Terry Wogan understood the golden rule of all great radio

We remember his chat shows on television, we loved his ironic asides during many Eurovision Song Contests, we dug deep for him during Children in Need. We took him totally to our hearts.

For my money, his brilliance as a communicator came not just from bags of natural talent but because of his deep roots in radio. Terry always said he had been obsessed by radio as a young man and that obsession developed into an extraordinary creativity which listeners adored. It was the bedrock from which all else followed.

By the time Terry retired from his breakfast show on Radio 2 it had more than eight million listeners a week, easily outstripping every other radio station in the land.

As a new Controller of Radio 4, I was baffled and not a little miffed to discover that as soon as Terry came on to Radio 2, at least 40,000 people immediately turned over from Radio 4 and left the Today programme with its real world woes. In an effort to understand, I turned over, too – and confess I could easily have become as addicted as they were to Terry and his dazzlingly funny and fabulous show. It was like leaving hard facts and tough argument for the simpler joys of play, irreverence and wicked entertainment.

First there was the voice: deep, rich, full of warmth and ready to tip into laughter. Then there was his wit: the play on words, the understanding of language, the creation of entire fantasy worlds and characters based on the comedy of their names, the absurd suggestions from listeners or simply a daft line in a song. Do you remember Bert and Phyllis who I seem to recall were an elderly couple running the BBC? Terry had turned the then DG, John Birt and his colleague on the Executive, Bob Phillis, into a pair of elderly pensioners.

Like all natural comics, Terry was often subversive, though never unkind.

Such creativity brought forth more inventiveness from his listeners who engaged in the mutual creation of fantasy worlds with tremendous humour and intelligence. Never underestimate the sharp sense of the ridiculous shared by radio listeners. Above all, Terry understood the golden rule of all great radio: you are only ever talking to one person. He may have had the biggest show on British radio but he was only ever talking to you and you alone. The intimacy was real. That’s why I felt a genuine tear come to my eye at the end of his final breakfast show on Radio 2. Millions did.

Live radio is exhilarating but unforgiving. Get it wrong and listeners literally wince. Terry made it all sound effortless, almost thrown together and great fun. That was part of his brilliance. In fact it took his great intelligence, hard work and a profound understanding of his craft to deliver that every day. And because he was as generous as his voice suggested, he passed on his rich experience to each new generation of radio presenters which came into his orbit.

Your millions of listeners salute you, Terry. You did an extraordinary thing for us – through the power of voice, language and humour, you made us all feel the world was a cheerier place. Thank you.