Chris Moyles

One of the most successful, and controversial, radio DJs in the U.K., Radio 1 Breakfast Show host Chris Moyles has also regularly graced and influenced the music charts. Born in Leeds in 1974, Moyles began his broadcasting career in hospital radio before landing professional stints in Ayre, Luxembourg, and Stoke. After leaving his late-night show at Capital FM, he joined Radio 1 in 1997 in the four to seven a.m. slot. Due to his increasing popularity, he was moved around the schedules several times before landing the main breakfast show in 2004, where he soon increased its audience by one million listeners. In the same year, he and his radio team recorded "Dogs Don't Kill People (Wabbitz Do)," a spoof of the Goldie Lookin' Chain hit, which knocked U2's "Vertigo" off the Official Download Chart No. 1. The Parody Album, featuring renditions of tracks by JLS ("Meat Again"), La Roux ("Waterproofs"), and Alesha Dixon ("The Boy Does Plenty"), was released in 2009. Featuring Calvin Harris and Kaiser Chiefs' Ricky Wilson, it charted at number 17 in its first week, placing higher than new albums from Rihanna and Mariah Carey, and went on to sell 100,000 copies. Moyles has also influenced the official singles charts, thanks to his championing of random songs, such as Billie Piper's 1999 hit "Honey to the Bee" and the John Barrowman album track "I Made It Through the Rain," which both made the Top 20 after he instructed his listeners to download them. Also in 2009, Moyles became the longest serving presenter on Radio 1, beating the record previously held by Tony Blackburn, while in the same year, he and fellow presenter Dave Vitty raised money for Comic Relief and broke a Guinness World Record by broadcasting continuously for over fifty one hours. Chris Moyles left Radio 1 in September 2012, with Nick Grimshaw replacing him on the Breakfast Show.
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