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Media
Greg James admits he aspires to host Radio 1’s breakfast show
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 25 June 2012
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Radio 1 DJ Greg James has said he’d quite like to present the station’s breakfast show at some point in the future, but only once incumbent Chris Moyles is ready to leave the primetime programme, mind.
A BBC Trust report recently said that the Corporation’s pop station still had more work to do to realign its programming with the youth demographic it exists to serve, and the recent promotion of James, age 26, to the drive time slot is part of Radio 1 management’s efforts to make their output seem more youthful.
But the Moyles breakfast show, despite continuing to gain sizable ratings, remains Radio 1’s biggest problem in terms of its need to be more youthful and distinct. Some external commentators reckon that, at a station that arguably has a public service remit to constantly reinvent itself, no one should sit in the breakfast slot for eight years, especially when they are demanding ever increasing fees, and that Moyles’ long tenure on the show is down to ratings chasing and the power of certain cliques within the nation’s favourite, both prioritised ahead of Radio 1’s programming obligations.
That said, and despite past rumours of tensions between Moyles and Radio 1 management, and of a looming axe, and of the DJ being in talks with Global Radio, it’s now thought Moyles will stay in the breakfast slot at the BBC station until his current contract runs out in 2014, what will be the tenth anniversary of his breakfast show. But at that point Radio 1 breakfast will be freshened up.
And many reckon that James, providing he doesn’t screw up his drivetime tenure, will be a shoe in for the breakfast show position come 2014. Admitting he’d find it hard to turn the show down, James has told the Mirror: “It’s the flagship show and the one the rest of the station sort of follows. [And] I’ve been honest in saying I’d like to do it – but that really doesn’t mean I want to see Chris sacked tomorrow”.
Insisting that everyone at Radio 1 gets on, James did admit that that didn’t stop there being a competitive culture, noting: “It is competitive, but then it should be – I should be pressured to be as good as I can be every day because there’s always someone else who wants to do it”.
