I'd agree the noose must be hanging above him, but he's always had quite an interesting demographic listening (well, when he was on drive, dunno about now he's early afternoons) which is reflected at unofficialmills.com. His audience tended to be the studenty types, so were in the legal age range for Radio 1. Maybe that had started to slip a bit, which is why they parachuted Greg James into that spot instead of him.

The trouble with any radio station is that if it doesn't keep re-inventing itself, it picks up a young audience and then stagnates by growing old with them (Radio Caroline is a brilliant example of this). Since Radio 1's brief is very age specific, they are under pressure to get rid of the old 'cling-ons' every decade or so.

There really needs to be a Radio 1 for older people!