Media UK

Neil Fox

Neil Fox (born 1962) is a radio and television presenter, known for many years as "Dr Fox" before he became "Foxy" in the 2000s.

He was educated at Kingston Grammar School near London, and started his radio career on what is now Wyvern FM (then Radio Wyvern) and Radio Luxembourg before joining Capital Radio in 1987. Bizarrely, some of his first shows went out only on medium wave because on Sundays (as an experiment) Capital were then broadcasting "adult" rock music on FM while mainstream chart music was played on MW. However this soon ceased, the MW transmitters were given over to oldies station Capital Gold, and the FM service became Capital FM. By the early 1990s, Fox was one of Capital FM's most popular DJs, and in 1993 he was given the show that was to make him famous throughout the UK - the Sunday-afternoon Network Chart Show which had previously been hosted by David Jensen. During Fox's tenure this show - which was initially called the Pepsi Network Chart before becoming simply the Pepsi Chart in 1996 and then Hit40UK, sponsored by Woolworths, in 2003 - overtook the official Top 40 show on BBC Radio 1, broadcast at exactly the same time, in terms of audience share.

Fox also presented a show on Channel 5 based around the Pepsi Chart from 1998 until 2002, and he was famously a judge on ITV1's reality show Pop Idol, as well as presenting various other ITV1 shows. On Capital FM he moved from the weekday evening show to the drivetime show in 1998, again succeeding David Jensen. He deputised for Chris Tarrant on the station's breakfast show on many occasions, especially after Tarrant had gone "part-time" in 2003, but was passed over in favour of Johnny Vaughan as Tarrant's successor.

Fox claimed that he wanted to leave Capital when he didn't get the breakfast show, but he initially changed his mind and remained for a while longer. On May 30, 2004 he presented his last Hit40UK after 11 years, but remained on Capital FM until the spring of 2005 when he left the station after 18 years, his drivetime show being taken over by Richard Bacon.

In September 2005, Fox joined London station Magic 105.4 to present the breakfast show.

Some or all material in this page has been adapted from the Neil Fox entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Fox), or others, in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org), the free encyclopedia.