BBC DJ duo break radio record

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Chris Moyles and David 'Comedy Dave' Vitty have broken a Guinness World Record by hosting a marathon programme on UK national station BBC Radio 1. The aim was to raise money for British charity Comic Relief.

The programme started at 0630 UTC on Wednesday, being broadcasting live on the station's website and an interactive red button service available via digital television. On Thursday, Chris and Dave managed to surpass the record for the longest continuous broadcast by a presenter on BBC Radio 1. The record had been previously held by Simon Mayo, who had achieved thirty-seven hours in 1999.

Moyles and Comedy Dave continued to broadcast on the station and subsequently overtook the "Radio DJ Endurance Marathon (Team)" Guinness World Record at 0830 UTC yesterday. At this stage, Moyles announced on-air "we're gonna do another two hours. Why? I have absolutely no idea." A Guinness World Record certificate was presented to Moyles and Vitty by British musician Gary Barlow of Take That. The show ended at 1030 UTC yesterday after fifty-two hours.

The total donated by listeners was £2,406,648. (US$3,906,711, €2,754,697).

Moyles said of his record "[w]e’ve been overwhelmed by the support we’ve received from our listeners. It’s been a rollercoaster ride of fun, laughs, tears and downright silliness. Now I’m off for a massive sleep!" Dave Vitty explained that "[w]e're both losing our voices and we’ve literally limped through the last few hours to the finish line but it’s all been worth it when we saw that final figure! Our listeners are incredible."

BBC Radio 1 Controller Andy Parfitt is "deeply proud of what they have achieved on many fronts – the amazing total raised, brilliant, high quality radio broadcasting throughout and some of the funniest and most inventive TV I’ve seen. I’ve also been knocked out by everyone’s support including the extraordinary generosity of Radio 1's audience; I want to thank them on behalf of Comic Relief and the BBC."

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources

"Chris Moyles Sets New Guinness World Records Title For Longest Marathon Radio DJ Team" — Guinness World Records, March 18, 2011
"Chris Moyles breaks radio show record for Comic Relief" — Newsbeat, March 18, 2011
Jack Caba. "Chris Moyles sets world record for longest broadcast" — Daily Telegraph, March 18, 2011

External links

Wikipedia

Wikipedia has more about this subject:

BBC Radio 1's Longest Show Ever with Chris Moyles and Comedy Dave for Comic Relief

BBC Radio 1's Longest Show Ever with Chris Moyles and Comedy Dave for Comic Relief

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License