Simon Mayo

On 4 March 2019 at 10am Simon launched the new classical music digital radio station Scala Radio. He now presents the mid-morning programme Mondays to Saturdays.

Clare Clarke, for The Guardian, said: "With its huge, amorphous cast and little interior characterisation, its pages rich with Shakespeare’s poetry and the rousing gospel music for which Block 4 was reputedly renowned, the dialogue-heavy Mad Blood Stirring reads more like a first-draft film treatment than a finished novel. Mayo has served up all the ingredients he could find, but longer cooking would have given it greater depth and subtlety of flavour."

In January 2010, Mayo took over from Chris Evans on the Drivetime show, noting he was "very lucky to be given a second chance in such a high-profile slot." The programme included a number of regular daily features including a "Nigel's Recipes", "Confessions", "Homework Sucks" and "The Showstopper". Every Friday he hosted "All-Request Friday" where listeners rang the show and had their favourite song played on the radio after a short interview. The show ended on 4 May 2018 after 8 years, as Mayo was to begin hosting a revamped drivetime show with co-host Jo Whiley from 14 May 2018. On 22 October that year, the station announced that Mayo would be leaving BBC Radio 2 altogether after a backlash against the change, with Whiley moving back to an evening slot. Their last show together aired on 20 December, with Mayo presenting his last show after 17 years with the station the following day.

On 21 December 2018 Simon presented his last show on BBC Radio 2 it being an All Request Friday which featured his jingles which were previously used on his Drivetime show. The last song to be played was Bring Me Sunshine by Morecambe & Wise.

Mayo's first novel for adults, Mad Blood Stirring, was published in April 2018 and received mixed reviews. It is a historical novel set in Dartmoor Prison in 1815.

His first young adult novel, Blame, was published in July 2016.

Like all of Radio 1's high-profile presenters of the time, Mayo would take his turn to spend a week in a coastal area of the UK during the Radio 1 Roadshows which occurred for three months of the summer. For a short while, he also presented an additional weekend show for the station on a Sunday afternoon and provisionally titled O Solomon Mayo – to cover for the absent Phillip Schofield, who was working in the West End.

The programme generally combined topical debates, interviews and reviews. It came live from Westminster each Wednesday for live coverage of Prime Minister's Questions, with discussion and debate afterwards with political correspondents and MPs. The programme also featured Mayo's old BBC Radio 1 sidekick Mark Kermode reviewing the new movie releases each Friday afternoon. The banter between Mayo and Kermode in this section of the programme was described by both men as "wittertainment at its most wittertaining." (The neologism wittertainment is a portmanteau of witter and entertainment, and was coined in a – now deleted – Wikipedia entry. However, Kermode and Mayo took note of the article before its deletion and have since been using the term regularly to refer to their show.)

His second novel Itch Rocks was released in February 2013 and the third instalment, Itchcraft, came out in September 2014.

Mayo hosted a revival of the classic quiz show Blockbusters, which began airing on Challenge on 14 May 2012 until 3 August 2012.

He was the announcer for the concert celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee on 4 June 2012.

Mayo's debut novel, Itch, was released on 1 March 2012. The titular protagonist is a fourteen-year-old boy who discovers a previously unknown chemical element.

In 1999 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 17 March 2011, when Chris and Dave were doing a 52-hour broadcast.

In May 2011, Mayo won a Sony Award for "Best Music Show" for his work and that of his team on the BBC Radio 2 drive time slot.

Confessions, based on the hit feature from his BBC Radio 2 drivetime show, and his former BBC Radio 1 breakfast and mid-morning shows. was released in October 2011. The book is a compilation of the best confessions sent to the show by listeners.

Mayo began broadcasting on BBC Radio 5 Live every weekday from 1  pm to 4  pm, where he remained until 18 December 2009. He was on air in 2001 when the 9/11 attacks took place in the United States, broadcasting live as the events unfolded.

In May 2009 Mayo and Kermode won a Gold Sony Radio Award in the Speech Award category, due to continued good work and passion for radio

In 2008, Mayo was recognised as the "Radio Broadcaster of the Year" at the 34th annual Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, and the "Speech Broadcaster of the Year" at the Sony Radio Academy Awards, receiving the latter for his "ability to paint colourful pictures of location and event and his ability to bring the very best out of his guests, encouraging conversation and interaction between them while skilfully nudging and controlling them" and for being "a master of light and shade, handling serious and lighter issues with aplomb."

