Who will replace Alistair Cooke?

A successor is being sought for Alistair Cooke, the broadcaster who presented BBC Radio’s Letter from America from 1946 until his death in 2004 at the age 95. The corporation has toyed around with reviving the show ever since, but given the current interest in the US presidential race, it is thought the time is now right.

Mark Damazer, Radio 4's controller, says: "People always tell you it’s a multi-polar world and we need to know more about China and Brazil and Russia and India, and American economic power is not quite what it was in certain respects. But when it comes down to it, America counts pretty well for more than anybody else, whether it's in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, as well as in inventions, showbiz and all the rest of it."

Among the front-runners for the job are Justin Webb, the BBC’s North America editor, Tom Brook, the host of the BBC film show Talking Movies and Tina Brown (pictured), the British-born, New York-based journalist who has edited Vanity Fair and the New Yorker.

While all three are capable enough journalists, it is understood that the new show will not have a monologue format - Cooke referred to his 15-minute despatches as "talks" and claimed he dashed them off in two hours flat - because it is felt that no one could quite match the breadth of Cooke’s reflections on history, current affairs and the quirks of life in his adopted country (he acquired American citizenship in 1941).

Acclaimed in his lifetime, Cooke achieved a further, somewhat grisly fame after he died when it was revealed that a gang of body snatchers had surgically removed his bones and sold them for more than $7,000 to a company supplying parts for use in dental implants and various orthopaedic procedures.