[Jack_]

Chris Moyles reportedly set to make radio comeback with new breakfast show on XFM

After leaving the BBC back in 2012, Chris Moyles is set to return to the airwaves with a new breakfast show on XFM.

Moyles had a regular breakfast show on Radio 1 for eight years, his peak listening figures being 7.06 million, but was eventually replaced by the less successful Nick Grimshaw.

According to reports, the host signed a “big money deal” with XFM on Wednesday. The show itself will compete directly with Grimshaw’s own and is rumoured to start in September.

Nick Grimshaw to compete with Chris Moyles in September Nick Grimshaw to compete with Chris Moyles in September A source told The Sun on Sunday: "It's a massive coup for XFM to be able to sign Chris.

"He was enjoying not having all of the usual pressures and early starts that come with breakfast radio so bosses were well aware that they had to offer him a great deal to entice him back.

"He plans to spend the next two months developing ideas for the new show and how he wants the format to be.

"Chris will also take a networking trip to LA."

Rumours that he might take over the prime time slot at the commercial station originally surfaced in April.

The show has been presented by Sony, Bafta and Comedy Award-winning comedian Jon Holmes since January 2013.

The Independent

There's been speculation about this in the radio world for a while now, hopefully these reports mean it's true and we get a press release soon

Three years has been long enough, one of the only radio DJs I would actually follow to another station

[zakman440]

OMG please make it happen

[Natalie.]

I'd love this, please

[Jack_]

Well the rumours surrounding this and XFM's expected rebranding have rolled on for a very long time now but in recent weeks there's been many signs that it's actually happening...

Global recently registered radiox.co.uk and x.co.uk as domain names, the worst logo I have ever seen has been listed on the IPO website for over a month, and Chris himself earlier uploaded this video...

Youtube video

I am soooooo excited

Most of the rumours have pointed towards a rebranded station, Radio X, with Moyles at breakfast, Vernon Kay to follow and either Johnny Vaughan or Richard Bacon at drive with Ricky Wilson from the Kaiser Chiefs having a weekend show.

With the rumour mill ramping up in recent weeks hopefully official confirmation is right around the corner, the relaunch is supposed to be in two weeks max after all...

[Pete.]

From Radio 1 to XFM

[T*]

Yaaas

[Natalie.]

That video made me so excited

[Jack_]

yaaaaaaaasssss

About ****ing time! Just waiting on a press release from Global now confirming full details of the rebranding

[zakman440]

The saviour of radio returns .

[Jack_]

His first newspaper interview in four years with Dan Wooton is in The Sun tomorrow, but it's been published online and is a great read!

I may be the saviour of digital radio
EXCLUSIVE: Former BBC star Chris Moyles is back on air... and fighting fit

AFTER three years in the showbiz wilderness, CHRIS MOYLES is a shadow of his former self. In more ways than one.

We’re sitting in his beloved local pub in North London, but for lunch he’s just ordered a chicken salad and a pint . . . of water.

To illustrate just how much he’s changed, Chris is talking me through how many miles he’s run this week (35-and-a-half, it turns out, in six separate jogs).

But reports of Moyles’ retirement have been greatly exaggerated — radio’s most controversial host is back.

Two weeks today, he’ll be going head-to-head with his Radio 1 breakfast show successor NICK GRIMSHAW on Radio X, a new national commercial station that will replace XFM after 23 years.

Radio X will be digital in most of the country, apart from London and Manchester where it will have an FM frequency.

It’s a comeback that has been secretly planned for months — and the stakes are high.

Radio giant Global is pumping millions into the new station, which will feature an A-list new line-up built around Moyles, who is now 41.

This is his first interview in four years and he admits to being “nervous” — something I’ve never seen during our many feisty encounters over the past decade.

He’s far more thoughtful and measured than when he got Radio 1’s biggest gig 11 years ago and quickly declared he was the BBC station’s “saviour”.

“I’ve been off the grid. I haven’t done anything in the public eye for the last few years,” he tells me.

