The Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show

The Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show

Running time	4 hours
Country	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
Home station	Absolute Radio
Host(s)	Christian O'Connell
Starring	Christian O'Connell Richie Firth Faye Carruthers Matt Dyson
Air dates	since 23 January 2006
Website	Absolute Radio Website
Podcast	Absolute Radio Podcast

The Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show is a multi award winning morning radio programme, broadcast on Absolute Radio and presented by Christian O'Connell.

The show runs for four hours, between 6 am and 10 am, Monday to Friday. A daily podcast of the previous morning's show is also produced.

Presenters

Christian O'Connell

Main article: Christian O'Connell

Christian O'Connell (born 7 April 1973) is a British radio presenter. He began presenting on 2CR Radio in Bournemouth in 1999, moving to Juice FM in Liverpool in 2000. He later moved to the weekday breakfast show on xFM and hosting Fighting Talk on BBC 5 Live. After departing from xFM Christian hosted the weekday morning breakfast show on Virgin Radio, now Absolute Radio.

Richie Firth

Richie Firth is a British radio co-presenter. He began working at Absolute Radio when several other members of the breakfast show left for different positions elsewhere in Absolute Radio and on other stations. Having previously worked with Christian on local radio in Bournemouth where he was most noted for being the travel chicken, he reunited with Christian to be his co-presenter and producer. Firth is known for making claims which are usually debunked fairly quickly by either Andrew Bailey or listeners texting in. Firth makes use of his music skills to produce theme tunes for features during the show, most famously 'Kit Bingo' and 'Bang It Fluky'. Often referred to as Captain Chaos due to a long series of unfortunate incidents including breaking an Austin Allegro by filling the petrol tank with diesel and booking an outbound flight scheduled after the return flight. He was also the food taster for the feature 'Snack Genius'. Most of his ideas for the show are panned after attempt despite their popularity, such as 'London Calling'.. In June 2015 Firth and the shows 11 year old producer were arrested detained Buckingham Palace whilst attempting to deliver paint to the palace. He has also attempted the Tube Challenge, with two-time record holder Geoff Marshall.

Faye Carruthers

Faye Carruthers is a sports reader and a journalist for Absolute Radio, who reads the sports news for the Breakfast Show. Faye joined the breakfast show in June 2014. Faye also works for BBC 5 Live and Final Score as a football reporter.

Matt Dyson

Matt Dyson became the resident Newsreader in October 2015 after the departure of Andrew Bailey. Matt Dyson formerly worked for the now defunct XFM on the Breakfast Show.

Awards

• 2007 Sony Radio Academy Gold Award for a Competition (Who’s Calling Christian?).
• 2010 Sony Radio Academy Bronze Award for Best Use of Branded Content (One Last Dream).
• 2010 Sony Radio Academy Gold Award for Best Competition (Who's Calling Christian?)
• 2011 Sony Radio Academy Bronze Award for Breakfast Show of the Year (10 million plus).
• 2011 The Arqiva/Triple A Media Commercial Radio Breakfast Show of the Year.
• 2012 Sony Radio Academy Silver Award for Breakfast Show of the Year (10 million plus).
• 2012 Sony Radio Academy Silver for Best Competition (The Early Morning Game).
• 2013 Sony Radio Academy Silver Award for Breakfast Show of the Year (10 million plus).
• 2013 Sony Radio Academy Gold Award for Music Radio Personality of the Year.
• 2013 Sony Radio Academy Gold Award for Best Use of Branded Content.
• 2015 Red Bull Soapbox Challenge World Champions

Former show members

• Brian Murphy
• Chris Smith
• Roque Segade Vieto
• Vicki Butler-Henderson
• Ed Draper
• Maggie Doyle

Andrew Bailey

Andrew Bailey is a news reader and was a journalist for Absolute Radio, reading the news for the Breakfast show. Andrew, usually referred to as Bails, was credited as providing 'news and vibes' on the show by Christian and often adopts the position of "show prefect" when the rest of the team threatens to break the rules. A big fan of Star Wars, Andrew has been accused of taking advantage of his position at Absolute Radio when it comes to gaining access to science fiction events to interview his favourite actors such as James Earl Jones. Andrew is often the butt of jokes about his grumbling back and he has two special support chairs that are reserved for him at One Golden Square. He and Richie Firth were regular on-air sparring partners and both claim to be "pedants" - they often try and out-do each other with their weather knowledge. When the show goes on the road for an outside broadcast, Andrew was usually dispatched to the toilet to read the "news from the loos" at Christian's request! He left the show on 25 September 2015, as well as leaving his position as head of news across the Bauer network, joining Sky News.

