Amol Rajan is to step down from BBC Radio 4’s Today programme later this year, ending a four-year stint as one of the flagship show’s presenters, according to the BBC.
Rajan will remain with the company and continue to present University Challenge as well as the Radio 4 podcast ‘Radical with Amol Rajan’.
An announcement on his replacement on Today will be made in due course.
Rajan joined Today’s presenting line-up in 2021, having already become a prominent figure at the BBC after being appointed its first ever media editor five years prior.
In that role, he led coverage of the global media and tech industries, and regularly appeared across BBC news output.
Announcing his departure, he said: “The pips have sounded, and it’s time to get my coat.”
He described Today as “the best of the best”, praising the programme’s leadership and likening his time on the show to “playing in the editorial version of Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United, or Steve Waugh’s Australia”.
Rajan said he was proud of his wider BBC work, particularly Amol Rajan Interviews, calling it a programme that “will stand the test of time”.
He also added that he was “extremely excited” to build his own company in what he described as “the great digital Narnia of the creator economy”, while stressing that he was not leaving the BBC.
“I am very much not leaving the BBC, Britain’s noblest cultural institution, whose Reithian spirit is such a generous gift to a world in flux,” he also said.
Owenna Griffiths, Today’s editor, said Rajan was “an exceptional talent with a rare combination of intellectual dexterity, impressive breadth of interest and a brilliant sense of humour”.
She added that he would be “sorely missed” by the team.
Mohit Bakaya, director of speech and controller of BBC Radio 4, said Rajan had brought “a distinctive intellectual energy and curiosity” to Today, adding that Radical had “rapidly become one of our most compelling podcasts”.
Before joining the BBC, Rajan was editor of The Independent, becoming the youngest editor of a UK broadsheet in 2013.