BBC Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan: The man who has listeners coming out of his ears

Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. He rattles off where he believes Radio 2 has distinguished itself: from the kids’ short-story writing contest carried on Evans’s show which drew 120,000 entries, to more folk, country and show tunes and the “incredibly powerful and moving series” of documentaries broadcast by Jeremy Vine in the lead-up to Remembrance Sunday, where mums talked about the music loved by their soldier children lost in battle. “Inevitably, some people who are loyal BBC listeners will move from Radio 1 to Radio 2 if they feel Radio 1 is just too young for them and I can’t make those people switch off,” says Shennan. “If I hadn’t gone to Channel 4, I’m sure I wouldn’t be here now, so for that alone I am enormously grateful.” Shennan’s ease suggests he has further to go at the corporation, but when the BBC’s top radio job fell free two years ago, it went to Helen Boaden, seeking refuge from the Jimmy Savile scandal at BBC News. “We have to make sure we keep that stickability to Radio 2 in all sorts of ways.” The CV: Bob Shennan Education: Lancaster Royal Grammar School and then English literature at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.