Gaby Roslin: 'I'm never apologising again for being happy' (2025)

If the adage about good things happening in your life when you surround yourself with positive people is true, perhaps we ought to clone Gaby Roslin – the broadcaster is an almost overwhelmingly upbeat person.

She just wants to bring people joy, she says on multiple occasions throughout our conversation, make them smile, or help their days be a little brighter.

Roslin has always been a happy person, and has the self-confessed energy levels of a “Duracell bunny”. Take how she describes her mornings: “‘l’ll go down to the kitchen, I take my Symprove [probiotic supplement], I start doing my squats and press-ups against the kitchen counter, and I start singing.”

When her two daughters were young, she used to sit on them as they woke, and belted out hits from musical theatre.

“My husband teases me and says, ‘You know what? People are really lucky. When they listen to the radio, they can turn you off. I can’t turn you off.’”

Her unerring good mood falters around only one subject: those who complain that TV and radio isn’t what it once was. “I find it really frustrating,” she says.

“I was having a meeting with one of the most high-powered people in television a couple of weeks ago, and I said to him, ‘I’m really fed up with people saying it’s not like the golden age of television or radio any more. I say – yes it is, it’s just a different golden age.’ There’s no denying that it’s different, but we just have to move with the times.”

She certainly has enough experience to know. Roslin, who lives in London with her husband of 12 years, has worked in broadcasting since the late 80s. In that time, she has co-presented BBC’s Children in Need with Sir Terry Wogan, co-presented Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast, frequently appeared on ITV’s This Morning, and been a stand-in presenter for Lorraine.

And now, having worked on radio for stations including Virgin Radio, BBC Radio 4 and Radio 2, Roslin is set to present her own Saturday morning show on Magic FM from 10am-1pm.

When the news was announced, there was a lot of talk about her being poached, most probably because she did a long stint on Radio 2 – covering for Zoe Ball, whom she “adores” – and because people seem to love to discuss which broadcasters have been poached from the BBC.

“It makes me laugh when they say that,” she says. “I still work for the BBC – I do my Sunday radio show [afternoons on BBC Radio London], I do Morning Live [on BBC One] and I do the Make a Difference Awards. But I also work for Channel Five, I work for ITV, and I do a podcast, so no, they didn’t poach me from anywhere.”

What really happened was this: Magic approached her agent with the idea of giving her the show, who then rang Roslin, who told them: “Oh my God, brilliant.” She explains: “I started my career doing Saturday TV – I love Saturdays – so I was very keen to go back to that. As well as the idea of working at Magic, who always play the best music, and are such a great heritage brand.”

Roslin has lots of friends in the building who work for various stations under the same group, Bauer Media, and when she first went in after saying yes to the job, she caught up with Mel Giedroyc, who has just started presenting Magic on Sundays, gave a big hug to Marvin Humes at Kiss FM, and said hello to the “legend” Ken Bruce, who left the BBC in 2023 for Greatest Hits.

“The older you get, the more you realise that you want to work with lovely people who are really good at their jobs – and you don’t want any of those who are crap,” she says. “You really don’t. And it seems that here at Magic, they are wonderful people who are passionate about what they do. That’s what I want – to give 100 per cent to every job I do.”

From her new morning show, we can expect lots of good 80s, 90s and Noughties music, plenty of listener participation, competitions and big-name guests. “I’m not allowed to say who, but we have two people so enormous on the first show that my daughters screamed when I told them,” she says.

Is there an element of anxiety leading up to the launch, or is she now at a place in her career where she is confident? “No, I’m never confident,” she says. “I think I’m very much ‘nervcited’, as we call it in our home – nervous and excited at the same time.”

With Ball stepping down from her Radio 2 Breakfast Show, Mishal Husain leaving Radio 4’s Today programme, Jordan North swapping Radio 1 for Capital FM, it feels as though there is a lot of movement in radio at the moment.

“I just think everybody goes to where they want to work, and where there are new opportunities,” says Roslin, before adding: “It’s always about learning. I love learning new things. I really, really do.”

As for Ball? “She’s not stepping down, she’s going to have a new show on Radio 2. She was just exhausted. She was so tired.”

Roslin knows those early wake-up calls all too well, having had to be on air for 6am while keeping that seat warm, but describes working for the station as “a joy”.

“Zoe and I have been friends for over 30 years, so it was lovely to be covering for her,” she says. “As everyone knows, her mum was ill, and then very sadly died, and Zoe knew that I had her back.”

