Adrian Chiles’s £4.6m earnings last year rank him among the top earners in British broadcasting. Industry executives evidently value the ITV football and BBC Radio 5 Live presenter’s “slightly grumpy mate in the pub” schtick. But his attraction is lost on some, judging by the bemused reaction on Twitter to news of his hefty 2013 pay packet last week, as many asked, not always in polite terms, how he became one of the highest-paid figures on television.

Chiles has bounced back after falling out very publicly with the BBC and switching from The One Show along with co-presenter Christine Bleakley to ITV’s ill-fated breakfast programme Daybreak in 2010.

He is back on more familiar ground fronting ITV’s Champions League and World Cup coverage and a twice weekly morning show on Radio 5 Live, having repaired his relationship with BBC management.

“I think he is a good frontman, although a lot of people say they don’t like him at all,” says Boyd Hilton, TV and reviews editor at Heat magazine. “He has this knowledgeable, effortless, blokey, everyman style but he seems to be very divisive.”

Chiles’ 2013 earnings reflect the fact he was in the final 12 months of a four-year contract with ITV, signed when he joined to front football and Daybreak and reportedly worth £6m. The deal came to an end in April this year, just before he headed off to Brazil for the World Cup.

His 2014 pay is likely to be considerably less, with a new ITV contract reportedly worth £500,000 annually. There will be less ITV football presenting work for Chiles, with the FA Cup returning to the BBC this weekend and live Champion’s League coverage switching to BT next year.

He started in broadcasting covering financial news on Business Breakfast and Working Lunch, moving on to Radio 5 Live, BBC2’s Apprentice spin-off You’re Fired! and Match of the Day 2, before landing his first big mainstream presenting role with The One Show in 2006.

“Back then he was known as the Swiss army knife of TV, sports, business and The One Show, he was literally everywhere,” said one former associate. “But I’m not sure if he is now up there with the likes of Graham Norton or Jonathan Ross. But then he is the normal guy, the everyman, he doesn’t want or pretend to be [up there].”

But he became used to being a star. Four years after the launch of The One Show, Chiles was angered by a decision by BBC executives to hand the Friday slot of the programme to Chris Evans. The down-to-earth Brummie and glamorous Bleakley had been a huge success and a disgruntled Chiles refused a new presenting portfolio offered to placate him. Chiles could not resist leaving without a parting shot at the BBC, criticising tampering with an “apparently successful and well-loved show”.

It was a turbulent period for Chiles who months earlier had faced the end of his 11-year marriage to Jane Garvey, a host on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.

Within months of signing to anchor ITV’s football coverage and Daybreak, the broadcaster also nabbed Bleakley, seeking to transfer their on-screen chemistry to its morning show to take on rival BBC Breakfast.

“There was so much excitement because they had been so successful at The One Show,” said one former ITV executive. “But it took about 10 minutes on day one for optimism to give way to depression.” Viewers started fleeing and Chiles admitted he wasn’t a morning person. “Despite the critics he appeared to dig deep and gave his all to make it a success. But humour is hard to find waking at 4am to do live telly, especially given his persona was like your slightly grumpy mate in the pub,” the executive added. “It was a bad career move.”

Daybreak, the successor to GMTV, saw ratings plunge to well under half those of rival BBC Breakfast. The pair threw in the towel after just 15 months. Daybreak continued to falter and was rebranded as Good Morning Britain, fronted by more BBC firepower in Susanna Reid from rival Breakfast on BBC1.

Hilton recalled: “I went on [Daybreak] a couple of times and the whole formula didn’t seem to work. Morning TV is functional and doesn’t make for much of a vehicle for personalities. He did have a lugubrious quality that seemed odd for the morning. But even if it had George Clooney presenting it probably wouldn’t match the BBC’s ratings.”

In August last year Chiles relationship with the BBC finallythawed when he landed a role as co-host on Radio 5 Live’s Friday drivetime show - his first work for the corporation since leaving The One Show.

The new show and his commitment to fronting ITV’s Brazilian World Cup coverage this summer put paid to his relationship with comedian and actress Catherine Tate, with the couple citing “heavy workloads” as the reason for the split late last year.

Chiles recently extended his relationship with the BBC, adding two new three-hour morning shows to his Radio 5 Live schedule, but his ITV sport work remains his bread and butter. He will lead ITV’s coverage including England football internationals and qualifiers until 2018, as well as Europa League and Champion’s League highlights.

He has put the Daybreak disaster behind him. But he seems unlikely to be as ubiquitous as he once was anytime soon. In 2008 he was named Britain’s most watched TV presenter ahead of stars including Ant & Dec, Noel Edmonds and Davina McCall. With typical self-deprecating humour he quipped that “there can’t have been much else on television”.