The Chris Moyles Show

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The Chris Moyles Show
Moyles standing in front of the BBC Radio 1 Logo
Genre	Comedy, talk
Running time	6.30am - 10.00am
Country	United Kingdom
Languages	English
Home station	BBC Radio 1
Writers	Chris Moyles Comedy Dave
Producers	Rachel Jones Aled Haydn Jones
Executive producers	Piers Bradford
Recording studio	Studio B, Yalding House
Air dates	5 January 2004 to Present
Audio format	FM and Digital radio
Opening theme	The Brand New Cheesy Song - since 1st Jan 2007
Website Official Website
Podcast Best of Chris Moyles Best of Chris Moyles Enhanced

The Chris Moyles Show is the current BBC Radio 1 breakfast show in the UK, and has been since Chris Moyles became the station's breakfast show presenter on 5 January 2004. From 2004 to 2007, the show was broadcast from 6:55am to 10am each weekday, but since 15 October 2007 it has started from 6:30am. Moyles' short-lived 1999 TV series on UK Play also had the same name.

1 Show format
- 1.1 Current features
- 1.2 Past features
2 Team members
- 2.1 Notable former team members
3 Guests
4 Podcast
5 Complaints
6 Listener figures and achievements
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Show format

Moyles' show lasts three and a half hours, with news and sport read half-hourly between just before 06:30 (unusually for radio, the news leads up to the top of the half-hour and the show begins properly at exactly 06:30 with the BBC Pips) Where they then play the 'cheesey song' A typical half-hour segment contains between ten and fifteen minutes of chat, discussing the team members' lives, Radio 1's features, music or popular culture. There are 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. The show relies on a number of on-air contributions from background staff 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.

On 9 August 2007, for one day only, the show was extended until noon, as the team covered for Sara Cox (who was covering for Jo Whiley) at extreme short notice, meaning that they were on air for five hours.

[edit] Current features

Popular recurring features that appear on the morning version of The Chris Moyles Show include:

