Amol Rajan has been announced as the new host of the University Challenge. (PA). University Challenge has named its new host, who will replace Jeremy Paxman as Amol Rajan. But who is the moderator and what is he known for? Find out more about the man taking on TV’s toughest quiz show.
Who is Amol Rajan?
Amol Rajan is Media Editor at the BBC. (Getty)
Amol Rajan is a journalist and broadcaster who has worked for the BBC since 2016, when he was appointed Media Editor.
The 39-year-old, whose family moved to south-west London from India when he was three, had previously worked as a newspaper journalist for The Independent and the Evening Standard and became editor of The Independent in 2013, aged just 29.
Rajan has also worked as a media consultant for Alexander Lebedev’s son.
He lives in London with his wife Charlotte Faircloth and their three children.
What else did Amol Rajan present?
Amol Rajan interviewed Sir Ian McKellen. (BBC)
Rajan has appeared on a variety of television and radio shows throughout his career, with an early role The Wright stuff in 2006.
He presented for The One Showwho has acted as holiday replacement for a number of BBC Radio 2 shows is part of the presenting team at Radio 4 today program and houses the stations media show.
Viewers may have seen him recently in the BBC documentary about Princes William and Harry The princes and the pressand in his BBC Two Amol Rajan Interviews Series where he has met Sir Ian McKellen, Nile Rodgers, Billie Jean King, Novak Djokovic and Sharon White.
Rajan is expected to step down from his role as BBC media editor later this year but will continue today and Amol Rajan Interviews.
When will Amol Rajan take over? University Challenge by Jeremy Paxman?
Jeremy Paxman will be filming his last one University Challenge series this fall. (ITV Studios/BBC)
Paxman’s retirement from quiz show BBC Two was announced earlier in the week, where he confirmed that after 28 years in the role he would be filming his final series this autumn and will air until summer 2023.
Rajan is set to host when he begins filming the new series in the fall of 2023.
He said: “Being asked to host my favorite TV show is dream territory. I have seen University Challenge obsessive for years, addicted to its high standards, glorious theme music and inspiring contestants. It’s the ultimate antidote to cynicism towards young people, allowing millions of us to test our wits with the brightest minds of a new generation, teasing and impressing our families by barking answers from the sofa.
Amol Rajan says it’s a dream come true to get the part. (ITV)
“I am very aware that I have big shoes to fill in the late great Bamber and that giant of British culture, Jeremy. With his immense intellect, his authority and his respect from students and viewers, Jeremy passes a format and show as strong as ever.
“Today I will not stop thinking of my late, beloved father, whose dedication to education brought him to England, whose love of knowledge I instilled in me as a child, and whose belief in the noble challenge of university shaped my life so much. I’ll be dedicating my first starter for 10 to him – and to the millions of trivia fans who, like me, love those rare opportunities when they know the answer before the students do.”
who presented University Challenge?
Bamber Gascoigne was the first host. (Mirrorpix via Getty Images)
Rajan joins a select group of presenters for the series as he is only the third ever presenter despite it being Britain’s longest-running quiz show.
Bamber Gascoigne originally launched it on ITV in 1962 and stayed in the role until 1987 when the show went on an extended hiatus.
Jeremy Paxman then took over as host when the BBC revived it in 1994 and will end his nearly 30 years on the job with his final appearance in 2023.
Journalist Amol Rajan’s wife, Charlotte Faircloth, and their age difference as of 2022
Additionally, from December 2016, Amol has worked as the BBC’s Media Editor. He has been the newspaper’s editor since June 2013, and now that he has been requested to host his preferred TV programme, he has expressed his joy at the opportunity. According to the journalist, it is a dream come true for him.
Charlotte Faircloth, a journalist, is older than her husband Amol Rajan.
2013 saw the marriage of sociologist Charlotte Faircloth and BBC journalist Amol Rajan. Rajan, who was born on July 4, 1983, is 39 years old. Although his wife hasn’t provided her birthdate, it appears that she is in her mid-thirties, putting the couple’s age difference to a few years.
Since 2021, Amol has been the host of the Today show, and since December 2016, she has also been the BBC’s media editor. After The Independent announced in February 2016 that it will stop producing a print edition and just run online, he was retained for a period as “editor-at-large.”
At the UCL Social Research Institute in the UK, his wife Charlotte teaches social science as an associate professor. She approaches parenting, gender, and reproduction from sociological and anthropological perspectives in her work.
Infant feeding, marital interactions, intergenerational relationships, and the impact of COVID-19 on family life are a few of her research interests.
At the University of Cambridge’s Department of Social Anthropology, Faircloth received her Ph.D. Her doctoral research examined women’s experiences with “full-term” nursing and attachment parenting in London and Paris.
The intelligent woman is a post-doctoral fellow working with the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness at the moment. Mildred Blaxter is her mentor. At the University of Kent, she is pursuing her postdoctoral degree.
Children and wealth of Amol Rajan and Charlotte Faircloth as of 2022
Nine years into their marriage, Amol and Charlotte have three kids together. Even though the newest child just arrived, the other two are named Jamaica and Winston (son) (girl). In London, the family resides.
Rajan was born in Calcutta, India, to a Tamil father who hailed from Combaconum and a Poona-bred mother. Rajan’s father first gave him the name Varadarajan Amol, but he later changed it to Amol Varadarajan and subsequently took the surname Rajan.
When he was three years old, the journalist with Indian ancestry moved to England. South West London’s Tooting is where he was raised. He was a Hindu until he was 15, when he converted to atheism, just like his family.
Amol Rajan, a BBC journalist, wed Charlotte Faircloth, a sociologist, in 2013.
Speaking of Amol’s education, he attended Downing College in Cambridge and declared English as his major. In 2005, he worked as a team’s editor of the student newspaper, which marked the beginning of his long-term profession.
Rajan wed Charlotte Faircloth, an associate professor of social science at the University College London (UCL) Social Research Institute, who is both intellectually brilliant and stunning.
More information about Amol Rajan’s career and wikipedia
Amol Rajan started his career as the backup presenter on The Wright Stuff, a midday chat show on the Five networks, before becoming a well-known name in journalism today (Season 2006-2007). In his early years, Rajan also worked as a software researcher.
In the years that followed, he excelled in a variety of fields, including news writing, sports writing, comment editing, and column writing. In August 2007, he started working as an editor for Independent Voices at The Independent newspaper.
Amol joined the BBC in 2017, and throughout those years, he has covered a number of presenters on BBC Radio 2. In May 2017, he took over as host of The Media Show on BBC Radio 4 in lieu of Steve Hewlett, who had previously hosted the One Show on occasion.
Rajan reached a significant career milestone when he joined the BBC Radio 4 Today’s programme presenting team in 2021. When it was recently revealed that he would take up hosting duties for the BBC Two quiz show “University Challenge” starting in the fall, his joy increased even more.
Sources:
https://www.thesun.ie/tv/9275393/university-challenge-question-writer-slams-amol-rajan-bad-decision/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-18/showbiz-universitychallenge-latest
