5 million listeners each week.<\/p>\n

Cox is understandably thrilled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are not enough adjectives to sum up how I\u2019m feeling about being trusted with such an iconic show, but let\u2019s start with ecstatic, honoured and incredibly chuffed. It\u2019s been a dream to host the Breakfast Show since I joined Radio 2,\u201d she says. \u201cI honestly can\u2019t wait to wake the nation up with the biggest, most fun breakfast show ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cox, who has been at the station since 2011, is currently on the teatime slot, where she is unifyingly glorious entertainment, sunny and daft and larky, the perfect vocal accompaniment to the grind of the daily commute. Though she was always the frontrunner to replace Scott Mills<\/a> \u2013 who was sensationally sacked back in March over alleged historic sexual offences \u2013 it seemed unlikely she\u2019d go for it. Why would she?<\/p>\n

You might argue she\u2019s too good for it. She certainly doesn\u2019t need it, and is undeniably busy enough as it is, hosting TV shows, writing novels and occasionally running marathons. What\u2019s left to prove? More pertinently still: why, at the age of 51, would she want to subject herself to a 3.45am alarm call every morning, which every breakfast host insists is a killer?<\/p>\n

\"LONDON,Cox will replace Scott Mills, who was recently sacked over \u2018personal conduct\u2019 (Photo: Stuart C Wilson\/Getty)<\/p>\n

And yet her appointment is nevertheless a canny move on the part of the station, and Cox accepting it a gracious one. In a very real sense: phew. Order urgently needs to be reinstated. Mills, formerly of BBC Radio 1, was someone who had long coveted the top slot on 2, and quickly made the show his own after Zoe Ball\u2019s departure in 2024<\/a>. He oozed Red Coat giddiness and revelled in the kind of cheese Edam enthusiasts might appreciate. But those skeletons in his closet were suddenly (inexplicably?) reanimated, grew flesh, and then went spectacularly full zombie.<\/p>\n

The allegations against Mills \u2013 of serious sexual offences against a teenage boy who was under the age of 16 \u2013 are reported to have happened between 1997 and 2000 (the investigation was closed after the evidential threshold was not met). The BBC has known about them since 2017, so quite how it came to this \u2013 and how it came to this only now \u2013 has yet to be written into the history books. We are left intrigued, confused, and disappointed.<\/p>\n

While Mills is being assiduously etched from BBC history, with old episodes of him hosting Top of the Pops diligently disappearing from BBC Four, let us focus on this more palatable, welcome news: his replacement.<\/p>\n

Cox is the best of radio, your mate on the airwaves, and someone who \u2013 like interim Breakfast Show host Gary Davies \u2013 sounds like she could broadcast 24 hours a day and never once flag. She is not only that much-needed safe pair of hands, but a pro. Mornings require sunshine. She\u2019s a known quantity and in an enduring career has never once been mired by scandal, which rather makes one wonder whether problematical allegations are the exclusive preserve of men. It\u2019s a theory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She didn\u2019t need to do it. She really didn\u2019t. But here we are anyway, with arguably radio\u2019s safest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[188403,14772,96,128,32103,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-547288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-arts-opinion","9":"tag-bbc-radio-2","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-sara-cox","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}