Evans above

WHAT will you have for breakfast?

A full English and Chris Moyles. Perhaps a bowl of museli and James Naughtie, or cornflakes with one of the many different regional presenters?

Or will you – or did you if you’re reading this later in the day – start the day with Chris Evans and a croissant and coffee?

This is the day he takes charge of the biggest radio show in the country, BBC Radio 2’s breakfast show, and there are many who can’t wait for him to fail.

No amount of backing from his much-loved predecessor, Sir Terry Wogan, has stopped some detractors from writing him off before he’s even had time to say “Good morning”.

Today’s programme isn’t, strictly speaking, his first Radio 2 breakfast show. He’s been preparing for what he knows will be a tough task ever since Wogan said he was going. He’s been doing his research, as I found out when I met him in Newcastle late last year during his book-signing tour.

He was taking the opportunity of visiting bookshops around the country to talk to listeners about what they thought about him taking over Wogan’s slot and what they wanted to hear from him.

Then, last week, he and his team, which includes former newsreader Moira Stuart, did several dry runs – broadcasting the show live, but without an audience, to see what worked and what didn’t.

Nothing, of course, can beat reaction from a live audience – and technology today means interactive radio is very talkative – and in the coming weeks we can expect some fine-tuning by Evans of a show in a timeslot that had, under Wogan, an average weekly audience of nearly eight million.

Evans and his Radio 2 bosses know that any changeover, especially one that sees the departure of such a broadcasting legend as Wogan, means an inevitable dip in listener numbers.

Some will remember Evans from the old days, when he was brasher and more arrogant and as likely to offend as entertain, and those will refuse to give him a chance. But some will return. Not least those who seek solace with Radio 1, where the other Chris, Chris Moyles, has adopted his own brash and cocky manner that has taken him within a spitting distance of Wogan’s listenership.

This is the man that Evans once called “the new me” because of their similarities. Both, one pundit says, “are knockabout commerical products, obsessed with their own popularity and ratings”. That may be true, but if you don’t have a healthy belief in yourself and your ability, you couldn’t do the job of entertaining and amusing millions of people preparing to go to work, getting the kids to school or simply having a lie-in because they have no job to go to.

Besides, Evans is both older and wiser since his often-stormy days doing Radio 1’s breakfast show in the mid-Nineties. He left after the BBC turned down his request for Fridays off.

Going to rival Virgin Radio to do the breakfast show turned out not to be the wiser move.

Again, his time-keeping became a matter of contention. He was fired after failing to turn up five days in succession.

These days Evans is a “reformed” character, a married man with a wife and child, whose wild days are behind him and who embraces the duties of a radio presenter rather than buck against them.

Seeing him, as I did at that book-signing, talking with fans and seeming genuinely interested in what they had to say and posing endlessly for photographs, demonstrated that here’s a man who really enjoys what he does and respects the people he does it for.

His stint on Radio 2’s Drivetime, which he took over in 2006 and has left for the breakfast show, showed he was capable of shaping his blend of wacky comedy and listener participation for that audience. He is a born entertainer, as his stint on another early morning show – C4’s The Big Breakfast – proved.

If anything, Moyles is the bad boy of breakfast now, despite presenting a serious challenge to Wogan’s crown last year. That was followed by rumours that the BBC was going to get rid of him and a several on-air comments for which he had to apologise.

The self-proclaimed “saviour of Radio 1” has been quoted as saying that he’ll beat Chris Evans in the ratings, believing as many as two million listeners will desert Radio 2’s new breakfast host.

Or maybe he was just miffed. The fact that he became the longest-serving Radio 1 morning show presenter was somewhat overshadowed when, the same day, Wogan chose to announce he was leaving.

Evans vs Moyles isn’t the only breakfast battle going on. The early morning skirmish on radio and TV is intense. Radio 4’s Today competes with Radio 5 Live Breakfast for those seeking news and views, rather than records and banter.

In London, commercial stations Capital Radio, with Johnny Vaughan, and Heart, with Jamie Theakston, fight for listeners, while around the country, BBC regional stations and commercial broadcasters tussle for the top.

Breakfast is a continuing battle for the hearts and minds – and ears – of the listening public. Evans just happens to be taking the starring role.