chrismoyles.net
- Tue Dec 09, 2003 9:03 pm
#131608
The Guardian wrote:Claire Cozens
Tuesday December 9, 2003
Sara Cox only discovered she was being replaced as Radio 1's breakfast show presenter an hour before the decision was made public, it emerged today.
The Radio 1 DJ, who lost the slot to her colleague Chris Moyles after losing 500,000 listeners, has revealed she was in the dark about the decision to end her contract early until she turned up for lunch with the station's controller, Andy Parfitt, and found her agent waiting for her.
"I was meant to be having lunch with Andy and he's like, 'Melanie's here'. She's my agent. I knew straight away because she only comes in to deal with my contract," Cox told Heat magazine.
Asked whether her agent had known of the decision before her, Cox replied: "Yeah. Just in case I started screaming or something."
But the DJ, whose contract to host the breakfast show was not due to run out until next April, insisted she was not sacked over the loss of listeners to her show.
Cox, who was told of the decision just two months after the station's listening figures dipped
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below 10 million for the first time in its history, said Radio 1 had asked her to leave early because it was planning an advertising campaign.
It would, she said, not have made sense to promote her show ahead of her departure.
"All the papers were like, 'Sacked! Axed! Dropped!' and people were looking at me in the street like, 'Are you alright?'. I was like, 'Hang on, I'm going a few months early because of an advertising campaign'. My contract was ending in April anyway," she said.
In the interview, Cox also revealed she initially thought she was being replaced by Chris Evans on the breakfast show.
She said she immediately asked Parfitt who was taking over: "I just wanted to make sure it's going into good hands. And he was like, 'It's Chris'.
"I got completely confused and went, 'Chris Evans?' - and he went, 'No, Moyles'. And I was like, 'Oh Moylesy, sorry'."
She said she was pleased he had got the job, but she admitted to being "pissed off" at Moyles's public campaigning for the early morning slot.
Moyles boasted last year that he could do the job better, saying: "I could absolutely kick anybody's arse on breakfast, ever."
"Breakfast is a bit of a balancing act. He'll probably be quite nervous at this stage because he has been banging on about being the saviour of Radio 1. It's like, 'OK, here you go then!' He's got a lot more on his plate - no fat joke intended."