Car Park Catchphrase - Two listeners inside their car have to beep their horn to guess a catchphrase, which is hosted using voice samples from the Northern Irish comedian and original Catchphrase presenter, Roy Walker. Even though simple catchphrases are used and carefully chosen obvious clues provided by Walker using the fictional character Mr Fish, who is the subject of all the clues, many callers fail to spot the correct phrase. The competition went off air at Christmas 2005, but returned to the show on 8 January 2007. It went off the air again when the BBC announced it would temporarily suspend all phone-in competitions. The feature again returned on 14 April 2008 but contestants now have to register through the Radio 1 website, previously Rachel would say at the end of the feature ramble - "The lines are now open for Car Park Catchphrase, you need to be in a car, know your catchphrases and be in a car park, Thank You!". The feature begins with the Car Park Catchphrase jingle, followed by Moyles introducing the feature by saying "Goood Mornin Car Park Fans!", Dominic Byrne is then invited to 'bum' along to the base of the Car Park Catchphrase bed, followed by a chat with clips of Roy Walker. The two callers are then introduced, and asked what model of car they are in, to which the team used to all say "Mmmm, nice wheels!" and then to beep their horn, to which comments are made about the horn. The game is then played with a best-of-3 rule, and winner stays on - for tomorrows game. The feature is then ended by Roy saying "Say goodbye Mr Fish... He's waving!" This feature is aired around 9:45-10:00, at the end of the show. Because of the feature being late into the program sometimes the callers have had to come back the day after as they run out of time either because they have been talking to the callers too long or if they are running late. Some of the pre-recorded material from Roy Walker is played around with, like in a game of what comes next he says "Ben" from the joke Ben Dover, but then "Mycock" is played from the joke Paul Mycock.
Guess Who - An occasional feature in which team members attempt to guess the name of a celebrity that one member has recently seen, using yes or no questions to the tune of Jeopardy.
Rob DJ's Monday Night Pub Quiz - One of Chris' friends, Rob DJ, presents a quiz he writes in a pub in their home town of Leeds every Monday evening, with the team reconstructing five questions from the quiz on Tuesday morning. Running totals of each team member's recent performances are kept and analysed. Since 2007, the quiz has been an interactive feature, with listeners able to play along on their mobile phones via WAP. Until the BBC's fake competition winners scandal forced the company to abandon competitions, one male and one female audience member would take part in the quiz live on air. The rules are that the answer is what Rob DJ has put on the cards, which is not necessarily always the correct answer. However the controversial answers are usually vigorously debated between the team.
Tedious Link - by Comedy Dave - Carried forward from Moyles' old afternoon show, Comedy Dave would link one record played in the previous programme to another record using cleverly written facts to connect the names of the titles or artists, whilst the theme tune to the BBC TV Series Bottom is played in the background. The record is (normally) played at precisely 9:00am, introduced by the famous BBC Pips, and afterwards the link between the records is reviewed for mistakes - which is usually found to be the case. The theme music to the former Channel 4 TV show Treasure Hunt accompanies this review. Tedious Link took a break for two weeks and was replaced by Radio 1's Golden Hour between 17 September and 28 September 2007. The feature now runs from Monday to Friday, while The Golden Hour is on hiatus.
Half-Time in the Show - following the tedious link, the team has a "half-time". Although nearly two-thirds through the show, the title reflects the fact that the peak audience has now turned off and the team uses the opportunity to chat more informally to the remaining listeners. Comedy Dave begins the link shouting "Let's get ready to Ramble!", in the style of boxing announcer Michael Buffer shouting "Let's get ready to Rumble!" After which the team talk about very random things for generally around 15 minutes.
Rate the Guest - A guest is rated out of 10 by Chris, Dave, Rachel and Aled, and since 2007, Dominic and Carrie. The individual scores are then added up to make a grand total. In recent times, guests have been marked to 2 decimal places (or more) to make it harder for Dave, who adds them up to get an accurate total (his arithmetic is hilariously shaky).
Rate the Team - Like Rate the Guest only the guest rates the team. The scores are generally whole numbers.
Brand New Cheesy Song - As of October 2007, the show opens at 6.30am with a song which currently has several sets of lyrics, although it keeps the same melody and always includes the line "Good Morning, from the Chris Moyles Show, International Radio 1" (previously "National Radio 1"). The lyric is changed slightly when Scott Mills stands in for Chris when he is on holiday; "Good Morning from the Chris Moyles Show (with Scott Mills because Chris is on holiday), International Radio 1."
Celebrity Lap - Much like Top Gear's Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, whenever a guest is invited onto the show, they are also invited to perform a lap around the Radio 1 studios. The fastest Celebrity Lap time is currently 18.67 seconds, set by Comedy Dave, while the fastest celebrity is Peter Jones, at 20.27 seconds. The leader board and videos can be viewed here.
Space Pirates - Around the time of the release of the Space Pirates single, the team would promote the song by singing a rendition of it on air. It is now more of a sporadic feature, and if played, Chris would usually replace the chorus with a sound-byte of Mark Ronson singing "space pirates" instead. Recently, a Ghostbusters mix of the song has been featured on the show.
Celebrity Two Word Tango ("borrowed" from Dick and Dom in da Bungalow) - The running gag in 2007 was that Carrie Davis panicked and squeaks out names towards the end. A video of her doing this is on the Chris Moyles website page in the Blog section.
"I slept with Chris Moyles last night" - The team attempt to convince guests to state that they slept with Moyles the previous night during their television interviews, playing the clips during the show
Made up news - Chris and Dave present made up news stories in the style of an actual news broadcast, using real soundbites from celebrities but interprating the short clips into interesting alternatives. At the end of the feature, Chris and Dave both say goodbye, and have their own catchphrase, but say it at the same time, so neither is able to be heard.
The Golden Hour - Every Friday, Chris asks the listeners to text in and see if they can guess what were the years the music of yesteryear were a hit on Radio 1. The first half hour is always one year, and the second half hour is music from various years.

