• This Morning presenter Vanessa Feltz quits high profile job.
• She jokes ‘I need to catch up on sleep.
• Feltz has announced that she is leaving BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio London.

This Morning presenter Vanessa Feltz quits high profile job as she jokes ‘I need to catch up on sleep.’ After almost 20 years on the air, Feltz has announced that she is leaving BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio London.

When she made the shocking revelation today, the This Morning host made light of the fact that she was stepping down to make up for a “decade’s deficit of beauty sleep.”

One of the highest paid employees at the BBC, Vanessa, claimed to have “loved every moment” of her early morning shows, calling her roles “an honour and a privilege.”

On Friday, she will deliver her final Radio 2 Early Breakfast Show before taking over for Jeremy Vine for two more weeks.

The veteran host will then send Radio 2 listeners a final farewell on Friday, August 26.

“I have enjoyed every moment with my Radio 2 ‘Early Birds,'” Vanessa wrote in a statement released today. “I shall miss my Lovely Listeners, Jolly Good Fellows, and dear friends and colleagues at Radio 2 with all of my heart.”

However, after nearly 12 years of joy, I must now leave my position in order to make up for a decade’s worth of missed beauty sleep.

Although I’m quitting the program, I’ll still expect embraces from my devoted listeners when I run into them on the streets of London. It’s been an honour and a joy to be the breakfast voice of BBC Radio London for 20 years.

I will take advantage of some energy-boosting sleep to swing from ziplines with my three exuberant grandchildren and play with my fiancé Ben, who annoyingly is still ten years younger than me, she continued.

Feltz was one of just three women in the top 10 highest paid on-air talent according to recent BBC statistics, and her income of £400,000-£404,999 put her in eighth place.

The other two female hosts that made the top 10 list were Zoe Ball and Fiona Bruce.

In January 2011, Feltz started hosting the Radio 2 Early Breakfast Show, which was later moved to 4am in January 2021.

Her presentations included features like Famous Last Words, Jolly Good Fellows, The Feltz Philological Challenge, and Early Bird Earworms in addition to reporting the daily news.

She has received numerous honors during her tenure on the program, including a Sony Gold in 2009 for BBC Radio London, two gold Gillard Awards, and silver Arias (The Radio Academy’s Audio and Radio Industry Awards) in 2017 and 2022 for Best Speech Breakfast Show.

Feltz aired a mid-afternoon phone-in show starting in 2001 after presenting a mid-morning phone-in program on the station for 10 years before to taking over the breakfast show.

Radio 2’s president, Helen Thomas, said: “I’d want to extend my sincere gratitude to Vanessa for the thousands of middle-of-the-night starts she’s made to delight the Radio 2 listeners throughout the past nearly 12-year span of her live weekday Early Breakfast Show.

They, along with every member of Wogan House, would want to wish Lady V the utmost best in the future.

Local audio commissioning controller Chris Burns said: “Vanessa has effortlessly transitioned from her Radio 2 show to the Radio London breakfast show every weekday, rarely pausing for breath.

She skillfully amused her “beautiful listener” while forcefully calling the leaders of the city and the nation to account.

No matter how early it is or what is happening in the news, Vanessa was the brightest light you could ever meet. To say that her voice will be missed is an understatement.

“We wish her well and are deeply grateful for her extraordinary service.”

The new morning schedules for Radio 2 and BBC Radio London will be revealed at a later time, the BBC stated.

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