
Greg James (radio show)

Greg James was a British weekday radio show previously broadcast on BBC Radio 1, starring Greg James as the main presenter. It was broadcast Monday to Thursday from 4:00pm until 7:00pm, which included a 15-minute break for Newsbeat at 5:45pm. The main focus of the show was music and entertainment in the form of features and celebrity interviews. The show achieved a Sony Radio Academy Award in 2014 for 'Best Entertainment Programme' and an ARIA in 2016 for 'Best Entertainment Production'. The final show aired on 19 July 2018 as James went on to present "Radio 1 Breakfast".
History.
After joining BBC Radio 1 in June 2007 and presenting the early breakfast show from October 2007, on 21 September 2009, a new schedule was launched on Radio 1, and it was announced that James would move to an Early Afternoon slot; 1pm to 4pm - replacing Edith Bowman, who moved to the weekend breakfast slot. It was in this early afternoon slot that the majority of the features in the current show were formed. His early breakfast show was taken over by Dev.
It was announced on 28 February 2012 that James and Scott Mills would swap shows as of 2 April 2012. James currently hosts the 'drive time' show (4–7pm) weekdays, while Mills took over the weekdays 'early afternoon' show (1–4pm).
James's drivetime show was initially produced by Laura Sayers (known as Headmistress Laura), with Sarah Underwood, and later Pippa Taylor as Assistant Producer. After Sayers left the show to go on maternity leave, she was replaced by Taylor, and new Assistant Producer Travis Walby joined. James is joined regularly by newsreader Chris Smith (referred to as "Chris Smith With The News"), who takes part in a number of segments during the show, when he is free of Newsbeat duties. There used to be a daily handover at 19:00 with Zane Lowe, prior to his departure from Radio 1. This tradition ended when Annie Mac took over Zane's show. Dev is the regular cover, who would also involve Smith, Taylor and Walby in the discussions, and continue some of the regular features. In June 2015, Taylor and Walby left the show; Taylor to eventually work on The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X, Walby to produce the weekend shows. Their final show was on 5 June 2015. Ian Chaloner took over producing, with Jenny Keough as assistant producer. It was at this point that Chris Smith's involvement in the show was reduced somewhat, with him no longer participating in links and features between 4:30 and 5:45, including Nerd Alerts and Rage Against the Answer Machine, or regularly speaking to Greg after the news. He now appears only between 6:10 and 6:30 on certain days.
The show has over five million listeners, and won a Sony Radio Academy Award in 2014 for 'Best Entertainment Programme'. It won silver the year before. It won the Gold for Best Entertainment Production at the ARIAS 2016.
From 10 December 2012 for a week, James hosted his show from the BFBS Radio Studio in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan. Whilst in Camp Bastion, James met with a large number of troops and invited some personnel to 'shout-out' to their family and friends, and also invited celebrities to read out messages from the families of serving soldiers from the BBC Radio 1 studios in London.
In the week leading up to T In the Park, Greg often takes the show to Scotland to participate in activities there. In 2012 and 2013, this was 'Sofa Surfing', where Greg would stay with listeners and take part in activities chosen by them. In 2014, he put on G In the Park, a mini-music festival from the BBC in Glasgow, with tents where he and several listeners would sleep, and music acts would play on a stage. Every night was live streamed online, on Radio 1's website and on YouTube..
On 24 October 2013, the first episode of the That's What He Said Podcast was released, featuring Greg and newsreader Chris Smith chatting about what happened on his radio show over the previous week, and playing out the highlights.
In March 2015, following changes to the global release day for singles, Radio 1 announced its own changes to the Official Chart Show. From July 2015, it will move to Friday afternoons, between 16:00 and 17:45, integrating into James' current show, with James as host.
In February 2016, Greg took part in the Gregathlon for Comic Relief, in which he completed five triathlons in five days in five cities. This was whilst still doing the show every day at 4pm from the city he had done the triathlon in. During this week, Alice Levine co-hosted the programme from the location.
It was announced on 31 May 2018 during the "Radio 1 Breakfast Show" that current "Breakfast Show" host Nick Grimshaw would be switching shows with James in September 2018 effectively ending the "Greg James" show. Some features of the "Greg James" show will move with him to the "Breakfast Show" with James stating "There will be bits that will come with me and the spirit of the show will come with me". It was announced on 7 July 2018 edition of the podcast that Chris Smith would not be joining Greg on the breakfast show, ending their on-air partnership after seven years. A change.org petition was started by fans in an attempt to reverse this decision.
Features.
Recurring.
These features don't happen regularly, but reappear from time to time, some more frequently than others.
One Off.
These features may have only appeared once or twice.
Parody videos.
A common way in which James promotes his show is his parody videos, in which he dresses up as popular (often female) pop artists and does ridiculous parodies of their music videos. A popular recreation was of Miley Cyrus' 'Wrecking Ball'. It is one of Radio 1's most viewed YouTube videos.
He has also done a version of Kiesza's 'Hideaway' and recently drove Taylor Swift around London while performing a 'lip-sync' video for her new song 'Blank Space'.
In 2013, Chris Smith wrote a Christmas parody of the Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams song, Blurred Lines. Called Mulled Wines, and sung by Father Chris Smith and Pharrelf, the video featured celebrities such as Chris Martin, Fearne Cotton, Charlie Sloth, Jamie Oliver, and Jake Bugg. Zane Lowe said that if the song got more than one million views on YouTube, he would play it on his show. The video can be seen here, and the unofficial lyrics video starring Travis Walby can be seen here.