Dan Walker has confirmed that leaving BBC Breakfast for Channel 5 News in 2022 was “was definitely the right thing” for him to do.
Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, the presenter shared that directly after making the surprising career decision, he felt only “80 percent” convinced over his choice.
However, after marking his one year anniversary as part of the 5 News team, Dan insists he now has no doubt in his mind that his BBC exit was “the right decision for me”.
The star, who had competed in Strictly Come Dancing just a few months prior to his departure from the BBC, admitted that he wasn’t actively looking to leave the broadcaster at the time.
Despite being happy at BBC Breakfast, Channel 5 came along with a new challenge Dan couldn’t refuse.
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He explained: “I wasn’t really looking to go anywhere when I left, to be honest with you.
“Channel Five just came along and said, ‘we really like you, we think you’re great, and we’d love you to come and do some stuff with us. We don’t want you to just do the news, we want to make you the face of the channel, and we’d love you to make as many TV programmes as you want to make’.
“And I don’t think you get many opportunities like that in broadcasting,” Dan admitted.
He also felt like he had achieved everything he had set out to accomplish at the BBC, after landing his dream jobs on Match of the Day and Football Focus.
Dan divulged: “I loved my time at the BBC, but I thought, I’ve achieved all the dreams I ever wanted to achieve at the BBC.
“I presented Football Focus for 12 years, I’ve been on BBC Breakfast, the biggest breakfast show in the UK, for six and a half years.
“I’ve worked with amazing people. I had a quiz show, a radio show, I’ve done Strictly, I’ve presented Match of the Day, I’ve been to Olympics, World Cups, all of these things.
“If you’d have told me as a kid you’d have done all that at the BBC I would have said, ‘Don’t be daft, do me a favour!’
“So I just thought, now’s a great time to accept another challenge and see what I can do – so that was the decision, really, it was quite a quick one.”
Reflecting on his previous uncertainty over making the leap of faith, Dan revealed: “When I left BBC Breakfast, I was 80 percent sure that I’d done the right thing.
“And looking back now, after a year, it was definitely the right thing. Just the right thing, right time, right job, right people and hopefully, looking back on it now, I can say, definitely the right decision for me.”
5 News airs weekdays from 5pm on Channel 5.