• Presenter decides to leave quiz programme
• BBC to take the show off air next spring
Read the full interview at midnight
Anne Robinson is to leave the BBC quiz programme the Weakest Link and will not be replaced, the Guardian can reveal.
The BBC is to take the long-running daytime show off air next spring when Robinson's contract expires, rather than continue without "the Queen of Mean".
In an interview the 66-year-old presenter said the decision to leave, after 11 years, was entirely hers. She wanted to quit while she still enjoyed the show, and to devote more time to other projects including finishing her second book, which is based on 10 years of her diaries.
"I'll miss it. It's been superb. So it is a hard decision," she said. "If there's anything about longevity in television, it's about knowing what to take and what to turn down, and what to stop. It's often about what not to do anymore. And I just simply haven't got time to do the book," she said.
Denying recent reports that her fee had been halved as part of BBC cutbacks, she said: "My fee wasn't cut. I originally said I would do [the programme for] 10 years. I did a year more than I intended to. I think 11 years is more than enough."
She said she had stayed on because of the show's move to Glasgow, where she wanted to give it a proper shot. But working on it had become a "military operation". "Trying to write in the morning and start recording at 2.30 simply wasn't working. I have to leave enough time."
She had been prepared for the BBC to choose another presenter. "If you sell the house, the garden isn't yours any more. I was quite prepared if they had put someone else in."
Though it would be a wrench, she did not expect it to leave a big hole in her busy life. "I've always been good at change. I mean my life has always been about change, up and down. I did 11 years as a columnist at the Mirror. I did 11 years of Points of View. I am not saying it will be easy, but easier than it might be for a lot of people."
The Weakest Link first aired on BBC2 in 2000, before moving to BBC1. By the end of its final series it will have broadcast 1,693 episodes with more than 15,000 contestants asked more than 235,000 questions. Robinson will continue with Watchdog, and the series My Life in Books.