BBC Radio 2 newsreader Tina Daheley has announced she is leaving breakfast radio after 18 years presenting the early slots for the BBC.
Tina revealed her news in an emotional moment on Tuesday morning’s Radio 2 Breakfast Show with stand-in host Gary Davies.
Her departure comes just days before Sara Cox takes over the Radio 2 Breakfast Show as the new permament host after Scott Mills was sacked in March.
Breaking the news live on air, Tina gushed: ‘It’s been a privilege to have had a whole generation of people grow up with me.’
The broadcaster started her Breakfast Radio stint on 1Xtra in 2007, and told her fans that reading the news on Trevor Nelson’s Breakfast Show was ‘my dream job.’
From there she moved to Radio 1, working with Chris Moyles and Nick Grimshaw on the Breakfast Show. After Nick’s departure she admitted she said ‘that’s it, I’m done, I’m hanging up my breakfast show mic, I’m never doing a breakfast show again.’
BBC Radio 2 newsreader Tina Daheley has announced she is leaving breakfast radio after 18 years presenting the early slots for the BBC
‘And then Zoe [Ball] came knocking, and I thought I can’t not, it’s Radio 2, it’s huge.’
She started working with Zoe when she took over Radio 2 Breakfast in 2019, and stayed on to work alongside Scott, calling him her ‘work husband’, when he took over in 2025.
She told Gary and the Radio 2 team on Tuesday though ‘I’ve been waking up early for 18 years, I think I deserve a lie in.’
In an Instagram statement Tina wrote: ‘After more than 7 years of early alarm calls on Radio 2, I’m stepping away from Radio 2 Breakfast.’
‘It’s been one of the greatest privileges of my life to wake up with you every morning, and humbling to have been trusted to deliver the news on the biggest breakfast show in Europe.’
‘My breakfast run ends at Radio 2, but it all started at 1Xtra, where I landed my dream job reading the news on Trevor Nelson’s Breakfast Show. From there, I spent a decade broadcasting to 1 in 4 young people in the UK on Radio 1.’
‘After 18 years and six back-to-back breakfast shows (probably a record in there somewhere), I’m looking forward to a lie-in.’
She ended her statement by ‘wishing Sara and her team the very best of luck. I’ll be tuning in while doing the school run,’ telling her Radio 2 colleagues that her daughter Athena, five, is ‘so excited to have her mummy back’.
Her departure comes just days before Sara Cox takes over the Radio 2 Breakfast Show as the new permament host after Scott Mills was sacked in March (pictured with Scott and Ellie Brennan in 2025)
Tina also teased new BBC projects as she added on Instagram: ‘I’m not leaving Radio 2, you’ll hear me between 12-2pm when Jeremy’s away and you’ll see me on BBC One after the summer. Beyond that, watch this space.’
Zoe, who quit Radio 2 last year, was among those to send messages to Tina, commenting on her Instagram post: ‘love you Tina. Class act darling girl. I can highly recommend the later start to your day.’
Back in March, Tina said she was going through a ‘difficult’ time as her friend and co-host Scott Mills was sacked by the BBC.
Scott was sacked after it was discovered he had been the subject of allegations of ‘serious sexual offences’ against a teenage boy under 16.
Scott was questioned under caution by police in 2018 but the case was rejected by the Crown Prosecution Service in 2019 due to a lack of evidence. The BBC admitted that it knew about the allegations as far back as 2017.
After presenting for a decade on Radio 1 Tina said she’d never do breakfast radio again, but soon accepted a job on Zoe Ball’s Radio 2 team (pictured with Richie Anderson, Zoe and Mike William in 2024)
In May, Daily Mail’s Katie Hind revealed Scott is suing the BBC after it axed him.
Scott believes he was unfairly dismissed and his legal team at the London-based firm Level Law has been corresponding with the corporation, his employers for 28 years, for weeks.
Friends of Mills believe he was used as a ‘scapegoat’ by the BBC’s then outgoing director-general Tim Davie, who took a zero-tolerance approach after a string of recent scandals relating to Huw Edwards, Gregg Wallace and Jermaine Jenas.
Sara Cox will start her Breakfast Show stint next week.
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