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DJs' trials and tribulations on radio

Robert de,Pa
Wednesday 22 September 2010 17:41 BST
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Chris Moyles is not the first BBC DJ to cause controversy with his on-air behaviour.

Radio 1 veteran Dave Lee Travis - dubbed the hairy cornflake by listeners - famously resigned on air in August 1993.

He told listeners the station was being changed in ways "which go against my principle and I just cannot agree with them".

Tony Blackburn poured his heart out on Radio 1 after splitting from his wife, Tessa, and bombarded listeners with repeated plays of lovelorn ballads.

He later admitted: "I bored the country stupid with it. I just lost the plot for a while."

Radio 2 DJ Sarah Kennedy, who announced this week she was leaving the station, worried listeners after slurring her way through a show in 2007.

She mispronounced words and let sentences tail off in a rambling performance which prompted a number of listeners to raise concerns on the station's website.

The DJ referred to the Princess of Wales as wearing a "pink polka blot" dress, described the victim in the Phil Spector murder trial as having a "gunshot to her month" and offered to send some "panties" to soldiers in Afghanistan.

Speaking this week, she insisted she had always been "stone cold sober" while at work.

In 1999, she took a week off work suffering from exhaustion after making a series of inappropriate on-air comments which drew complaints from listeners.

She called a clergyman an "old prune", described fellow DJ Ken Bruce as an "old fool" and accused a newsreader of soiling her underwear.

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