“But I’m really genuinely happy at the moment. I’m very content with my life and at a really good place. I’m a lot more positive than I used to be.

“I think one of the reasons is because I’m not on the radio every day I’m not subconsciously looking for things to take the p*** out of.

“Plus, I’m not getting up really stupidly early in the morning.

“If you’re getting up any time before 6am it’s s*** and it really affects you.”

All that begs one obvious question . . .

He says: “I see the underlying question you’re asking is, ‘Why ******* up that happiness by going back to quarter to five alarm clocks?’

“Because I think it’s time. People are always asking me when I’m going back to the radio. Even though it’s years since I left.”

Chris stresses his entertainment exile was entirely self-imposed. “I wanted to take some time off. I took a year off but it went really quickly so I thought I’d have another year off,” he says.

“It was really quiet for the first six months or so. I was thinking: ‘Oh my God, literally nobody wants to give him a job.’

“When you’re at the very top, your options are limited — and I’m an acquired taste.

“I didn’t miss it enough to want to go back to radio just to be on. But I never retired, contrary to what other papers have said.”

Was he bothered by people suggesting he was a spent force?

He laughs wryly, before saying to me accusingly: “You might have been one of those people talking about two years ago.”

He’s referring to my reports about his brief foray into live broadcasting on the mobile phone app Periscope, which was not exactly a big success.

But in fairness, I’ve been astonished it’s taken this long for a commercial station to snap up Moyles, given the continued loyalty from his former listeners and their obvious dislike of Grimmy on Radio 1.

Did you have enough money to live without working?

“Yes,” he answers nonchalantly. “I’m really lucky. I worked on Radio 1 for 15 years and I don’t have a lavish lifestyle.”

For the first time today, Chris admits he was sacked from the breakfast show on Radio 1 by the station’s controller Ben Cooper.

He had intended to see out ten years as host of the breakfast show before quitting live on air.

But Chris reveals: “Ben called me in for a meeting and said: ‘It’s time. We need to wrap this up.’

“I’d done eight-and-a-half years. I’d decided at nine-and-half-years I’d turn the mic on one morning and say: ‘When my contract runs out at Christmas, I’m not going to re-sign. I’m off.’

“That would have been ten years on the Breakfast Show. So my reaction when Ben told me was: ‘You s***bag, you’ve just blown my announcement by a year.’”

Chris was offered his pick of any other role on Radio 1 but he says: “I’d always said that when I stopped doing the Breakfast Show, I would leave. I didn’t really have any intention of coming back.”

Despite speculation, Chris insists there were no discussions about him joining Radio 2, saying: “I don’t think I’m the right fit for them. That was never, ever, ever in my head at all.”

Now he’s going to cause a serious headache to Grimmy, whose Radio 1 show has already shed millions of listeners in the station’s bid to attract younger listeners.

Chris says Radio 1’s desire to take the station so young is “quite frankly b******s”, adding: “People grow up with it and they don’t want to leave it. It’s an unnecessary change.”

He adds cheekily: “I don’t care if you’re 25, 45, 85, 15, male, female, gay, straight, black, white, I don’t care. I’ll have everybody. You will be welcome with open arms and you don’t need to pay for us.”

Chris is generally supportive of Grimmy but it’s clear he thinks his breakfast show is morphing closer into the show he had been doing for many years.

So has he done a good job? “Well . . . ” Chris stammers. “He’s certainly done the job they’ve asked them to do. Well no, he’s tried to do the job they asked him to do. But it’s an impossible task.

“It was going to be all different and all about the music without people in the studio, but it is.

“They have a couple of features that are actually quite similar to what we did.”

Chris adds: “It will be turned into this big war but we’re going for different audiences.”

Moyles says his personal relationship with Grimmy is cordial, but he can’t resist a little tease.

“He’s the main person from Radio 1 who I keep bumping into.

“We always have a chat and a hug and say we’re going to hang out, but then Nick never does anything about it because, guess what, he’s lost in that breakfast world where he’s a zombie.

“Actually Nick looks really good. He hasn’t gone through that fat breakfast DJ stage yet.

