John Humphrys has suggested he’ll switch the dial to the classical sounds of BBC Radio 3 once he hangs up his Radio 4 Today show headphones for good in the autumn.

Humphrys, whose name and voice has become synonymous with the station’s flagship show, told former Today colleague and World At One presenter Sarah Montague that he might stop listening to the programme he has fronted for 32 years.

“Ah, that’s the big one, isn’t it? That’s the big one…dunno. I don’t know,” he said when Montague asked whether he would keep listening so that he could “shout at the radio”.

“That’s the trouble, isn’t it? Once you start adopting that sort of pattern, then you haven’t really escaped, have you?

“So it might have to be Radio 3. Imagine waking up to a glorious symphony or a concerto or something.”

It comes as the broadcaster, 75, revealed earlier that he would be leaving the politics and news show later this year.

He said he had previously believed he would carry on doing the job “either until they threw me out or had enough of me, or that I’d got bored of it or stopped enjoying it, but none of those things have happened.”

However, Humphrys said there are others things he wanted to do with his life when asked how he felt about leaving the show.

“How does it feel…? Utterly, utterly, utterly magnificent,” he said, before adding in the same breath: “Oh, look, awful.

“I love doing the programme! I have always enjoyed it, I have always loved it – that’s the problem! I should have gone years ago. Obviously I should have gone years ago, but I love doing the programme.”

Humphrys, whose voice greets much of the nation first thing in the morning alongside Mishal Husain, Nick Robinson, Martha Kearney and Justin Webb, revealed he’d been thinking about leaving for almost half of his tenure.

“I’ve been wanted to quit for the last…15 years, let’s say.”

“I have absolutely no idea what i’ll do – well, I do, I like trees, I want to get more involved in trees.”

“I will stop doing the Today programme but I will not retire. God forbid.”

He earlier said he is planning to publish a book about his time on the show, which is provisionally titled The Today Files and is due to be published in September or October.

Humphrys came under fire during the BBC’s gender pay row after it was revealed he was one of the BBC’s biggest earners.

In 2017 he received between £600,000 and £649,999 for his work on the Today programme and presenting the quiz show Mastermind, the BBC’s pay disclosure figures revealed.

Following an outcry he agreed to take a substantial pay cut, but later got into hot water again when his off-air comments about the pay row following Carrie Gracie’s resignation as the broadcaster’s China editor were leaked and left BBC management “deeply unimpressed”.

The presenter will remain a familiar face on the BBC, continuing on as host of quiz show Mastermind.