Time for the original ladette to write her next chapter

Zoe Ball is stepping down from Radio 2 having filled some of the most high-profile roles in TV and radio. Zoë Beaty charts three decades of highs and lows and what may come next

- Zoë Beaty

"It truly has been such a privilege to share the mornings with you," Zoe Ball told BBC Radio 2 listeners yesterday morning. After six years, she announced that she'd be stepping away from her role as presenter of the station’s breakfast show at the end of the year. Days before her 55th birthday celebrations this weekend, Ball feels it’s time to “focus on family”, she explained – this is the beginning of a “new chapter”.

For her legions of listeners, though, it’ll mark the end of an era.

Ball’s career and presence in British pop media spans more than three decades, and many incarnations. She was the first ever female presenter to host BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 breakfast shows; eventually growing a cohort of 6.3 million listeners on her prestigious Radio 2 slot. Ball has presented almost every prime TV show going, from Top of the Pops to the Brit Awards to Children in Need and Strictly Come Dancing.

And despite turbulence behind the scenes, her high energy, fullthrottle approach to life has rarely dimmed and was there from the off. She first bowled into showbiz in the mid-Nineties, as presenter of Saturday morning kid’s TV show Live & Kicking alongside Jamie Theakston. She was also an occasional presenter of Channel 4’s somewhat chaotic The Big Breakfast show.

Ball was boisterous, unapologetic and outspoken. Before long, she – as well as fellow Radio 1 DJ Sara Cox – became the face of Nineties “ladette” culture: a movement loved by women given the permission to have as much fun as the men and a gift for the tabloid press.