Guido understands that Gloria De Piero will have the Friday and Saturday mid-morning show on Times Radio. The glamorous former Labour MP and TV presenter will add yet another remain-backing presenter to the roster. Am told she will have an as-yet-unannounced assistant presenter, and it will be a case of “beauty and the beast”…

All these new hires are adding to the growing wage bill for Times Radio in the Shard. Guido is told that the economics of the enterprise are viable if Times Radio generates 35,000 new subscribers to The Times digital subscription package, which should be worth circa £10 million. This is The Spectator’s successful model, giving away free podcasts and Spectator Radio content to make people aware of the merits of the magazine and consequently driving subscribers and attendance to their lucrative ticketed events. The Spectator, however, mostly uses existing staff rather than hiring additional staff. It remains to be seen if the lure of Matt Chorley’s jokes will be enough to get punters to pull out their credit cards and stump up some three hundred quid for an annual Times digital subscription…