“I have no idea how he’s done it but he’s very wise.”

So how big does Moyles think his new show can be?

“I genuinely don’t know. I want to double the audience that exists on that show now.”

Is he the saviour of Radio X? “I don’t know . . . I might be the saviour of digital radio.”

And in that one moment, a flash of the old Moyles swagger reappears.

He smiles and says: “I’m 41 which I can’t *******ing quite believe. But that means I can just be me.”

‘I've got control’

CHRIS has poached top Radio 1 producer Pippa Taylor to run his new show and newsreader Dominic Byrne will be back.

But ALED JONES and Comedy Dave Vitty won’t be.

Chris explains: “Aled’s an editor at the BBC now so is staying. Dave’s not going to do the show because he’s got his own production company, but I can’t replace him.”

Moyles caused the BBC headaches with a string of controversial items that sparked complaints and negative headlines. But he has no intention of toning any of that down for Radio X.

He says: “I was very clear it had to be with my team and me doing what I want to do, carte blanche. The fact I can do whatever I want is a huge thing for me.

“Radio’s very safe in this country. You don’t have to do a lot to shock people.

“They know what they’re hiring. I’ve said I’ll get figures up and make them money if they let us get on with it.”

Slimming ‘so hard’

CHRIS has kept the weight off after settling down with a new girlfriend who he won’t name but says isn’t famous.

His body transformation is “mainly” down to a completely overhauled diet.

“My weird problem is that I don’t eat enough now,” he says.

His eating regime consists of an omelette before he trains in the morning, salad for lunch and a small dinner.

He says: “I don’t know what I used to think when I looked in the mirror when I was at my worst.

“Now if I go out on a Friday or Saturday and have a few beers, I can see that I’m bloating in the mirror on Sunday.”

But he admits: “I fall off the wagon sometimes and buy a pack of salt and vinegar chip sticks and a pack of cookies and eat them, and I feel bad about myself and cry myself to sleep. That happens.

“It’s really, really, really hard to lose weight. I don’t care what anyone says. It’s easier to say than to do.”

Read the article on The Sun website here

[Jack_]

Few points to summarise:

- He has now admitted he was forced to leave the breakfast show and it wasn't a mutual decision, confirming once and for all that Ben Cooper is a moronic, incompetent, station-ruining ****. As are the ageist BBC Trust. As if fulfilling one and a half more years of a contract that he had already signed was going to be that much of an issue

- Pippa who worked on his Radio 1 show for a time, and more recently produced Greg James' drive show, has left Radio 1 and will join Chris' team

- Dominic Byrne who already works for Global (LBC I believe) will also be joining the team sadly no Dave (whom fell out with Chris a long time ago) or Aled however

- An important point of negotiation with his contract is that he has been given free reign to do with the show what he wishes, as it should be!

- And finally, just how bloody good does he look these days...what a fantastic job he's done

Spoiler:

[Black Dagger]

Oh I didn't know he and Dave fell out.

[Jack_]

Originally Posted by _LucasMichael_

Oh I didn't know he and Dave fell out.

Yeah it's rather sad, it's kind one of those open showbiz secrets that are never confirmed, but there were pictures of Chris on holiday with Dave's ex-wife (Jayne Sharp) and several other friends shortly after their divorce, and apparently Dave took offence to this. If you watch any of the live streams they did of the last few shows there is little interaction between Chris and Dave when they're off-air

[LeatherTrumpet]

Best kept secret

I hate xfm music but of course will listen


Hope there is a Dave amnesty

[Firewire]

I don't have Radio X welp

[Ashley.]

I'd rather him replace Grimshaw on Radio 1 tbh but life's a bitch

[the truth]

moyles is the worlds most over rated most forgettable man

[Natalie.]

