Neil Fox (media personality)

Neil Andrew Howe Fox (born 12 June 1961 in Harrow, London [http://www.biogs.com/ice/fox.html] ) is an English radio and television presenter, known for many years as Dr Fox before he became "Foxy" in the 2000s. He does not have a doctorate. He currently appears as himself (albeit judging a superhero talent show) in BBC3 sketch show The Wrong Door

Early life

As a boy he moved to Thames Ditton, Surrey where he lived for a number of years. He was then educated at Kingston Grammar School in London, before becoming a management student at the University of Bath, where he joined the student radio station University Radio Bath, and began his career as a radio presenter using the pseudonym Andrew Howe. In 1985 he started his professional radio career on what is now Wyvern FM (then Radio Wyvern) starting off with the evening show, before moving to their afternoon show. He also presented a weekend show for the station. He remained there until late 1986, then joined Radio Luxembourg in early 1987 before joining Capital Radio in October the same year.

Capital Radio

Fox presented the station's evening show from 7-10pm, where some of his first shows were broadcast only on medium wave, because 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. He also presented a Saturday morning show.

By the early 1990s, Fox was one of Capital FM's most popular DJsFact|date=February 2007 , and in 1993 he began presenting the Sunday-afternoon Network Chart Show; which due to sponsorship went on to be called the Pepsi Network Chart before becoming simply the Pepsi Chart in 1996 and then hit40uk, sponsored by Woolworths in 2003. During Fox's tenure, this show, which had previously been hosted by David Jensen, overtook the official Top 40 show on BBC Radio 1 (broadcast at exactly the same time) in terms of audience share as published in the JICRAR figures during the timeFact|date=February 2007 . In addition to this, he still continued with his Evening show, although from 1995, he went out on Sundays - Thursdays. On Sundays, his show went out from 7.00-8.30pm as he presented the Chart show beforehand.

Fox also presented a show on Channel 5 based around the Pepsi ChartFact|date=February 2007 from 1998 until 2002, and he was famously a judge on 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 changed to part-time work in 2003, but was passed over in favour of Johnny Vaughan as Tarrant's successor.

Leaving Capital

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 30 May, 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.

Magic 105.4

Since 12 September 2005, he has been the presenter of the "More Music Breakfast Show" on Magic 105.4 FM in London, and on DAB, Freeview and Satellite across the UK. He is now known simply as 'Neil X. Fox'.

Awards

Fox holds eight Sony awards, as well as having been voted to claim the "Best Disc Jockey" award from the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party multiple times.

He now lives in East Preston, West Sussex