Dominic Byrne

Dominic Joseph Byrne (born on November 10 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. In 1999, he married Nicola. 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 24. He is well known for his baldness.

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 Bevvey', 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 is a parody of many local radio stations' travel information, however they used just one road per day. The final One Road Travel with "Fabulous Dominic Byrne" 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 airs 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. His new feature is called 'Just Ask Dom', where listeners email the show so that they can get any questions asked about anything.

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, publicizing the zoo on air. This led to Byrne, and the rest of the Chris Moyles Show team, being invited to officially open 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 after Byrne.

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.

Byrne provides the voice of an alien called Zorst in the new 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 realised the hair was not real, but decided to go ahead and cut it anyway. Byrne subsequently gave the haircut a nine out of ten.

Trivia

• He makes an excellent gravy which he is presently trying to market to the general public. The trade name has not yet been decided but some working titles are "Dom's Special Sauce", "Groovy Groovy Gravy" and "Ahhhh...Baldo".

• Dom is an ardent Liverpool FC supporter.

• He has a passion for U2.

• Byrne is a frequent late night caller to other radio stations.

• Is the centre of an occasional feature "Get Dom On It", in which he must find out bits of obscure information.

• Byrne is sometimes referred to as 'egg head' by Chris Moyles, due to his bald head.

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

• He cringes whenever Moyles plays the 'Frothy Bevvy' clip

• He also speaks French fluently.

He prides himself on looking like duncan goodhew