[edit] Past features

Features that have appeared on the morning version of the show in the past include:

Just Ask Dom - A feature involving Dominic Byrne answering questions sent in to Radio 1 Online. Using similar theme music to 'Who Knows Dom', it is not always accurate.
Who Knows Dom? - A feature added on 6 August 2007 and ended only just over a month later, on 26 September, as a replacement for One Road Travel, is Who Knows Dom. Dominic Byrne, the show's news reader, starts by describing a friend of his, the next day someone else who knows that original friend calls in. The next day someone who knows the previous caller gets in touch, and continues the chain. The unofficial goal of this feature was to eventually solve world peace by uniting everyone in the world through Dom. The high-point of the feature occurred when, with no forward planning, Timmy Mallet was a link in the chain.
One Road Travel - A parody of the travel news of local radio shows. Dominic originally read out travel news from one random road each day. Since January 2006 the roads have been chosen by listeners. Various facts about the nominated listener are detailed along with a report about their road. Became known as 'New and Improved One Road Travel' from January 2006 and 'Betterer-Than-Ever One Road Travel' from January 2007. One Road Travel ended on 20 July 2007 and might come back as a special either in the future or as a podcast.
One Word Weather with Nelson Mandela - A feature which newsreader Dominic Byrne would describe the weather in one word, in the voice style of Nelson Mandela, "Clowdee".
BB Aled - When a series of Big Brother or Celebrity Big Brother UK is ongoing, Aled reviews everything that has been happening in the Big Brother house along with his pre-recorded interviews with the most recently evicted housemate.
Buzz Off - Chris would bring a song from his home to play out on air while listeners texted in to decide if they wanted the song to stop early. Initially the feature required just 2000 texts saying 'buzz off' for them to stop the song, but it was later changed into a percentage of 'buzz off' vs 'buzz on' texts. If a higher number of 'buzz on' texts came through the song would be played in it's entirety.
Celebrity Tarzan - A pre-recorded celebrity does an impression of Tarzan and listeners phone in to guess who it is, the winners receive CDs and other assorted show detritus, the amount of prizes increases every day until the voice guessed correctly. This featured aired after the 8 o'clock news, and the lines for Celebrity Tarzan opened just before the 8 o'clock news.
Chicks Win Ticks competition for women to win tickets to various things.
Hello/Goodbye - On 7 September 2007, the breakfast team announced that the new feature, "Hello/Goodbye" would be introduced on Monday 10 September. The feature asked listeners to fill in an online form stating what time they tune in and tune out, so that during the show, DJ Chris Moyles and the breakfast team can say a Hello, or Goodbye to individual listeners.
Reverse-A-Word - Later made into a one-off special by Challenge TV
Sting Ring - Moyles would wake up a listener by playing Sting songs down the phone. In Christmas 2005, the feature was renamed Bing Ring, and Bing Crosby songs were used instead.
Whattity What A short-lived spoof of Blankety Blank briefly revived for a podcast in August 2007.
Yesterday's Weather - Dominic would review where the warmest, wettest and as such happened in the UK the previous day. Such as to make his weather forecasts 100% accurate when challenged by Moyles one day.
Beep Beep Busters - A replacement of Car Park Catch-Phrase in 2006, which alluded to Bob Holness's Blockbusters, where callers are still in a car, but answer questions instead of guessing catchphrases.
King of Tickets - Surreal feature which lasted for just one day (5 March 2004), in which Dave put on a Santa-like voice to guise himself as a king. The 'King' had tickets for the football, but was unable to attend, so he invited listeners to call in and stake a claim for them. He would then decide which of the two callers deserved them more and that person would win.
Birthday Corner - On 20 July 2007 it was confirmed that, after the presenters had come back from holiday on 6 August, they would be starting a new feature where you send in a birthday card for yourself or someone else and it gets read on air. On 22 January 2008 Moyles refused to do the segment therefore putting it's future in doubt. It was confirmed on 25 January 2008 that it would be the last birthday corner. This feature made a brief reappearance on the 2008 birthday show.
Mystic Horse - A regular feature in which listeners would pose yes or no questions to the mystic horse for which they would either receive a yay or a neigh.

