Zoe Ball shared an emotional message to her replacement Scott Mills as he took over her radio show on Monday (27 January).
Ball, 54, had presented the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast programme since 2019 when she replaced Chris Evans. The host said she was taking time to “focus on family” shortly after her mother died of cancer in April last year.
“Hello you, it’s me Zoe,” she began in a message aired on the show. “I think I’m more excited about your first show than you will be right now.
“I keep getting really tearful. I’m so proud of you, I just need you to know that. You are so born to do this.”
Mills opened his first show with a special pledge to listeners: “Here we go then, Monday the 27th of January 2025 and this is the Scott Mills Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2.
“And I can’t believe I am finally saying those words, as a radio presenter and a radio fan all my life. I’m still finding it quite hard to process that this is happening, if I’m honest,” he continued.
“If I think too much about the previous occupiers of this show, it becomes mind-blowing to me, for a kid who wanted to be on the radio but wasn’t sure he had the self-confidence to be able to actually do it.”
The first track he played was Robbie Williams’ “Rock DJ”, from the 2000 album Sing When You’re Winning. Mills remarked afterwards: “This might be the best day of my life, apart from getting married.”
To mark his inaugural day, BBC has arranged a series of special Scott Mills-themed events, with signage at Stockport train station was changed to “Scottport” on Monday, whole a choir appeared on the show to sing Scott-themed songs, such as the Spice Girls’ “Stop Right Now” being reimagined into the lyrics “Scott Right Now”.
A station spokesperson for Stockport told Mills on air: “The team have been working so hard right the way through the night to change Stockport to Scottport. A whole new town, a whole new name, just to welcome Scott Mills.”
Mills defended his salary last week as the BBC revealed their annual figures for staff pay, telling The Sun: “I hope people won’t think, ‘Well, he hasn’t worked very hard for that,’ because I’ve worked for this my whole life.”
