Insiders have criticised BBC bosses for letting Amol Rajan take time off from his £320,000-a-year job at the Today programme to star in the upcoming series of The Celebrity Traitors.
The presenter was named as one of the contestants for the hit reality show this year, and will join the likes of James Blunt, Michael Sheen and Jerry Hall.
However, concerns have been raised over the temporary loss of one of the regular presenters on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.
Rajan, 42, has been a regular host on the radio show since 2021, but announced in January that he will leave the show later this year.
Despite his impending departure, bosses have still allowed him to take the time off to take part in the show this year.
This has caused unrest among current and former colleagues, who said it was ’embarrassing’ to allow Rajan to take the break.
One former employee said that the presenter should have been blocked from taking part while he is still under contract with Radio 4.
The Celebrity Traitors has been commissioned until 2030 and the source said Rajan should have been told to take part in a future year.
Amol Rajan pictured arriving in Inverness to begin taking part in The Celebrity Traitors
Rajan, 42, has hosted Today on BBC Radio 4 since 2021, but announced he would be leaving the show later this year
They told The Times the host should have been told to wait until 2027, rather than being allowed to choose a time frame which ‘suited their personal interest’.
Rajan announced earlier this year that he would be leaving the programme to ‘unleash his inner Del Boy’ and ‘create an empire’.
The married father-of-four will continue to present University Challenge and the Radical With Amol Rajan podcast.
Rajan said he was ‘extremely excited’ to announce that he was going to ‘build my own company’, which would see him ‘jump into the great digital Narnia of the creator economy’.
He added: ‘Del Boy was my hero growing up, and it’s time to unleash my inner entrepreneur. I am very much not leaving the BBC, Britain’s noblest cultural institution, whose Reithian spirit is such a generous gift to a world in flux. It’s that world I’m heading for, and I’m excited.’
Read More
Celebrity Traitors preparations get underway at Scottish castle as BBC ‘doubles £1million budget’
A colleague of Rajan said there was some anger when they found out that he would be appearing on The Traitors.
They said: ‘No one begrudges him the opportunity to do the show but there will be repercussions about who replaces him while he is away.
‘You need to have solidity. Listeners used to know [who would be on] when it was [John] Humphrys, [Jim] Naughtie and Justin [Webb] and Mishal [Husain]. There has always been a bit of rotation but never this much. It’s the most chaotic it has ever been.’
Regular stand-in Katya Adler, hosted the show alongside Nick Robinson today as Rajan began filming the reality show.
On Tuesday, Robinson joked that his co-host could be quickly returning to his regular role.
He said: ‘When we asked him if he was going on The Celebrity Traitors he consistently said, ‘No, I’m not’, which suggests he was maybe doing a bit of practice lying before heading to the castle.
‘Frankly, he wasn’t very good at it so we’ll see him in a week’s time, I suspect.’
Rajan was pictured arriving at the iconic Ardross Castle alongside a host of famous faces.
The BBC have reportedly been forced to double its £1million Celebrity Traitors budget for its second and most star-studded series yet.
The increased budget was already obvious as pictures emerged of the stars touching down in the highlands after travelling via planes and private jets, while last year many contestants were said to have travelled on the train.
The likes of Alan Carr and Sir Stephen Fry were also said to have been ferried around during last year’s series in a minibus, which has now been swapped for chauffeur driven cars.
Money has also been spent on beefing up security to keep the stars safe and the castle’s goings on under wraps ahead of transmission later this year.
Rajan has also presented BBC quiz show University Challenge since 2023
Rajan was born in Calcutta before moving to London, where he attended Graveney School in Tooting, before graduating in English at Downing College, Cambridge, where he also edited student newspaper Varsity.
He began his professional media career in 2006 as a researcher on Channel 5’s mid-morning chat show The Wright Stuff, before meeting guest Simon Kelner, then editor of The Independent, and asking him for work experience.
During his time at the newspaper he held a number of roles, including news reporter, columnist, sports reporter and editor of the title’s comment section, Independent Voices.
Read More
BREAKING NEWS Amol Rajan announces he’s leaving BBC News and Radio 4’s Today programme to ‘unleash inner Del Boy’
Rajan was appointed Independent editor aged just 29 in 2013 – making him the youngest ever editor of a broadsheet title in Fleet Street, and the first from an ethnic minority.
He remained at the Independent until the publication went digital-only in 2016, joining the BBC as its first media editor soon after – and made his first appearance on Today in May 2021.
In November that year, he fronted a controversial documentary called The Princes And The Press about William and Harry – which drew censure from Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Kensington Palace, along with accusations of bias.
The series was criticised by the royal households for giving credibility to ‘overblown and unfounded claims’.
Rajan also later had to apologise after a series of past tweets and comment pieces he had written about the monarchy came to light.
In them he called for the downfall of the ‘ridiculous House of Windsor’ and joked about ‘throwing a brick’ at the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
In one message, posted on the day of Trooping The Colour in June 2012, he even said that the BBC’s ‘monarchist propaganda’ made him sick.
In February 2022, he interviewed tennis star Novak Djokovic, boasting that it was a ‘mega global scoop’. But he was criticised for fawning over the player, who had refused to be vaccinated against Covid.
Rajan has presented several shows for Radio 4 including The Decline of the West; Archive on 4 – 50 Years On: Rivers of Blood; and The Imperial Inversion of Cricket; as well as hosting Start the Week, PM, Any Answers, several series of Rethink and The Media Show.
He also presented the podcasts Harry, Meghan and the Media; and, with Robinson, The Today Podcast. For Radio 2, Rajan has presented the Breakfast, Lunchtime and Drivetime shows.
Rajan has also been a regular presenter of The One Show on BBC One, and last year hosted the documentary Amol Rajan Goes to the Ganges.
On BBC Two, he presented How To Break Into the Elite, How To Crack the Class Ceiling and the Amol Rajan Interviews series, for which he has interviewed Bill Gates, Greta Thunberg, Billie Jean King, Ian McKellen, Sheila Hancock, Tony Blair and John Major.
Rajan is married to the academic Charlotte Faircloth, an associate professor at University College London’s Institute of Education, with whom he has four children.
A BBC News source said: ‘Today has a fantastic roster of regular and stand-in presenters and Amol’s often done other programmes such as University Challenge – we wish him luck in the castle!’