With broadcasters often pitted against each other – one headline last year read: “Greatest Hits Radio DJ Ken Bruce steals more BBC listeners” – I wonder if there is a lot of rivalry between hosts.

“Not for me,” Roslin says. “When my news was announced, I had messages from everybody at all sorts of radio and television stations saying congratulations – even people I haven’t heard from for a very long time. I was overwhelmed.”

Radio has never been in a healthier position, according to industry research body Rajar. Its latest figures, from the third quarter of 2024, showed that a record 50.9 million adults listened in – a fact that resonates with Roslin.

“In lockdown, people realised how radio was a vital lifeline, because it provides companionship,” she says. “And not just for older people – so many people now work from home, and I think a lot of people are struggling. Radio really helps with loneliness.”

Born and raised in London, the radio was always on in Roslin’s family home. It was, after all, her father Clive’s profession: he worked at Radio 4 as a newsreader and was a continuity announcer for the BBC, too. Her mother loved listening to the radio so much that, whenever she was gardening, she would take a portable one out with her.

Roslin had decided she wanted to be a children’s TV presenter from the age of about “minus four years old”, and after attending the Guildford School of Acting, got her first gig on a satellite TV show called Hippo, which was being produced by a former colleague of her father. But her big break came in 1992, when Channel 4 asked her to co-host its new light entertainment programme The Big Breakfast, alongside Chris Evans.

Of all the people she has worked with, Terry Wogan remains one of those she remembers most fondly. After working with the broadcast legend on Children in Need, Channel 5 had them doing their own (short-lived) This Morning-esque programme, The Terry and Gaby Show. During that time, he gave her some invaluable advice which she still remembers: “It’s not brain surgery.”

“He was quite right,” she reflects. “When you get yourself in a stress, thinking, why did I do that or I wish I’d done this, you have to remember it’s only television, it’s only radio.”

While she hasn’t always got everything right, Rosin tries not to look back too much. “There are things I probably shouldn’t have done, but I think living with regret can be a very dangerous and very sad thing,” she says. “Everything has led me to where I am now, so I don’t beat myself up over things.”

She is, as she is at pains to make clear, very, very lucky. “I love every single day that I work, and I know I’m very privileged to be following my dreams,” she says. “People might say I’m addicted to my job, but in lockdown, I was able to look at myself in the mirror and say, it’s not an obsession, it’s not an addiction, it’s not that I’m not a workaholic. It’s just that I absolutely love what I do, and if I can make one person smile, then what a gift.”

As such, she is not particularly concerned with being taken seriously and you’ll never catch her presenting heavy current affairs. “It’s always been about joy for me,” she says. “The news is so bleak that people need an escape, and I hope that I give them that. I’m not naive about what’s going on in the world, but I think it’s important to help bring light in the darkness.”

Many people who became famous at a young age often reflect on it as being somewhat detrimental, but Roslin would neither encourage nor steer her daughters away from following in her footsteps. Does she think the industry has become easier to navigate compared with when she started out?

“I couldn’t answer that, because it’s different for every single person. What I do think is getting better is how it is for women who are getting older. It wasn’t like that for a while. I’m very lucky, I’ve never not worked” – she pauses to touch wood – “and long may that continue. But I know other people who get very frustrated by [ageism]. Men as well.”

She has noticed the constant need to bring up her age, however. “When I was working with Chris [Evans], they’d always put my age into articles, and never mention his.”

Does she feel the pressure never to look older that so often affects women? “Some of my friends choose to do things and put things in their face, and that’s absolutely up to them – I think we should all stop being so judgemental,” she says.

As for her own approach… “I do my cleansing, moisturising, looking after myself, putting on my SPF – and I’ve got this amazing thing that I use on my face called a Lyma Laser.”

Her focus, however, is how she feels on the inside. “Too much is put on how you look, when it’s actually about looking after ourselves,” she says. She has good reason to think this way: by the time Roslin was 32, she had lost her mother to lung cancer, while her father had bowel cancer at the very same time. She has since been studiously paying attention to her own health and nutrition, eating well, not drinking, and doing lots and lots of walking.

It is the loss of both her parents which has shaped her outlook today. “I live for the moment: I don’t sit there thinking, what’s going to happen next year? I make the most of every day.

“I remember being interviewed on live television not long after [the death of my mother], and they commented about how I was still smiling. I said, I’m never apologising ever again for being happy, because life is precious.”