Media: A Moment with Marquis.

Nobody seemed more surprised than the man himself. Last week, new Rajar figures placed him top of the listening tree at eight million-plus a week, an additional 410,000, and he said on air he couldn't quite believe it.

We're talking Terry Wogan, of course, and anyone who has spent even a few minutes with his Monday to Friday 7.30am to 9.30am Radio 2 show will know to take a large pinch of salt with almost anything he says. Wogan may be amused by his success, but not particularly surprised.

On the face of it, it is remarkable that the most popular programme on the whole of UK radio - let alone on its most listened-to station, Radio 2 - should be hosted by an Irish pensioner who made his name more than 30 years ago as the mid-morning presenter of an anodyne show known principally for encouraging his listeners to 'fight the flab'. Neither were Wogan's other long-standing jobs - taking the mickey out of the Eurovision Song Contest and chairing the inane Blankety Blank - a natural precursor for radio ratings success in his golden years.

Yet successful he undoubtedly is and not just with the middle-aged middle class to whose dated musical tastes Wake up to Wogan ostensibly caters: astonishingly, his appeal increasingly is to the young.

Whatever is the secret of this improbable media ...