The Chris Moyles Show

The Chris Moyles Show is the title given to two differing versions of a radio programme hosted by Chris Moyles, originally broadcast as Radio 1 Breakfast from 5 January 2004 to 14 September 2012 before transferring three years later on 21 September 2015 to the Global Radio-owned commercial radio station Radio X. The show is broadcast 6:30–10:00am each weekday (originally broadcasting from 6:55–10:00am between 2004 and 2007).
Radio X version.
On 21 September 2015, Moyles relaunched the show on Radio X, the rebranded XFM, reviving the show under the same title. The new show incorporates elements of the BBC Radio 1 incarnation of the show, in particular referencing the opening "Cheesy Song" at the start of the show before reverting to the Radio X imaging, Paul Turner providing prerecorded voice over, and Richard Oliver singing the show's jingle. In February 2016 RAJAR published the first listener figures for the Radio X show. However these figures were only for FM listeners in London. Moyles provided a 39% boost in listeners for Radio X and gave the station its best breakfast show figures in London in almost a decade.
Format.
"The Chris Moyles Show"'s rebrand on Radio X consisted largely of the same format used in the Radio 1 version. The "Cheesy Song" and similar jingles were replaced by a more distinguished rock-led sound. Dominic Byrne returned for news, sport and weather. Similarly Pippa Taylor, also previously at Radio 1, returned as producer joining previous XFM Breakfast Show producer Dave Masterman.
Stand-in presenters.
Johnny Vaughan initially covered the programme when Moyles and the team were absent and presented the programme under the title "The 6.30 till 10 Thang" - a variation on his normal "4 till 7 Thang" drive-time slot. Vaughan used most of his own features from his afternoon slot and would be joined on air by his usual team of Gavin Woodman, Sunta Templeton, Big Si and Little Si.
As of 2019, Toby Tarrant typically covers Moyles and the team, keeping with the normal format of the show.
Radio 1 version.
At eight years, "The Chris Moyles Show" did continue to hold the title of the longest running breakfast show in BBC Radio 1's history, having overtaken original Radio 1 breakfast show presenter Tony Blackburn's tenure of five years between 1967 and 1973.
Format.
The original BBC Radio 1 show lasted for three and a half hours, with news and sport read half-hourly between 06:30 and 10:00, except at 09:00. Starting on 1 January 2007, the show began with the "Cheesy Song", an opening song performed by session singer Richard Oliver in the style of the "Station Song" jingles which were commonly used in radio before the advent of 24-hour broadcasting. Starting on 5 January 2009, the song had its own day, for example, if it was Wednesday, it would go "the Wednesday Cheesy Song" repeatedly. A typical half-hour segment contained fifteen to twenty minutes of chat, discussing the team members' lives, Radio 1's features, music or popular culture. There were regular celebrity guest interviews usually between 08:00 and 09:00, with the occasional live music performance and frequent first exclusive plays of new single releases. At 10:00, when Fearne Cotton took over (who took over the slot previously occupied by Jo Whiley from 21 September 2009) Moyles and the team would typically talk to Cotton for the first few minutes. The show relied in a variation of the "zoo" format, with members of the production team, news and sport readers and other studio guests contributing throughout the show.
Features.
Numerous other features of past shows include "Celebrity Tarzan", "Celebrity Two Word Tango", "Who Knows Dom?", "One Word Weather with Nelson Mandela", "One Road Travel", "Yesterday's Weather", "Truth or Gunge", "Listen, Watch, Cher", "Let's get ready to Ramble!" and "Birthday Corner".
Other former regular competitions hosted included "Viaduct" (named by Simon Mayo when asked for a suggestion about what to call the quiz when Moyles stood in for Zoë Ball on the breakfast show). It was based on a "Two Ronnies" sketch (in turn based on "Mastermind", with a specialist subject of "answering the question before the last").
Team members.
The team members of "The Chris Moyles Show" on Radio 1 were:
Contributors.
As well as the team members, other contributors also regularly featured on the show:
Stand-in presenters.
Scott Mills covered the programme when Moyles and the team were absent, and presented the programme under the title "The Chris Moyles Show with Scott Mills". Mills used most of his own features from his afternoon slot, and was joined on air by radio personalities Rebecca Huxtable, Mark Chapman and Chris Stark.
When only Moyles was away, Vernon Kay or Sara Cox would present in his place, and stay with the usual format of the show.
"Radio 1's Longest Show Ever".
On 28 February 2011, it was announced that Moyles and David Vitty would attempt to beat the record for the longest continuous Radio 1 show in aid of Comic Relief. The previous record of 37 hours was set by Simon Mayo from 1999.
Moyles and Vitty began their record attempt on the morning of 16 March 2011. At the beginning of the show, Moyles announced that they would attempt to break the "Guinness World Record" for "Radio DJ Endurance Marathon (Team)" and attempt to continuously broadcast for 51 hours 30 minutes. At 19:30 on 17 March they were joined by Simon Mayo who held the previous record and also revealed that they had raised £1,009,033. Moyles and Vitty were presented with a cake by Radio 1 controller Andy Parfitt.
On Friday 18 March 2011 at 08:30, Moyles and Comedy Dave broke the "Guinness World Record" for the 'Longest Marathon Radio DJ (team)' and by the end of the show (at 10:00), they had hit the 51 and a half hour mark. The duo opted to 'round it off' by going to 10:30 and thus set a new record of 52 hours. In doing, so they raised a final total of £2,406,648 for Comic Relief, which is an average of £46,282 for each hour they were on air. During the attempt, the duo were joined by many celebrity guests, including Paul O'Grady, Phillip Schofield, The Wanted, Chipmunk, Jimmy Carr, Craig David, Katy Perry and Ricky Gervais. The grand total has since increased to £2,821,831 and with an audience of 2.84 Million, the event was the most popular live BBC Red Button radio feature ever. 3.8 million people watched on the Radio 1 website.
On 18 November 2011, their record was broken by a breakfast show on the German station 98.8 KISS FM Berlin, when presenters Nora Neise and Tolga Akar were on air for 73 hours.
Podcasts.
Starting on 28 July 2005, a weekly podcast entitled the "Best of Chris Moyles" was released containing the highlights from the past week of the show. Originally updated every Thursday, and then Friday from January 2006, the podcast featured highlights from the five previous broadcasts. It was the most downloaded podcast in the UK iTunes Music Store for much of 2005; however, in December 2005, it was overtaken by the Ricky Gervais Podcast. The podcast was regularly downloaded by over three hundred thousand people worldwide . The podcasts also contain original opening and closing links.
From July 2011, the podcast was referred to as a Free Download and this was marked by the team on the 24 June 2011 episode.
The current Radio X show has a podcast available via iTunes and RSS.
Complaints.
There have been a number of complaints about "The Chris Moyles Show". These have included complaints of swearing, bullying, racism, homophobia, transphobia and sexism. Some of these complaints have been upheld by Ofcom, while others were dismissed.