Don't get the fuss about Moyles being off this week when all the other big breakfast presenters Chjris Evans, Nick Grimshaw, COC are all off too.

If I remember rightly he always worked up to Xmas and then took the next two weeks off whilst at Radio 1 so why the big problem with him doing the same at Radio X? I think the main problem is the less sophisticated listeners don't understand Jon Homes' humour, I imagine his references to the shadow cabinet reshuffle will have gone over many peoples heads this morning but good to see Radio 4 comedians translating across to commercial radio. This week there is a good choice of Moyles cover either Holmes on X followed by Best of Moyles from 9 or Mills on Radio 1 for those who prefer a bit of old school cover.

Surely Scott Mills days at Radio 1 are numbered now he is well into his 40s, Radio X could not go wrong hiring Scott, stick him on the currently dull Radio X 1-4pm slot, this will attract even more listeners from Radio 1 who'll switch for Scott rather than having to put up with Matt Edmonson who would no doubt replace him on Radio 1. Then you have ready made breakfast cover that no one will complain about as it will be the same as it always was on Moyles' Radio 1 days.

Keep Jon Holmes for weekend breakfast though as he can be very funny but appreciate he is an acquired taste and not mainstream in the way Moyles and to a lesser extent Scott are.

Im back listening to my local radio station, for now. I record Chris from about 6.30 to 7.30 on Tune In app on my iphone and listen coming in; and back from work.

I dont have a digital radio in my car, but when Chris was off on Radio 1, I would listen to the local station sometimes.

I don't think that anyone has a problem with Chris being on holiday, he's certainly entitled to have time off but, for me, it seems a bit strange shifting around schedules to accommodate a "best of" show between 9am & 11am. Chris Evans may be on holiady this week but Radio 2 don't feel the need to have a "best of" slot in somewhere.

It kind of says that Global have no confidence in Jon covering that slot so they'll make sure listeners have their daily dose of Moyles anyway.

Possibly a licence requirement too?

Not unusual in the US for stations just to run 'best of' shows at breakfast when the regular presenter is off - but a very different regulatory environment.

My wife used to work for a national radio station in Moscow as an editor on the breakfast show. Every summer the hosts and the team took a month off and so they just went in to full automation for that month and just played back to back music and adverts, not even a best of package was included. She told me the ratings for the station INCREASED during that month, every year.

Go figure!

Maybe Radio X needs to bring back XU, save Vernon's wages and wouldn't sound much different to dull Dan OC anyway.

I'm I the only one that thinks Jon Holmes is quite good all be it very different to Moyles? How did he compare audience wise on XFM breakfast compared to the likes of Danny Wallace, Dave Berry and Alex Zane?

No I think Jon Holmes is absolutely fantastic - loved him on XFM, listen to the podcasts too. Although I listen to Moyles by default usually, I'm very happy with the cover - especially Intern Ronnie!

XU was a complete disaster and lost XFM many listeners (including me after a couple of weeks of listening to it, it was awful). I very much doubt Radio X would try anything similar to that.

What was XU

They tried to save money by getting rid of presenters and turning the station into a jukebox - Like Absolute 80s overnight, but during the day too.

In a pathetic attempt to hide the true motive of cost-cutting, they marketed it as a great new revolution in radio where instead of having old-fashioned presenters, listeners could choose all the tracks. Strangely, the rotation of tracks and the mix of old and new tracks didn't change, almost as though the producers were still controlling the playlists and just getting idiots to contact them before picking out the ones who matched their existing choice of tracks.

Much like the walls of Jericho, XFM's ratings fell. They re-introduced presenters as though they were a cool new innovative way forward for radio (because management never do U-turns) and pretended the whole thing had never happened. A bit like when you go curb crawling and find your own daughter standing under the lamp post.

Agreed i think Jon has done a great job, the 12 Kays of Quizmess has had me in stitches especially the guy the other day with the swan boat in the lake. I also hope they keep intern Ronnie on, she's a good addition to the team and cuts up the little bit blokeyness. I hope that most Moyles fans have liked the cover and Jon returns to do it again.

On the subject of his podcasts i hope i'm not the only one that found the Dave Berry bits a few weeks ago very funny. Also what happened to Tourist Top trumps that Jon did on his weekend show for the first few weeks ? I assume that is the feature he made reference to a few weeks ago about the bosses not liking and it being removed. When he said it i thought it was Box Office Balls (thought the ticket office may have found out who Con was and complained) gone but it returned the next week.

Maybe Tourist Top trumps was a little bit racist?! Or not much scope to continue - after all the one I heard (Dubai vs Germany was a draw and they ran out of bad questions!).

