Jo Whiley

(76 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

Radio

From February 1997, Jo Whiley had a weekday lunchtime show, called The Jo Whiley Show and later The Lunchtime Social. This included elements of the evening show, such as tour dates and occasional live ‘sessions’ at Maida Vale Studios while working within the restrictions of Radio 1’s daytime schedule. When Simon Mayo left Radio 1 for Radio Five Live in February 2001, Whiley’s show was moved to a mid morning slot.

As of 2005, the BBC paid Jo Whiley a salary of £250,000.

In July 2008, The Jo Whiley Show was fined £75,000 for misleading listeners for an incident involving a member of BBC staff posing as a member of the public taking part in a competition. The BBC claim Jo Whiley herself was unaware of the deception at the time of its broadcast.

In July 2009, it was announced that the Jo Whiley show would end broadcasting in September as part of a major shake up of Radio 1’s weekday schedule. The shake up, billed as the biggest at Radio 1 for five years, would see Greg James move to the afternoon slot (then occupied by Edith Bowman) and Fearne Cotton move to Jo Whiley’s slot.

Fearne Cotton took over many of Jo Whiley’s popular features including the famous Live Lounge segment. Although both Jo Whiley and Edith Bowman moved to weekend slots on Radio 1, the news that the duo would leave their weekday shows led to controversy, with BBC bosses facing allegations of being biased against older presenters, particularly as the announcement came shortly after the revelation that 30-year-old singer Alesha Dixon would replace the much older Arlene Phillips as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing. Her final weekday program took place on 18 September 2009.

Following the Jo Whiley Show, Jo Whiley went on to present a weekend show on Radio 1 between 1pm and 4pm. As with her weekday show, it still featured live performances from visiting artists, as well as three new features: Jo’s Road Trip and Top of the Shops and SpellStar. Her last show on Radio 1 was on 27 March 2011.

Since August 2009, Jo Whiley has been an occasional stand in presenter for Claudia Winkleman on Radio 2. She was first heard on the network on Friday 21 August and made subsequent appearances on 2 October, 6 November, 27 November and 18 December 2009.

In March 2010, it was announced that Jo Whiley and fellow Radio 1 presenter Steve Lamacq would present a one off Evening Session (the first in 13 years) on Good Friday (2 April) for BBC 6 Music. Presented another Evening Session on 28 January 2011. After being an occasional stand in presenter on BBC Radio 2, Jo Whiley began presenting In Concert on Thursday evenings in April 2010.

On 1 February 2011, it was announced that Jo Whiley would be leaving BBC Radio 1 after 17 years to move to Radio 2, where she would present an evening show from Mondays to Thursdays starting on 4 April 2011, replacing The Radcliffe and Maconie Show. Radcliffe and Maconie would, in turn, move to 6 Music while Jo Whiley’s Radio 1 show would be taken over by Huw Stephens.

In March 2012, the BBC announced that as part of the broadcaster’s celebration of the 20th anniversary of Britpop, Jo Whiley and Lamacq would present a week of Evening Sessions on Radio 2 from 7 April.

Television

Jo Whiley presents televised coverage of major music festivals, such as the Glastonbury Festival. She also narrated the BBC Three series, Little Angels. In October 2007 she became a judge on the T4 (Channel 4) show MobileAct Unsigned which searches for a band trying to get a record deal. Jo has recently begun hosting a music TV show on music channel TMF. From late 1998, Jo Whiley hosted her own music discussion show on Channel 4, called The Jo Whiley Show, which ran for four series until late 2001.

On 15 March 2010, Whiley presented an edition of the Panorama documentary strand titled Are the Net Police Coming for You? in which she looked at a proposed new law targeting people who download music illegally from the Internet.

Jo Whiley Follow

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