Features

• The Vegas Hour: Between 6am and 7am things are discussed that will not be talked about after 7am, because 'Clive Jong Il' doesn't listen that early. Topics are often random and unpredictable due to the people being awake so early.
• Celebrity Interviews:Various famous celebrities have phoned in over the years, some genuine and some not. When celebrities are unavailable, interviews are conducted with Alex Lowe. These have included Pope Benedict XVI, Tom Cruise, the British Royal Family, Barack Obama and Barry Clause (Santa's brother).
• Hitler's Toilet: A feature on the show that started when Richie first read out a news story about Adolf Hitler's toilet being sold at auction. This led to a section of stories that would be considered as newsworthy as Hitler's toilet being sold at auction on breakfast radio. Stories are normally rodent based.
• Buzz List: Things you're into at the moment, for example a book, app, TV show or life hack. Each member of the show give their buzz list, followed by the listeners.
• Name game, "as in...": Listeners are invited to call in if they have a name that if they say it people always say the same thing back to them, for example "Hello my name is Chris Martin" and the response would be "as in Coldplay?". A caller will come on the line and say there full name and then Richie and Christian will buzz in and guess what people normally say to them when they say their name.
• At work time waster: Everyday a news story is assigned and then various puns are offered.
• Starting Eleven: Every Monday the team pick a Football starting eleven, normally in the 4-4-2 formation, of a new subject. For example; sweets, quiz show hosts, guitarists.
• Reasons to be cheerful: The members of the team offer up their reasons to be cheerful and then open it up to the listeners.
• Radio Times TV Schedule bingo game: Richie hosts a game around the Radio Times TV listings, sometimes from the 1980s, from the current week. Richie reads the day of the week, time and synopsis of the programme for the team to guess.
• Who's Calling Christian: Christian encourages listeners to contact celebrities and ask them to ring the show. The celebrity who wins the public vote wins 10,000 pounds for their charity, and the listener who gets them to call wins 10,000 pounds for themselves. The game was resurrected in October 2015 with Maisie Williams being the celebrity winner.

Past features

• Brian's Fantasy Guest: Brian Murphy cut together an interview with a celebrity from their 'canon of work'. This feature was often sabotaged by Christian.
• The Early Morning Game: A game is devised around a listeners job with a theme tune composed by Richie such as Kit Bingo, or a game devised around guessing which fish a fishmonger has slapped his colleague around the face with by the sound of the smack.
• Would you rather...: Two hypothetical statements are given and the team must pick one, such as would you rather be stuck in a lift with a clown or a badger.
• Doc Hollywood: The title of a movie is made up and Christian come up with the plot and actors.
• Phone Buckaroo: Listeners guess how long Christian can keep telephone psychics and sex lines talking about inane and irrelevant subjects.
• Kettle Classics
• The People Carrier of Doom
• First Friday
• The Diamante Lounge: A members club for listeners that has discounts such as 5% off at Ormskirk Arials. Membership is limited to three new members a day. Entrance to the Diamante Lounge is across a drawbridge and through a beaded curtain.
• Open Topic Tuesday/Thursday - Listeners introduce random topics for the team to discuss. Most famously, Russell Crowe took part in the discussion via Twitter.
• Snack Genius: Three recipes a week are sent in for Richie to try and declare snack genius or snack hell; a casting vote may be given by Christian if necessary. The recipes often contain odd combinations of food which go together surprisingly well.
• The 40 List: Christian attempts to tick off items on a list he wrote at the age of 13 of things he wished to accomplish before turning 40. The list includes thirteen items, such as date Kelly Le Brock, kick in Darth Vader, have an amazing splurge gun party like Bugsy Malone, and do what Ferris Bueller did when he skived off.
• Guess what's in the box: Richie walked 5 minutes from the studio to buy an item that he has placed in a box which no other members of the show know what it is. Listeners call in and ask a "yes or no" question before guessing what they think is in the box. With each wrong answer the "prize pot" goes up by 99p. Each week Richie shakes the box, controversially Richie changed the box on 30 March 2015 to exclude the "extraneous rattle".
• Bus Stop: Richie would go to various bus stops around the studio and ask members of the public, unaware they were being recorded; "what you doing?" and "where you going?".
• Show in numbers: At the end of every show Richie summarises each show that has happened in numbers.

External links

• Official website