Tom Baker and Joanna Lumley have the best, Julian Clary and Janet Street-Porter have the worst.
In this week's edition of Radio Times, a poll of over 4,500 readers reveals the Top 10 Best and Worst Male/Female Voices on Television and Radio.
Radio Times asked visitors to radiotimes.com (which attracts over 1.1 million unique users per month*) to look at a list of 50 of the most distinctive voices in TV and radio and vote for the famous voices they would most like to have themselves.
The magazine also asked which voices they disliked so much that they thought the owners would be well advised to get a "voicelift".
The mellifluous tones of Tom Baker and Joanna Lumley have led to lucrative voiceover careers and Baker, who supplies the quirky links in Little Britain, is now the voice of British Telecom's texting service.
Other popular voices to make the grade in the male stakes included Stephen Fry (number 2), James Nesbitt (number 5) and Terry Wogan (number 9. Davina McCall (number 3), Fiona Bruce (number 4) and Lorraine Kelly (number 6) meanwhile, were some of the top women.
However, Julian Clary and Janet Street-Porter led the voices that really set readers teeth on edge. Other less popular voices included Brian Sewell (number 2) and Jonathan Ross (number 4) in the worst male list whilst Cilla Black (number 2) and Barbara Windsor (number 5) made the worst women's list.
Two voices divided the nation and made both the best and worst lists - Lorraine Kelly and Jeremy Clarkson.
Radio Times conducted the survey to tie-in with a two-part Radio 4 documentary, A Voice Like Honey, presented by vocal chameleon and Dead Ringers star Jan Ravens which begins next week. The programme looks at the latest advances in vocal surgery that are helping people with serious medical conditions and explores the future possibilities of a trip to a voice surgeon to order up a new voice.
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