BBC star says Zoe Ball terrified him with changes to | UK News

Adam Porter spent 24 years studying information on BBC radio before leaving in March 2025 after taking voluntary redundancy. However, when it’s identified that people have an interest in him due to his long radio profession, he says he only grew to become a “personality” when he started working on Zoe Ball‘s breakfast show.

Admitting it was “terrifying”, he completely instructed Express.co.uk: “No one actually knew me until Zoe. She got here in and wished everybody all to be half of the show and share about their lives because that’s what she did.

“And it was terrifying. I was just reading the news and was happy with that. But once I got over the initial nerves, she knew I’d be game to sing with Gareth Malone or do anything crazy on air. It was great fun.”

Adam is being very modest as throughout his almost a quarter of a century with the BBC, he became one of the most recognisable voices on the broadcaster, reading the news on Radio 2, 6Music, and 5 Live.

His life now is a million miles from those days as he and his husband rented out their house and are currently living on a houseboat. Adam, who has a lifelong appreciation of canals and canal boats, says they made the decision to move to the boat before the voluntary redundancy came up, and the timing worked out perfectly.

“We had made the decision to move on to the boat, so when the voluntary redundancy came up, it all just worked out really well. It meant a lot of downsizing, though. We had to get rid of pretty much everything. Other than some personal items we have left in the loft of our old home, which our tenant doesn’t have access to, we just purged it all.”

He continued: “We offered a lot at car boot gross sales and it was humorous because I discovered myself sticking on the price of sure issues and then realising that there’s no level in insisting you get more for one thing because you’re caught with it then. It was higher to let it go for much less.”

Just weeks into their new life, Adam launched a podcast, The Water Road, which he felt was the perfect way to share his enthusiasm for canals and rivers. Asked if his husband rolled his eyes when he learnt their quiet life was again going to be interrupted by work, Adam laughed.

“No. He is aware of what I’m like. And I come from radio, so it made sense. There are dozens of canal YouTubers, but I believed the sounds can be a actually attention-grabbing means to current it.”

Adam’s podcast has turned out to be a magazine-style show about the canals featuring interviews with people who live and work, and are involved with the waterways. Although he admits a lot of work goes into it, he said: “I’m only releasing it fortnightly, so two a month. And I’ve had no points setting up interviews. The people I’ve walked up to and requested are all the time, fortunately, comfortable to do it.”

As to if we could hear him back on the airwaves soon, he replied: “Never say never.”

The Water Road is accessible on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and many of the smaller podcast platforms.