[edit] Team members

Of the current team members, Comedy Dave has worked with Chris the longest; though since 2004 he has also presented his own show; Chappers and Dave, alongside Mark "Chappers" Chapman former sports reporter for and sidekick of, Sara Cox who now mainly works with Scott Mills.

Chris Moyles - Host of the show
Comedy Dave Vitty - 'Director Of Comedy'; general assistant to Chris. AKA "The Meat", "Monkeyman" and "Pigfeet"
Rachel Jones - Producer since 2003
Aled Haydn Jones (BB Aled) - Day Producer and Big Brother Reporter. He had previously worked as the Assistant Producer
Dominic Byrne - Newsreader since the move to mornings. He also does regular celebrity interviews and presents the 'Who Knows Dom' feature
Carrie Prideaux - Sportsreader and "sports princess" since 2004, replacing former sportsreader Juliette Ferrington.
Rob DJ - Chris' friend from Leeds who is the author and presenter of Rob DJ's Monday Night Pub Quiz in Chris's Local Pub in Leeds.
Matt Fincham - Assistant Producer. Has infrequently been heard on the show. The team think he sounds like Scott Mills and often get him to say "Alright treacle", Mills' catchphrase.
Andi Peters - Whilst not an official member, former children's TV presenter Andi Peters frequently calls up the show, usually unannounced, and has conversations with the team. He particularly tends to call up when Rachel is absent as he seems to think she has a problem with him.
Roy Walker (2004-2006, 2007, 2008) - host of Car Park Catchphrase in pre-recorded form.

[edit] Notable former team members

Longman - a semi-frequent member of the crew and used to own a sandwich shop. He is currently a personal trainer and lives in Florida with his new wife. He made a couple of appearances in 2007.
Will Kinder (2000-2005) - Also known as Grey 'Ed. Producer of the Afternoon Show (2000-2003), but left to join Tiger Aspect Productions. However, he returned shortly afterwards. He currently produces most of the video output on the Radio 1 website.
Juliette Ferrington (2004) - Original sportsreader on the Breakfast Show, after making frequent appearances on the Afternoon Show. However, she left in October 2004 to join BBC Radio 5 Live as their North of England football correspondent.
Lizzie Buckingham (2001-2002) - Joined the show as broadcast assistant after working with Jamie Theakston. Left in 2002 to become Day Producer on the Scott Mills show, before moving to Canada.
Jon Culshaw (1998-2002) - Resident show impressionist, Culshaw would join the team every Friday for impression-based segments, most notably prank phone calls. In 2000, Culshaw began his career with Dead Ringers on BBC Radio 4, which transferred to television in 2002, prompting Culshaw to leave his role on the Chris Moyles show.

[edit] Guests

Moyles has had, and frequently boasts about, a wide array of celebrity guests on his show. Notable appearances include Dave Grohl, Ricky Wilson, Will Smith, Halle Berry, Kiefer Sutherland, Patsy Kensit, Kelly Osbourne, Rob Brydon, Steve Coogan, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Girls Aloud, Ricky Gervais, Matt Lucas, David Walliams, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Russell Brand, Jimmy Carr, Beyoncé, Gordon Ramsay, Justin Lee Collins, Gwen Stefani, Take That, Jools Holland, Charlotte Church, Billie Piper, Jack Osbourne, P Diddy, Keith Allen, Lily Allen, Jack Black, Jon Culshaw, 50 Cent, Magic Numbers, Sir Geoff Hurst, Ozzy Osbourne, Will Young, Robbie Williams, David Tennant, Noel Gallagher, Drew Barrymore, Joss Stone, Philip Glenister, David Baddiel, Frank Skinner, Hayden Panettiere, David Beckham, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, Alan Carr, Chris Rock,P!nk, Adrian Chiles Peter Jones, Natasha Bedingfield, Sean Maguire and Milo Ventimiglia

In the Summer of 2004, Moyles interviewed the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair as part of Sport Relief. Among other questions posed to the PM was to name his favourite type of cheese, to which Blair replied cheddar.

