According to this article on The Bookseller - http://www.thebookseller.com/news/bbcs-nick-higham-steps-down-from-meet-author-318298 - Rebecca Jones will also present the programme, within her remit as arts correspondent. IIRC Rebecca is/was predominately Radio 4's arts correspondent (though seems to do report frequently enough for TV, so this distinction may no longer exist). As for Higham's departure and how the programme is made, some of you might find the detail of that article interesting:
Quote:
On deciding to leave, he added: “It was a personal decision. I am one of the BBC’s home news correspondents and ['Meet the Author'] is quite a substantial commitment in time. Effectively I act as my own producer, I fix all the interviews, I read all the books, I book the studios, I am involved in editing the pieces and so on. And we do specials: we do things around interviews with shortlisted authors at some of the awards. We interview all the contenders for the Costa Book Award. And put all those out in one week... So there’s a lot of work and it takes quite a lot of time.
The article also confirms Nick will be staying on as a news correspondent, and have "have an extra two days a week on average to devote to home news following his departure".