What-ho WATO

Why lunchtime is always best for calm news

In the month that the World at One turns 60, its host for the last 7 years is rather bullish about the show always known as WATO (pronounced as what-oh). This is certainly no time for thoughts of pensioning off the lunchtime news analysis, says Sarah Montague, who I talked to for the Radio Times. “People always talk about the challenge for from news podcasts, but our figures are remarkably stable.” Which are? “They bounce around 3.4 million”.

Montague in charge on WATO

She came to the show after 18 years co-heading the big beast that is Today. A downscaling? Hardly. “When you are the only presenter, you feel more responsible. And it is a liberation not to have immovable furniture, like Thought For the Day. Or the tyranny of set interviews having to run at a certain time. If something is good, we run with it.”

It is also more thoughtful, she says.

“It’s on at a less angry time of day. People are having their lunch. Afterwards, you get emails, rather than social media from listeners. More light than heat, is what I always say.”

I tell her what makes her stand out amid a crowded field is that she keeps her questions short. “Really? I don’t think I think enough in advance about what I am going to ask. Oh, don’t be so self-deprecating,” she says, almost to herself. “The good thing is being able to listen.” Indeed, the mark of a classy interviewer.

The show is probably the most dynamic of the four daily news sequences on Radio 4. If something is really good, the whole running order is ripped up.

“It is ‘The World At One’. Not ‘The World When We Had The 0900 Meeting’. So you chuck things out of the window, and lay the structure down, even as the programme is on air. You are trying to tell the story of the day.”

Over the years, these have included some marvels, many of which were replayed on WATO, to mark the actual October birthday. An interview with Cissie Charlton, mother of Bobby and Jack, the day before the 1966 World Cup Final. Mick Jagger speaking before the Stones’ release of Let’s Spend The Night Together (in 1967, this was controversial). Interviews with Reagan and Gorbachev -even a teenage William Hague at the Conservative Party Conference, 1977. More recently, the whole show was extended to help keep the public informed after the 7/7 bombings in central London.

And now? Montague says that with so many working from home, the programme has had something of a boost. “During Covid, listening figures went through the roof. I think people came to us, and stayed, because we can make inaccessible subjects accessible. Now, the long-term challenge is to reach younger people. So Evan Davis and I do a podcast, trying to reach younger listeners.” (‘Figuring it Out’, available on BBC Sounds, links stories on WATO with the Davis-helmed PM programme).

Fronting Today with John Humphrys, who was paid more

Montague, who doesn’t relish a huge personal profile, was very much in the news five years ago, following her realisation she was paid a lot less than equivalent male colleagues. After a public row about fair pay for women at the Corporation (alongside others, notably Samira Ahmed), she won a £400,000 settlement and an apology. Has the experience left her unscathed? “Well, are you unscathed after anything like that?” she asks. “It was formative. I was very uncomfortable, because I like my job. And I was glad to get the whole thing behind me, and carry on. Although I can still summon up the anger, let’s be honest.” How is the situation now? “Better. The next struggle within the BBC is class. Whether you went to Oxbridge or not, is less of an issue, but class has still to be addressed.”

She’s 60 in a few month’s time. How does she consider her own headline birthday? “I don’t care. I have never really cared about getting older. I was cited as an ‘older woman’ at the BBC when I was 41. Although radio has got more visual so maybe I should care. Sometimes I think maybe I should have…” Not Botox? Please no! “No, not Botox! No, I sometimes think maybe I should put on a bit more makeup.”