Chris Moyles

Christopher Moyles (born February 22, 1974 in Leeds), is a British radio DJ and presenter of The Chris Moyles Show on BBC Radio 1.

Career

Pre-Radio 1

Before settling in at Radio 1, Chris has had presenting experience at various local radio stations in the UK, including Radio Aire, The Pulse of West Yorkshire, Chiltern Radio, Horizon Radio, Signal 1 and Capital FM. Before then, he also managed a short stint at Radio Luxembourg, being known as presenter Chris Holmes.

Without co-presenters alongside in his shows, Chris's unique style was more obviously seen, and was arguably more creative than in his current Radio 1 role. His usual mocking of callers and over-the-top phone-cutting-off sound effects were still heavily used.

Features in his shows included 'Throwing CDs at the studio clock', 'The ABC Game' and 'True or False'. Regular characters such as 'Agony Kid' (a young child creating spoofs of an Agony Aunt column) and a high-pitched 'Little Fella' also made appearances on the shows. Over the years on local radio, Chris has had production talents such as Daryl Denham lending a hand in producing the goods before each show was put on air.

Already known as 'The Saviour' to his listeners, 'The Early Evening Bit', 'The Late Bit', or just the 'xxx bit', in general, were common names used for his shows on the various stations.

Radio 1

In 1997 Moyles was voted one of the Faces for '97 by Sky Magazine. He later joined Radio 1 on July 28, 1997. Within months, in May 1998, his work was recognised by the award of the Silver Sony Awards DJ of the Year, and within the year he was promoted to a Saturday mid-morning slot.

His next promotion came in October 1998 when he took control of the afternoon show. Moyles took with him the show's writer and his sidekick David "Comedy Dave" Vitty. His show also included regular guests such as impressionist Jon Culshaw. He and his team soon attracted considerable attention and notoriety.

Moyles' style of delivery involves fast speech punctuated with long pauses.

After five years on drive time, on January 5, 2004, Moyles started presenting Radio 1's flagship programme The Breakfast Show, switching places with Sara Cox. He had been appointed to increase the ratings for the show and did so, putting on an extra 700,000 listeners to the audience in the first quarter of 2004. After a successful first year, Moyles was awarded 'DJ of the Year' by readers of The Sun.

By 2005 Chris Moyles and his team had succeeded in vastly increasing the morning audience, as his programme's audience had swelled to 6.5 million. This was coupled with an increase in the overall Radio 1 listenership. With 895,000 listeners in London in the third quarter of 2005, he succeeded in overtaking Johnny Vaughan to take the prized position of the capital's most listened to youth breakfast show. Along with his short-lived campaign "Say No to Wogan", Chris' listener count is increasing each week. This lead to him winning a gold Sony Radio Award in 2006 for best entertainment show.

Show format

Features

Regular competitions he has hosted have been Viaduct, which was based on a Two Ronnies sketch (itself based on Mastermind, with a specialist subject of "answering the question before the last"), and more recently Car Park Catchphrase, featuring voice samples from the Ulster comedian Roy Walker. This was replaced in January 2006 with a spoof on the quiz Blockbusters called Beep Beep Busters, which has since disappeared from the show as of May 2006, however, it's expected to return later this year. His Saturday morning shows often contained slightly bizarre competitions, including one where Chris and Dave made predictions on how long people's marriages would last (entitled May Divorce Be With You).

Numerous other comedy features have been included in Moyles' shows. These include Girls Going to Football, in which Comedy Dave predicts the scores of football matches to which female listeners are going; Rob DJ's Monday Night Pub Quiz, where the team answers a selection of questions from a local pub quiz; Frog Or Dog, where listeners had to do an impression of either a frog or a dog; Guess Who, a Twenty Questions-style game, in which the team members try to guess the name of a celebrity spotted by another of the team; and many more.

The most recent addition, in February 2006, is Celebrity Tarzan, whereby listeners have to try and guess which celebrity is hollering like Tarzan, in order to win various prizes.

The team

Moyles' show follows on from the likes of Steve Wright and Chris Evans in that it relies on a number of on-air contributors. Of these, Comedy Dave (see above) has worked with Chris the longest; though since 2004 he has also presented his own show alongside Mark Chapman. Many of the other contributors have been the sports reader Carrie Davis and news reader Dominic Byrne from the show, broadcast assistants and show producers Rachel & Day Producer Aled; though Chris' friends such as Longman and impressionist Jon Culshaw have also been involved.

