AN award-winning presenter last night spoke of his surprise departure from BBC Radio Suffolk.Morning show host Nick Pandolfi left the station on Wednesday despite being listed to present his popular programme all of last week and this week.
By Richard Smith
AN award-winning presenter last night spoke of his surprise exit from BBC Radio Suffolk.
Morning show host Nick Pandolfi left the station on Wednesday despite being listed to present his popular programme all of last week and this week.
But Mr Pandolfi, from Felixstowe, said he was now taking a break before pursuing other interests. He said he had departed “on extremely good terms with my boss”.
A spokesman for the station said: “We can confirm that Nick Pandolfi is no longer working for BBC Radio Suffolk.
“The BBC does not discuss individual staff matters and so has nothing further to say on this matter.”
It has not yet been announced who will be taking over three-hour morning show Mr Pandolfi hosted for six days a week.
The presenter, nicknamed Panda, was BBC Local Radio Presenter of the Year in 2005 and won bronze in the same category in 2006.
He first worked for the station in the mid-1990s and he left to become a presenter for a breakfast show for commercial radio in London before returning to Radio Suffolk.
Mr Pandolfi said he had recently recovered from a health scare and added: “I have chosen to do something quite different and I leave Radio Suffolk on very amicable grounds.
“I have had a fantastic time and the three years have been enormous fun. But I have been working six days a week for the last three years with 16 hours a week on air and I wanted to do something different.
“There has absolutely been no fall-out. I was thinking of moving on 15 to 18 months ago and I was then given the morning show and given the job of putting the listening figures up and having a change of direction for that particular time slot.
“But there is only so much you can do with that style of presenting - people's emotional problems and life's reality.”
Woodbridge-born Mr Pandolfi started his career as an actor, starring in popular children's series Grange Hill in the early 1980s, before moving into broadcasting.
He added: “I am looking forward to the future and I am enjoying a couple of weeks' break.”
richard.smith@eadt.co.uk
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