Chris Moyles and his breakfast show team have said goodbye for the final time on BBC Radio 1 this morning.
The final show was everything we’ve come to expect from Moyles over the years – all about him and his time on the second biggest radio show in the UK.
Today’s show featured more special guests – for the radio geeks, special jingles, Paul Turner the show Voice Over, and references to other radio stations were all included. One jingle sang his next job was at Smooth Radio, and a final Friday cheesey song opened the show. A special closing jingle complete with video was produced by Sandy Beech at Music4 brought it all to a close.
McFly even recorded a special version of Star Girl complete with video – now available on YouTube and below.
He’s hosted the show for almost a decade – the longest anyone has been on breakfast at the station – and had an audience of over seven million people tuning in each week. Yesterday he hosted the show from the BBC Radio Theatre, which was also streamed online and on the Red Button. Ant and Dec provided a surprise “This is your life” big red book to him, and celebrity friends such as Gary Barlow, Billie Piper, Pixie Lott, James Corden, Davina McCall all dropped in to say goodbye.
Over the years he’s hosted a 52 hour radio show and climbed Mount Kilamanjaro, both raising hundreds of thousands for charity. Over recent years he’s been rumoured to be replaced but in June 2011 he signed a two and a half year contract keeping him at the station till 2014. The Sun reported it was worth £1.25m. But then on July 11th 2012, he announced now is the right time to leave.
He’s been good PR for radio too, with endless articles appearing in newspapers and magazines about his apparently controversial activities.
It’s no secret that Chris is leaving because new Controller Ben Cooper needs to take the average age of the listener down to within its intended bracket. Ben hopes Chris’ replacement Nick Grimshaw will do that when he starts on September 24th. Scott Mills will host the show in the meantime.
Now Chris will tour the UK with his King Herod part in Jesus Chris Superstar, then return to BBC Radio 1 to host a new show. Then, in November, he’ll be back on the road with Chris Moyles Live, appearing in theatres around the country offering one last chance to see the team together. It has been reported but not confirmed that Chris will move to the Late Show in place of Nick Grimshaw.
Good luck Chris, thankyou for the memories, and we look forward to listening to you again in the near future – from everyone at Radio Today.
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Posted on Friday, September 14th, 2012 at 10:01 am by RadioToday Staff