Former Radio 4 Woman's Hour host Jane Garvey has hit out at the station saying it 'takes itself too seriously' and that it is 'smug'.

The presenter, 59, who spent three years on the flagship show, revealed she preferred working at Radio 5 Live because it was more entertaining.

Jane broadcast her final Woman's Hour in 2020 and in 2022 she and Fi Glover left the BBC for Times Radio, where they present a live afternoon show four days a week as well as their own podcast. 

Speaking to Kaye Adams on her How To Be 60 podcast, she said she felt the BBC radio station had too high an opinion of itself. 

She said: 'I never enjoyed working for Radio 4 as much as I'd enjoyed working for 5 Live, because, to be blunt about it, it's not as much fun. It takes itself remarkably seriously.

Former Radio 4 Woman's Hour host Jane Garvey has hit out at the station saying it 'takes itself too seriously' and says it is 'smug'

'I loved 5 Live. That was much more of a free flow of being slightly ramshackle - never knew what was coming next - kind of radio station, which I was quite well suited to.

'And then I found myself in this most curious broadcasting corset that was super tight, I could hardly breathe and didn't enjoy.'

'I get a bit worn down by how much Radio 4 rates itself,' she said. 

'I just think: 'oh, get over yourselves!' There's some amazing stuff, but it's quite smug.

'There are some brilliant programmes on Radio 4, but there's an awful lot of very bang average programmes on Radio 4 and some bang average broadcasters, as there are everywhere.'

Jane was the first voice on BBC Radio 5 Live when it launched in 1994. She spent 13 years with the station before going to Woman's Hour in 2007, where she joined veteran host Jenni Murray.

Jane became one of the top 25 highest-paid presenters at the BBC, but she admitted to How To Be 60 that she had only heard the show once before joining.

'When I first went to Radio 4, I'd never listened to it,' she confessed. 'I'd only ever heard Woman's Hour once before I presented it – no wonder the audience hated me.

'I'm the first person in my family to go to university. I went to Birmingham University so I suppose at the BBC I ticked a box, because I was a Northerner who hadn't been to Oxford or Cambridge. 

'So, they probably thought – she's a bit of a rogue booking. And in some ways, I was. I'm absolutely not intellectual.'

The Liverpool-born presenter caused a stir in 2008 when she described Radio 4 as too middle-class and fixated on cooking.

She told How To Be 60: 'I thought Radio 4 was just for much older people and at Radio 5 the culture was very much – 'Oh we don't bother about Radio 4, we're trying to be something else', which was obviously right.'

She said: 'What I'm doing now with Fi is probably the most fun either of us have ever had at work and that's not a bad place to be as you approach 60.'

Explaining her decision to leave Woman's Hour, she said: 'I realised that all the topics that were coming up, I had done them before.

'I realised too that I was not as good at doing the subjects, because I'd done them before. They'd say: 'Oh you're interviewing – insert name of famous woman – and I'd think: 'Oh God, I've interviewed her before.'

'And as much for their sake as mine and for the audience's sake, I was thinking I don't think I should do this for another five years, it's genuinely not fair. That programme deserves someone who is fresh and vigorous, indignant and able to get angry all over again. You can stay in jobs a bit too long.'

Jane was married to the television presenter Adrian Chiles from 1998 to 2009 and the couple had two children together, both now in their 20s.

She told How To Be 60 that she was currently single, but happy that way. 'It's partly a lack of interest and partly a desire never to bend down and pick up someone's Y-Fronts ever again,' she explained.

'I'm aways getting pep talks from my friends about how I need to do something about that and I completely accept their wisdom, but I still don't do anything about it.

'I don't rule out anything happening in the future, who knows, but I'm pretty good at coping on my own. I have always been quite self-contained and I'm easily content.'

It comes as the BBC announced that Irish broadcaster Nuala McGovern will be joining the Woman's Hour line-up, replacing Emma Barnett - who had taken over from Garvey in 2021.  

You can listen to Kaye Adams' full interview with Jane Garvey from midnight on the How to be 60 podcast, available on all podcast providers.