UK radio presenter Jamie Theakston is back at work having undertaken several months of cancer treatment, and he says he has his regular listeners to thank for helping save his life.
Theakston co-presents the Heart Radio breakfast show alongside Amanda Holden, and has been on air for two decades, following a successful television presenting career.
Theakston told The Times of London that regular listeners had been tuning in attentively, and several had notified him of a change in his voice on air, urging him to have it medically checked:
“You do the show for 20 years, and you get a sore throat and it comes and goes. But there were a couple of listeners who said, ‘You really need to get it checked.’ And I guess in many ways that sort of saved my life. Without being too dramatic about it.”
With his wife also urging him to get his recurrent sore throat checked, Theakston consulted a specialist and was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, a rare disease that attacked his voice box.
Following three surgeries and several months off work, Theakston returned to work in January, broadcasting to an audience of 4.2million. His radio show is the largest non-BBC in the UK, with a regular audience of 4.2million.
In 2019, Heart Radio folded all its separate regional radio stations, opting instead to have Theakston and Holden broadcast nationwide. Of the local jobs that went with the move, Theakston told The Times: “The blame should fall very strongly on the BBC’s shoulders. Commercial radio doesn’t have a responsibility to provide local programming. Our responsibility is to get the numbers to allow the sales team to sell the ads.”