Work outside of radio

Chris also branched out into television, though with less success. His own Channel 5 show, Live With . . . Chris Moyles, was a flop in the ratings, with audiences as low as 200,000 viewers. Chris was soon replaced by Christian O'Connell, before the programme was shelved altogether. ^*

He and sidekick Comedy Dave also had a short-lived 1999 TV show, also entitled The Chris Moyles Show, on the now-defunct UK satellite and cable channel UK Play. He has also occasionally presented Top Of The Pops and has worked for Comic Relief.

In October 2004, Moyles and the The Chris Moyles Show team replaced U2's Vertigo at number one in the UK Official Download Chart with their download-only charity song Dogz Don't Kill People (Wabbitz Do), under the name 'Mouldie Lookin' Stain'. The song was a spoof of Goldie Lookin' Chain's Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do and proceeds went to Comic Relief. It currently features in the Guinness Book of Records as the fastest-ever selling download.

The February 2006 edition of Viz featured two recognisable radio personalities in a feature called Jo Whiley Coyote, with Moyles standing in for Road Runner in an allegorical race for Radio 1 listeners. 'Whiley Coyote' stopped him in his tracks using traps such as a pile of artery-blocking cheeseburgers placed on the edge of an overhanging cliff.

Chris appeared on the ITV1 show The X Factor: Battle Of The Stars. He was voted out of the show on 4th June 2006 in the semi-final.

Controversies

Moyles, unlike many current and former Radio 1 DJs, except maybe Chris Evans, derides listeners who enter the phone-in competitions he hosts. In his earlier days, he would regularly ask female callers the size of their breasts, and has always made light of young lads with a strong south-east England or Cockney accent. He remorselessly mocks people who he considers have dull, repetitive jobs with obvious sarcasm. When starting at Radio 1 on the 4 - 7am shift, he played soundtracks of passionate encounters in pornographic films, over which female newsreaders tried to read the weather forecast. Unsurprisingly, he has had dealings with the Broadcasting Standards Commission and Ofcom when at Capital FM and Radio 1, who have had complaints upheld such as when he threatened Dr Fox of Capital FM in October 2002 that 'I'm gonna tear his head off and poo down his neck', or in early 2002 saying he would take the virginity of Charlotte Church, when she reached sixteen. Such jokes are made in obvious jest, proved by the fact that he and Charlotte Church are good friends and she has been a guest on his show several times and his Christmas 2005 show came from her mother's pub.

When he arrived at the station, John Peel took immediately against him and accused him of being a "DLT-in-waiting". Moyles retorted that Peel was a "Kenny Everett-in-waiting, because Kenny Everett’s dead and it’s only a matter of time before John pops his clogs". ^*. Later Chris and John Peel made up and became friends, with Peel appearing on his show a couple of times.

Alongside a number of other Radio 1 and Radio 2 DJs, Moyles crossed a strike picketline in May 2005. BBC staff were striking over recently announced job cuts. Although Moyles claimed that he would be sympathetic to the strikers on his show, he made no mention of the strike^*.

Last summer, Moyles escaped another scrap with Ofcom, when, referring to Beyoncé, he tried to say 'thighs like a trucker' and instead blurted out 'thighs like a fucker.' He quickly apologised and there was no further investigation.

In February 2006 Moyles was rapped for swearing at a caller live on air during an angry rant. He continued to apologise, however, for another minute after the event. ^*

It was recently leaked to The Sun newspaper that Moyles has signed a contract worth £630,000, more than double the second-highest earner on the station, Jo Whiley. ^*

In May 2006, he upset actress Halle Berry over an imitation of a "Big Black Guy" during an interview with her and Hugh Jackman over the new film X-Men 3: The Last Stand. Berry asked him, "Are we having a racist moment here?" ^*

The following week, Moyles failed to turn up for his Breakfast show after an emotional day watching his favourite football team, Leeds United, miss out on promotion to the Premiership . Early Breakfast presenters JK and Joel stood in for the absent Moyles, with his colleagues claiming to be unaware of his whereabouts. Later the BBC announced this was a pre-planned stunt, and that Chris had booked the day off anyway. ^*.

In June 2006, Moyles was accused of being homophobic when he rejected a ringtone by saying "I don't like that one, it's gay" live on air. On 7th June he made the point that he will not apologise to one upset journalist .

He was also criticised by radio watchdog Ofcom the same month for an incident in which he referred to female listeners as "dirty whores". ^*

Audio clips

External links

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