Amol Rajan announced as new host of University Challenge

Amol Rajan was unveiled on Thursday as the new host of University Challenge while also continuing as presenter of the flagship Today programme on Radio 4.

The appointment confirms Rajan’s status as the rising star of the BBC - and one of its busiest journalists - although he will step down later this year as BBC News’s media editor.

As exclusively revealed by The Telegraph on Tuesday, Rajan will become only the third ever host of University Challenge, which was first broadcast 60 years ago.

Rajan, 39. will take over in autumn 2023 after Jeremy Paxman, who has Parkinson’s disease, announced earlier this week the current series would be his last after 28 years in charge of quizzing Britain’s brightest university students.

Rajan admitted he had “vast shoes to fill” by following in the footsteps of Paxman and the programme’s first presenter Bamber Gascoigne.

He said he would dedicate his first question (known in the programme as a ‘starter for ten’) to his late father who had brought his son to the UK from India in search of a better education.

Rajan was born in Calcutta and came to London when he was three before studying at Cambridge University, going on to become editor of the Independent newspaper at the age of 29.

His current BBC salary of almost £330,000 is expected to rise further on the back of the University Challenge appointment.

‘Dream-come-true territory’

Rajan said on Thursday: “Being asked to host my favourite TV programme is dream-come-true territory. I have watched University Challenge obsessively for years, addicted to its high standards, glorious title music, and inspirational contestants.”

He described the quiz as “the best possible antidote to cynicism about young people”, adding: “I am very conscious that in the late, great Bamber (Gascoigne), and that giant of British culture, Jeremy, I have vast shoes to fill. With his immense intellect, authority, and respect from students and viewers alike, Jeremy hands over a format, and show, as strong as ever.”

Rajan said: “I won’t stop thinking today about my late, beloved Dad, whose devotion to education brought him to England, whose love of knowledge I imbibed as a kid, and whose belief in the noble challenge of university so shaped my life.

“I’ll devote my first ‘starter for 10’ to him - and to the millions of quiz fiends who, like me, love those rare occasions when they know the answer before the students do.”

Rajan was appointed the BBC’s media editor in December 2016 and has been a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme since May 2021. He has also hosted programmes on BBC Radio 2 and The One Show and presented a controversial documentary, The Princes And The Press, which Buckingham Palace complained about for making “overblown and unfounded claims”.

Peter Gwyn, executive producer of University Challenge, said: “We’ve long admired him [Rajan] as an outstanding journalist and broadcaster - especially as he had the guts to play for his own college in our Christmas series a few years ago.”