Originally Posted by Jack_

Yeah it's rather sad, it's kind one of those open showbiz secrets that are never confirmed, but there were pictures of Chris on holiday with Dave's ex-wife (Jayne Sharp) and several other friends shortly after their divorce, and apparently Dave took offence to this. If you watch any of the live streams they did of the last few shows there is little interaction between Chris and Dave when they're off-air

I hope they make up one day, Dave back some day would be great
I'll be listening

[Jack_]

Global released full details of the rebrand this morning:

CHRIS MOYLES TO HOST NEW BREAKFAST SHOW ON RADIO X

After a summer of speculation with more gossip than there was sunshine, it’s finally here! Today, we can confirm the launch of the most hotly-anticipated new radio station across the UK in recent years, and the long-awaited return of one of radio’s biggest personalities.

On Monday September 21st Chris Moyles will be back on the air from 6.30-10.00 am to give the nation its first taste of Radio X, a brand new national radio station playing the best fresh rock and guitar-based music across the UK.

Also confirmed are household name presenters Vernon Kay on mid-mornings, Johnny Vaughan at drive and Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson at weekends.

This concludes several months of guesswork from the media industry, with more big names mooted than there have been rumours about Oasis getting back together. Together with Chris Moyles at breakfast, they will inject a huge dose of personality into the new station.

Vernon Kay, Radio X mid-morning presenter, said: “I’m excited to be getting back on the radio. The launch of Radio X is the dawn of a new era in radio. There is a real buzz around the station because we know that this is going to be a lot of fun… It’s going to be a real honour to have Chris Moyles as my warm-up, bringing his unique style of broadcasting back onto the radio waves.”

Johnny Vaughan, Radio X drive time presenter, said: “They say there’s nothing better than that ‘new car’ smell. Well, there is… it’s the smell of a brand new drive time show on a brand new radio station being listened to in that brand new car! Great Britain needs great banter and I can’t wait to be back on air five days a week talking to people up and down the UK as we get them home with a bit of a laugh and some awesome music!”

Ricky Wilson, Radio X weekend presenter, said: “XFM was the first station to invite me and the band down for a session, way before we were even called Kaiser Chiefs. They were right there for us and many, many other bands from the very beginning of their histories, through all incarnations, career ups and downs, break ups and come backs. Even talking recently to other bands and musicians about the station, everyone has very fond things to say about it, so it makes me both proud and excited to be right there at the beginning of a new chapter as Radio X launches as the new rebel of the airwaves.”

Radio X will be home to the world’s freshest rock and guitar-based music, playing the biggest songs from these genres. Regulars on the playlist will include Florence And The Machine, Mumford And Sons, Blur, Arctic Monkeys, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, The Maccabees, Radiohead, Nirvana, The Smiths, Royal Blood, Kasabian, Catfish And The Bottlemen and Kings Of Leon.

Radio X will champion new music, taking over from XFM, which has been instrumental in breaking acts including Royal Blood, The xx, Arctic Monkeys, Jamie T, Kings Of Leon, The Killers, Everything Everything and Biffy Clyro .

Radio X will launch right across the UK on Monday September 21st at 6.30am with a new multi-million pound national advertising campaign. In the coming months, Chris Moyles will hit the road with some of his favourite bands and artists to bring listeners across the country a series of exclusive live music events. The strapline for the brand new Radio X is “Get into the Music”.

Radio X will be available all across the UK on the digital radio platform D1, as well as on 104.9FM in London and 97.7FM in Manchester from Monday September 21st 2015 . Its brand new mobile app will launch before September 21st.

XFM

And in even better news, Sandy Beech (best name ever) whom has written and produced Chris' jingles in the past has confirmed he has begun work on the new show!

[JoshBB]

As long as grimmy keeps his job, I like him

[Jack_]

The sooner Greg and Grimmy swap show slots the better tbh

[Natalie.]

This starts tomorrow morning 6.30 am for anyone interested!

[MB.]

"Great Britain needs great banter"

This is why assisted dying needs to be legal

[zakman440]

Just finished listening to this and I loved it. It's so great to have Chris back on the radio! The only thing that I'm a little upset about is the sound package being so different to his Radio 1 show, but other than that I thoroughly enjoyed it!

[LeatherTrumpet]

Perched for tomoz