Simon Mayo - Radio 1 Mid-mornings

Radio 1 Mid-mornings

Mayo officially gave up the breakfast show in 1993, though he had been on an extended period of paternity leave when the announcement was made. His stand-in Goodier was his replacement. Mayo moved on to the mid-morning slot from 9 am to 12 midday, and survived the cull of long-standing presenters which Radio 1 underwent the same year on the arrival of controller Matthew Bannister and his wish to rebrand the station as younger and more 'cutting edge'.

In addition to his mid-morning show, from April 1994 - October 1995, Mayo also presented Simon Mayo's Classic Years, where he got to play two hours of classic pop tunes. The show originally went out on a Sunday lunchtime from 12.00noon-2.00pm, but in November 1994 went out from 10.00am-12.00noon on Sundays.

In January 1997, Mayo made a brief return to the breakfast show for three weeks when Chris Evans was dismissed, but both Mayo and Radio 1 ruled out the possibilities of a permanent return to the programme. On his first morning as breakfast stand-in, he read out an email from a man who had emigrated to New Zealand four years earlier and had arrived back in the UK that morning, and was "delighted to hear you're still doing the breakfast show".

In 1999 Simon Mayo broke a world record by broadcasting for 37 hours in aid of that year's Comic Relief. This record was broken by Chris Moyles and Dave Vitty on 17th March 2011.

Mayo remained on the mid-morning slot until he left Radio 1 in 2001, seeing breakfast-show presenters Mark Goodier, Steve Wright, Chris Evans, Mark and Lard, Kevin Greening, Zoe Ball & Sara Cox, come and go from the slot.

His final show was on Friday 16 February 2001 and before signing off, he said, "One of the reasons I'm not going to do a DLT is that I've nothing to complain about at all - though as I'll still be employed by the BBC it'd be a stupid thing to do. I always thought as a kid working at Radio 1 would be the most fun and the best place for any presenter to work and I still think that's true." His final track played on BBC Radio 1 was Ace of Spades by Motorhead.