Rachel Riley on Colin Murray landing Countdown presenting gig: ‘The show deserves someone who loves it’

EXCLUSIVE: The Channel 4 star heaps praise on the Northern Irish broadcaster, who first replaced Anne Robinson as guest presenter in July
After 15 years as Countdown’s maths whiz, Riley said she had not considered going for the presenter’s job
PA Archive
Lisa McLoughlin 26 January 2023
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Rachel Riley has expressed her joy at Colin Murray being announced as Countdown’s permanent host last week.

The Northern Irish broadcaster had guest-hosted Channel 4’s long-running game show since last July after Anne Robinson’s exit.

The former Weakest Link presenter became the sixth host of the programme in 2021, replacing Nick Hewer. However, she was dogged by reports of on-set tensions during her tenure.

Riley said Murray was a hugely popular choice to succeed Robinson. She said that the show’s viewership had increased tenfold since he joined.

“We’re so happy,” Riley, who was made an MBE in the New Year Honours List for her efforts to raise awareness of the Holocaust and combat antisemitism, told The Standard. “He’s such a good host. He loves the show and really cares about it.

Countdown 2021 Anne Robinson
Robinson departed the Channel 4 programme last July
Channel 4

“He brings everyone together on the team — from me, [dictionary corner expert] Susie [Dent], the producers, everyone — and I think the proof is in the pudding, the viewers absolutely love him and there’s been a great response to him. It’s amazing.

“Viewing figures are multiple times what they were, they’ve gone up and you can just tell it’s a happy show. It’s such a warm, cuddly, family programme that’s been on for 40 years and it deserves someone who loves it and looks after it.”

After 15 years as Countdown’s maths whiz, was Riley ever tempted to swap her numbers for the coveted hosting chair? Riley, 37, said “you’d have to pry the numbers from my cold, dead hands” for her to have considered this.

“I like my job, I like the numbers game and I don’t think I could do it from far away,” she said.

“Colin’s so good at what he does. He’s always thinking of puns, or any little segue. He’s definitely the right person for the job.

“The Countdown viewers have always been friendly and supportive, so it’s a really nice show to be a part of.”

Away from Countdown, the mother of two recently joined forces with the online-only used car marketplace Motorway to launch their new Car Value Tracker. This is a tool that helps users to check the worth of their car and provides insight on the best time to sell.

“We had a 10-year-old diesel that we sold last year because when we got it, it was supposed to have cheaper tax and be greener but a decade later, we now know that it’s not,” Riley said.

“With the new legislation that came in, we realised it was getting really expensive and we needed to get rid of it so we swapped it for an electric vehicle, which we love.”

Riley said she was never tempted to go for the show’s main presenter role
Rachel Riley / Instagram

“The used car market has completely changed in the last couple of years because of microchip shortages, supply and demand issues and long lead times, so the price of cars is going up and down while used cars are increasing in value. Therefore, the Car Value Tracker is a really interesting tool.

“It not only tells you the current value of your car, but the value of it over the past 24 months so you can look at the patterns and the graphs and see the best time to sell your car.

“It’s interesting to see the car we’ve got rid of has gone down, down in price while our electric car has mainly increased in value.”

Rachel Riley MBE is working with used-car marketplace Motorway.co.uk as it launches its new Car Value Tracker tool, helping the nation to track the value of their vehicle and understand the best time to sell.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in