So, that’s it then. The era of ‘The Chris Moyles Show‘ being the Radio 1 breakfast show is now a fixed point in history.
The first ever Radio 1 breakfast show was in the hands of the wonderful Tony Blackburn. In those days it was music led with quick-fire jokes, requests, and small funnies to give the ‘links’ (the talking bits inbetween the songs) a bit of meat. When Noel Edmunds took over, he brought with him greater pre-production and extended ‘wacky’ content and pranks which seemed to be what the public wanted.
Tony Blackburn and Noel Edmunds could identify with their audience, an essential ability that was later shared by Mike Read and Simon Mayo during their tenure of the breakfast show.
I recall Mike Read and Simon Mayo both handing on the baton and I recall missing them, yet moving forward with whatever came to replace them. When someone or some people become part of your daily routine, you really notice when they’ve gone.
The Chris Moyles Show was part of people’s daily habit for nearly 9 years, and, with the much more instant rolling interactivity of modern days, allowed the audience to be part of whatever was happening.
Indeed, whilst the likes of Mike Read or Simon Mayo might have come across as a ‘friend’, The Chris Moyles Show came across as a ‘family’ of friends. The listener’s extended family. In fact, although Chris Moyles was an obviously essential part (and it’s his name in the title!), the success of The Chris Moyles Show was that it was a living, addictive and hard-to-miss-an-episode soap opera of a ‘radio family’ surrounding Chris Moyles. This ‘format’ is sometimes referred to as the ‘zoo’ format, originating as it did on an American radio station known as KZEW – The Zoo.
Surrounding Chris Moyles were ‘sidekick’ ‘Comedy’ Dave Vitty, news reader Dominic Byrne, sports news reader Tina Daheley, and producer Aled Haydn Jones. Incidental ‘extras’ included Pippa and Freya or others working in the background to help produce elements of the show.
Starting at 6:30am, the first 30 minutes would consist of a long chat about what they’d been up to, or watched on TV last night, and generally be those very same conversations that most people have when they first get to work, before they start actually working.
After 7:00am the show would ‘start’ properly and would run with games, sillies, celebrity guests, interviews and light-hearted ‘stuff’ inbetween the occasional songs. An essential part of the show’s identity was the extended collection of properly sung jingles with full orchestral backing, plus slightly tongue-in-cheek American voice-overs. These are usually and sadly missing from radio today.
In reality The Chris Moyles Show was a talk show that also played a few songs. In truth, these songs were usually so the crew could run outside for a ‘fag break’.
The format of The Chris Moyles Show, along with the listener feeling they were part of it, was its strength, but, moving forward, that format is possibly one of Chris Moyles‘s weaknesses.
Fairly recently, minus all the others, Chris Moyles sat in for other Radio 1 DJs that had gone sick or whatever. He sounded very different, very alert, very lively, and very fast moving. Maybe this is the Chris Moyles that will re-appear on Radio 1 in random places in order to see out his contract.
Sara Cox once held the breakfast show baton – not for long – before handing it on to Chris Moyles. In the subsequent 8 years she completely re-invented herself and is different enough to be commanding good young audiences when she sits in for Fearne Cotton or appears on Sunday mid-mornings.
Strangely Sara Cox successfully appears on both Radio 1 and Radio 2. But is Radio 2 where Chris Moyles appears next? I hope not. I don’t think he’s finished on Radio 1. Okay, I hope he’s not. However, I fear I don’t quite see where exactly he fits in. But, I may once have thought that about Sara Cox.
It’s possible that Chris Moyles will bow out of his radio career for now. He transfers well to TV, and, even though he’s ‘hiding’ himself away for now by ‘being too busy’ playing Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar, maybe the future might be to take The Chris Moyles Show to TV.
It’s not an original idea, mind. Harking back to ‘The James Whale Radio show‘ which was TV cameras watching James Whale and his guests in Radio Aire‘s studios, maybe The Chris Moyles Show could mutate into a similar entity for the future.
October sees The Chris Moyles Show do a fairly small tour of theatres around the country. I suspect this will be a sell-out with seats full of those addicted to the whole ‘soap’, wanting to know what happens next. Yep, maybe this would work on TV too.
Whatever the future holds, and I find myself ‘wondering’ more about the rest of the team rather than just Chris Moyles himself, it was right for The Chris Moyles Show to come to an end on Radio 1.
Radio 1 must keep re-inventing itself to appeal to the under-30s. The Chris Moyles Show appealed to all ages and was like an extended part of the family and had grown old. Like any member of the family passing away, it will be very sorely missed.
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