John Humphrys criticises successors on ‘irritating’ Today programme

Ex-presenter of BBC Radio 4 show complains in Guardian of ‘gratuitous gratitude’ and ‘gushing’ between host and guest For more than three decades, John Humphrys delighted and infuriated listeners in equal measure as he confronted the nation’s politicians in his trademark, pointed style on the Today programme. Now a listener himself, the former presenter of the BBC’s flagship radio news show is just as pointed in his assessment of the current incarnation of the programme. His verdict? It’s irritating. “Having been the one on the radio informing (and possibly sometimes annoying) the listeners for 33 years, I’m now the man shouting at his radio about how irritating the programme has become,” Humphrys writes in the Guardian. The focus of his ire is not the tone of interviews, which were often the focus of complaints during his presenting reign. Instead, his critique cites congratulatory exchanges between presenters, gushing welcomes for interviewees and persistent rhetorical tics. “It’s not so much the really important stuff that gets the harrumphing going,” Humphrys writes. “It’s the stuff that challenges the meaning of IQ. In my new listener mode, IQ sta