In a May 2008 interview with The Guardian, Mayo mentioned he "signed a contract for the next two years" and was uncertain whether he would still be at BBC Radio 5 Live when it moves to City of Salford. It was later confirmed that Mayo was to move to the BBC Radio 2's drivetime slot, though he will also continue to host a weekly two-hour film review show, Kermode and Mayo's Film Review, on BBC Radio 5 Live with Mark Kermode.

Mayo presented Act Your Age, a panel game for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast on Radio 4 on 27 November 2008.

In addition to his daily programme on BBC Radio 5 Live, from October 2001 to April 2007, Mayo hosted the Album Chart show each week for BBC Radio 2. Alongside this, on 2 January 2006, he presented The Ultimate Music Year for the station, where listeners got the chance to vote for their favourite year for music. He has also presented many Sold on Song projects, presented the Top 100 Albums and provided holiday cover for Johnnie Walker on Sundays. From April 2007 – April 2008 Mayo took over the Radio 2 Music Club every Monday night from 11:30  pm to 12:30  am.

In 2005 he presented a series "The Big Dig" on BBC TV about allotments in the Rhondda Valley contrasted with others in Highgate, London.

Mayo was educated at Solihull School, a boys' Independent school in the English West Midlands, and Worthing Sixth-Form College, West Sussex. He subsequently graduated from the University of Warwick, Coventry, with a degree in history and politics. While at university, he was a presenter on the student radio station, Radio Warwick. In 2005 the university awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters.

As his opening theme Mayo used the 2003 recording by Jools Holland and Prince Buster of the 1948 song "Enjoy Yourself" by Carl Sigman and by Herb Magidson. Later editions of the show have also used the popular 1950 hit version by Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians. Incidental music includes "Light My Fire" by Edmundo Ros.

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

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 Motörhead.

In May 2001, after 15 years of broadcasting with BBC Radio 1, Mayo joined and moved on to another national BBC station, BBC Radio 5 Live to present an afternoon programme.

Starting in 1999 he was the original presenter of National Lottery game show Winning Lines on BBC1 until 2000 when he was replaced by Phillip Schofield in 2001.

In January 1997, Mayo made a brief return to the breakfast show for three weeks when Chris Evans was dismissed, but both Mayo and BBC Radio 1 ruled out the possibilities of a permanent return to the programme. On his first morning as breakfast stand-in, Mayo 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".

Between 1995 and 1998 Mayo presented a TV version of Confessions, based on the hit feature from his BBC Radio 1 breakfast and mid-morning shows.

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 Mark Goodier was his replacement.

Mayo took over the station's mid morning slot in October 1993 where he remained until February 2001. In addition to this, in May 1994, 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 noon till 2pm, but in November 1994 went out from 10  am till noon on Sundays. This lasted until October 1995.

He joined BBC Radio 1 in 1986, presenting a two-hour Saturday evening show from 7:30  pm to 9:30  pm. In October 1987 he progressed to the weekend early slots from 6  am to 8  am and then became presenter of the weekday evening show in January 1988, which went out from 7:30  pm to 10  pm. Five months later he was offered the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show, regarded as the most prestigious presentation job in UK radio.

Mayo is married to Hilary Bird, who had worked at Radio Nottingham since 1984 on Action Line, and who also worked for BBC Radio 2 as a producer for Canon Roger Royle and later Don MacLean on Good Morning Sunday from 1987 to 1990. The wedding took place on Saturday 11 October 1986 at St Helen's Church in Burton Joyce, Nottinghamshire. They have two sons and a daughter. Mayo is a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur, and lives in London.

Simon Andrew Hicks Mayo (born 21 September 1958) is an English radio presenter and author who has worked for BBC Radio since 1982. Mayo was the presenter of Simon Mayo Drivetime on BBC Radio 2 between January 2010 and May 2018 and is, with Mark Kermode, presenter of Kermode and Mayo's Film Review on BBC Radio 5 Live. Mayo was the presenter of a revamped drive time show on Radio 2 with co-host Jo Whiley which was broadcast from 14 May 2018 to 20 December 2018. Mayo presented the last show solo the following day, which marked the end of his career on the station after 17 years of broadcasting.

Mayo's parents, Derek Mayo (born 1929, died 2001) and Jill Mayo, were both school teachers. He attended St John's Primary School in Croydon, Surrey, the Arden School in Knowle (for one term), Solihull School, an historic independent school in the West Midlands and Worthing High School in West Sussex which was then a state grammar school for boys. He graduated from the University of Warwick in 1980, with a degree in History and Politics.