A long-running gag throughout certain interviews is for Chris to demonstrate and describe the hydraulic desk in the studio. This is usually done if the team deem the visiting guest to be less than entertaining or boring.

In 2006, everytime a celebrity guest appeared on the show, Chris, Dave, Rachel and Aled rated them out of 10, giving an overall score out of 40, and all of the results were put onto the leaderboard. Patsy Kensit topped the board with a respectable 39/40. Bottom of the board was P Diddy, with 9/40.

Since 2007, Dom and Carrie also join in "rating the guest" - giving each celebrity guest a total out of 60. Currently, Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne are top of the leaderboard, with 57.58/60, and Joss Stone is bottom, with 27.2/60.

Since the interview that never happened with David Gest, there has been a feature where if the celebrity who is due to be interviewed isn't there on their call time, they will be cancelled. This has happened three times to date. The first was David Gest, who was followed by Katie Price. On 25 February 2008, Adrian Chiles was due to be a guest on the show but was late. However, his interview had been rescheduled rather than cancelled entirely.

[edit] Podcast

Starting on 28 July 2005, as part of the BBC's podcasting trial, a weekly podcast entitled the 'Best of Moyles' was released, containing the highlights from the past week of the show. Originally updated every Thursday, and now Friday as from January 2006, the podcast features highlights from the five previous broadcasts. It featured as 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 is quite popular and is downloaded by over a quarter of a million people worldwide. The podcasts also contain a live opening link, and closing link. Many of these podcasts contain podcast producer Ant, who is mocked for having a very silly voice, and the famous middle link, which hasn't been included since October 2007, in which anything is expected to happen because it is non-scripted.

[edit] Complaints

See also: Chris Moyles#Controversies

There have been a number of complaints in the last two years about the Chris Moyles Show. These have included complaints of bad language, racism, homophobia, transphobia and sexism; some of which have been upheld by Ofcom. Many of these complaints and controversies have resulted from the relatively adult content of Moyles' show in relation to its breakfast time slot.

[edit] Listener figures and achievements

Since taking over from Sara Cox in January 2004, the show's audience has increased by over 1 million listeners, to over 7 million weekly listeners in October 2005, according to RAJAR figures.^[1] Since the show began it has risen to become the most popular radio show for young people in London, overtaking Johnny Vaughan's Capital Radio show, beating it by 3,000 listeners in October 2005.

It remains the second most popular show on the BBC's Listen Again Service, behind The Archers.

In June 2005, Radio 1 signed an agreement with Sirius Satellite Radio to broadcast much of their content in the United States and Canada, with the Chris Moyles show as one of the main selling points (with a suitable time delay ensuring it remains a 'breakfast' show in the Eastern Time Zone).

In 2005, as part of the BBC's podcasting trial, a weekly podcast entitled 'The Best of Moyles' was released. Originally updated every Thursday and now Friday as from January 2006, the podcast features highlights from the 5 previous broadcasts. It featured as 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 is quite popular and is downloaded by over a quarter of a million people worldwide.

In 2006, the show won a gold Sony Radio Award for the best entertainment show. Upon accepting the award, in typical Moyles fashion, Chris started his acceptance speech with "About fucking time!"

The release of the latest RAJAR listening figures on 3 August 2006 cemented Moyles' popularity in the slot - he had added a further 470,000 listeners to the Breakfast Show, taking the average listenership up to 6.79 million.

In January 2007, The Chris Moyles Show further increased its listening figures by 10,000.^{[citation needed]}

On 10 May 2007, RAJAR figures confirmed that Moyles had increased his listening figures to 7.06m, breaking the seven million barrier for the first time. However the estimated total listening figure is over 8 million because the survey does not count under 15s.

As of 31 January 2008, the listening figures have once again increased. They now stand at 7.31m, an increase of 330,000 from the previous quarter. The show is now only second in the Breakfast Show ratings, just behind Terry Wogan who has 7.73m listeners per week.

The latest RAJAR figures released on 1st May 2008 show another increase in listeners for The Chris Moyles Show, with a further 400,000 listener in the 15+ category, taking the audience to 7.7m.