Amol Rajan: who is the new University Challenge presenter taking over from Jeremy Paxman?

After over 60 years, University Challenge has its third-ever presenter: Amol Rajan.

Taking up the mantle previously held by Jeremy Paxman and Bamber Gascoigne, Rajan is set to debut as the host of University Challenge on Monday 17 July.

Here’s everything you need to know about Amol Rajan.

Who is Amol Rajan?

Amol Rajan is a journalist and broadcaster, best known as the BBC’s former Media Editor. His career began in 2006 when he worked as a researcher and secondary presenter on the Channel 5 discussion show The Wright Stuff, before moving on to work a range of jobs at the Independent from 2007. Rajan served as a news reporter, sports correspondent, and restaurant critic before becoming editor of the Independent Voices section, while also maintaining a weekly opinion column at the London Evening Standard.

In 2013, Rajan was appointed editor of The Independent, making him the first non-white editor of a national newspaper in the UK in over a hundred years (following Rachel Beer, who became editor of both The Observer and The Sunday Times in the early 1890s). Rajan served as editor of the Independent until the paper became an online-only publication in 2016, after which he acted for a brief time as a media advisor to Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Evening Standard and a key investor in The Independent.

By the end of 2016, Rajan had taken up a new post as the BBC’s first Media Editor. As part of that role (which he left in 2023, replaced by Katie Razzall), Rajan stood in as a presenter on a number of different programmes across the BBC, most notably on The One Show. Since 2021, Rajan has also presented the current affairs radio programme The Today Show, as well as hosting an interview series that has seen him speak with the likes of Brian Cox, Piers Morgan, and Philip Schofield. 

How have people reacted to Amol Rajan’s appointment as University Challenge host?

The news that Rajan was taking over as host of University Challenge was controversial in some quarters. Adam Sherwin, Arts and Media Correspondent for the i, noted that “[Rajan’s] pay soared to £330,000 last year and the broadcaster’s latest elevation rankles with some BBC staff”. Sherwin went on to quote a Daily Mail interview with an “anonymous insider” at the BBC who said that “people are seething. He gets every gig going.”

Lillian Crawford, a University Challenge researcher and question writer who departed the series alongside Jeremy Paxman, was also critical of Rajan’s appointment to the role. Crawford, who had expressed hopes that BBC journalist Samira Ahmed would succeed Paxman, perceived the choice to hire Rajan as a response to efforts the University Challenge team had made to move away from its history as a male-dominated programme. 

““The upcoming series, Jeremy’s last, is a really special and historic one,” wrote Crawford. “It also features significantly more questions about women and queer people than ever before – much of which came from me. I can’t help but read this decision (hiring Rajan) as backlash to the work we did.”

When is Amol Rajan’s first University Challenge episode?

University Challenge returns for a new series on Monday 17 July on BBC Two at 8:30pm. It’s set to be Amol Rajan’s first episode as host of the iconic quiz show – and, with previous hosts Bamber Gascoigne helming the show for 22 years and Jeremy Paxman for 28, it’ll no doubt be the first of many.