Also IF it is real, it involves getting strangers into the studios which might not be ideal!

Same with box office balls - where do they go from here? Great feature though..

Still not sure how the other DJs (including Moyles) feel about the absolute burning they get from Jon!

Indeed. In the first couple of months of Radio X, I heard him ripping it out of Johnny Vaughan (with a fairly good impersonation of him). He then said 'speaking of Johnny Vaughan...' and played The Drugs Don't Work by the Verve.

Not many places - especially not in commercial radio - where presenters get away with giving other presenters that much stick on air.

To be fair, though, I once remember Johnny Vaughan himself introducing his newsreader on Capital with 'now here's a man who's in terrible physical shape...' - so he's probably fair game.

Today he made a joke about throwing all the other Radio X presenters out with the rubbish but needing to be careful with Johnny due to all the needles (a reference to his prison term for drug dealing I assume), very funny and edgy stuff, good to see a commercial station taking a risk for once, can't really believe this is the same station that also produces the most bland output in Heart and Smooth.

I do enjoy a bit of rivalry between DJs, particularly if they are on the same station.

Bam Bam used to give Johnny Vaughn a lot of stick when he was on Kiss Breakfast and Vaughn was on Capital Breakfast. It then got a bit awkward when Bam Bam joined Capital while Vaughn was still on breakfast. Unfortunately the rivalry disappeared at that point, which is a shame as it could have been very entertaining for the listeners.
The same could be said about Moyles and Vaughn. Apart from a few mild jokes about not liking him, Moyles hasn’t continued the stick he used to give Vaughn back when he was on Radio 1 and Vaughn was on Capital. I suspect in most cases like this a message from management to ‘play nice’ is the reason behind the sudden truces.

But if you want real radio rivalry you just have to listen to some classic Howard Stern during his WNBC and K-ROCK years... he went to war with other DJs both on other stations and his own, and took no prisoners. Classic radio. And I know Chris Moyles is a fan.

Yeah I cringed (in a good way) at that!

I enjoy listening to Vaughan on drive - but it was funny - so I laughed!

I actually think i prefer Jon's new team to when he was on XFM Breakfast, Con and Dave work well with Jon and as I've said before i think Ronnie is a great addition to the team and i hope they keep her on. On another note Jon's Factoids with the Chirs Morris style editing are brilliant, the tromboning one had me laughing a lot the other morning.

Had to laugh at Jon's comment on the first say covering for Moyles. "Got BAND, BAND and BAND on the way ...... Ye ...and... it is a bloody music station... well it is now" I'm a fan of both Moyles and Jon and still find funny.

It's not the first time a 'best of show' is aired while the lead presenter takes a holiday. In Australia, the Kyle and Jackie O show take their holidays as normal, and one of their team 'presents' the 'best of show'. But what's nice to see here is that Chris and co have pre-recorded the content in full, so much so that they've even got the names of the news readers who do the news before the show down in advance too. It's good planning!

There is actually been a full replacement 'summer breakfast' show instead of a 'best of Kyle & Jackie O' at the moment.

The Moyles 'best of' pre-records were great in week 1 but, I have to say, by the latter half of the second week, he's clearly bored and fed up with it all and running out of filler material. Not surprising really. If they do this again during his next holiday, perhaps they should spread the pre-recording schedule out a bit to avoid fatigue.

I agree. They should consider having another jock do the essential live bits and play out the best bits. There's really no need for Chris to be doing all the pre-rec links around his own highlights, anyone could do that.

Maybe have Dom, Pippa and Dave doing one week each

Not really because he got the newreader's name wrong last week, said Thank you man's name when there was a female newsreader. Trying to be too clever, they openly admit their on tape so why try and guess who the newsreader will be then get it wrong and it just sounds poor.

Just posted this as a thread but deleted as thought it more appropriate here.

"Been listening to Radio X/XFM for a couple of years (since Moyles left R1) and didn't realise/hadn't noticed how good Jon Holmes is.
His broadcasting style is very different to Moyles but during the last couple of weeks I've realised that I actually quite miss his show in the morning.
What do the listeners who never listened to XFM (London) make of Jon and his show.
What do old listeners make of Chris now he's been on for a while?"

I think Jon has been given a lot of slack (or is just taking it!) to take the mick out of Radio X and Moyles/Vaughan. The self made, badly sung/produced jingles he's done to parody the slick stuff Moyles does have been highly amusing whilst the rest of the show content also seems to be livelier since he started covering Moyles' holiday. Intern Ronnie has been great too, adding something to the show.

You seem to forget the whole reason people listen is for Chris - having someone else doing the links would lose lots of listeners