Dominic Byrne

Dominic Anthony Byrne (born on 10 November 1972) is a newsreader for BBC Radio 1.

Biography

Born in Norwich, England, Byrne attended university in Bournemouth for two weeks before dropping out to work at a local radio station. Byrne has been married to Nic since March 2001 and have two children: son Finton, born in July 2003, and daughter Xanthe, born in November 2005. He currently reads the news on The Chris Moyles Show and on Jo Whiley's show on BBC Radio 1 and presents the Oddbox video clip show on BBC News. He is well known for his baldness and his bad impressions.

Career

Byrne's career began at Kiss radio in Manchester, reading the breakfast show news. After moving to London he freelanced at IRN and Virgin Radio.

Byrne joined BBC Radio 1 in 1997 as a freelancer. A clip from 1997 was found and played on the Chris Moyles show and Byrne was described as being 'Posh' as he used the phrase 'Frothy Bevvy', the team also commented he said 'brewerer' posh after commenting a few days previously on a fellow team member being posh. In 2000 he was made full time staff. He initially started working as a reporter before eventually becoming a newsreader doing various slots until he joined the show in January 2004 (as part of the launch of Moyles' breakfast show).

As well as newsreading he also reads the weather and used to do a feature entitled 'One Road Travel' which was a parody of many local radio stations' travel information, however they used just one road per day. The final One Road Travel was aired on Friday 20 July 2007 at 09:30.

Following a two week break from the show, he started a new feature called 'Who knows Dom?' This feature started with one of Byrne's friends describing themselves, and saying they knew Dom. The following day, a friend of the person from the previous day appears, doing roughly the same thing, and saying 'I know someone who knows Dom'. This is intended to carry on with a new person every day. This feature aired at approximately 8:35 am every weekday on the show. The final 'Who knows Dom?' took place on 27 September 2007. The last person in the chain of people to 'know Dom' was a lady named Megan from Dudley. Another feature was called 'Just Ask Dom', where listeners email the show so that they can get any questions asked about anything. Recently, however this feature was also removed and Byrne attempted to replace it with another feature, "One Word Weather with Nelson Mandela." This involves him doing a one word description of the weather i.e. "cloudy" or "hail" in a questionable impression of Nelson Mandela, which was likened to Reeves and Mortimer's comedy characters, Mulligan and O'Hare.

Byrne has also interviewed many famous celebrities for the show including Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Alan Sugar, David Schwimmer, Uma Thurman, Welsh rappers Goldie Lookin' Chain, and more recently Reese Witherspoon, Al Gore, Richard E Grant and Bruce Willis.

Byrne and his family are regular visitors to ZSL Whipsnade Zoo. In the past he has been a season ticket holder, publicising the zoo on air. This led to Byrne, and the rest of the Chris Moyles Show team, being horribly ambushed by a pack of female lemurs at Whipsnade's new walk through lemur experience "In with the Lemurs", on 28 March 2007. On 12 June 2007 Byrne's favourite sealion, Barclay, fathered a new sealion Pup which was subsequently named Dominic.

On 27 April 2007, Dominic Byrne co-hosted BBC Radio Norfolk's 'The Chris and Nicky Show'. Byrne says he has always been a fan of local radio and has always wanted to host a local radio phone in show. BBC Radio 1's 'The Chris Moyles Show' was also broadcast from BBC Norwich's 'The Forum' building on the same day so that Byrne could continue his newsreading duties.

As part of Radio One's Six Weeks of Summer feature Byrne had to travel all the way to Brighton on the top deck of an open-top bus. Before the journey he confessed on air he was scared about the public throwing love eggs at him. Instead, he had a live chicken thrown at him so he can compare his bald head with all the eggs he wants.

Byrne provides the voice of an alien called Zorst in the CBeebies show "Space Pirates".

For the Children in Need 2007 charity, Byrne went into the Celebrity Scissorhands salon to get a haircut. As Byrne shaves his head, he decided to go in wearing a long red wig. Celebrity hairdresser and assistant manager, Steve Strange was tipped off about the wig but decided to go ahead and cut it anyway. Byrne subsequently gave the haircut a nine out of ten.

Trivia

• Dom is an ardent Liverpool FC supporter.

• He has a passion for U2.

• He is a member of the band Folk face with Chris Moyles Show colleague Comedy Dave, and appeared at the 2005 Glastonbury Festival.

• He also speaks French fluently.