The Scott Mills Show

The Scott Mills Show

Genre	Entertainment & Comedy, Music > Pop & Chart
Running time	165 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Languages	English
Home station	BBC Radio 1
Hosts	Scott Mills
Producers	Emlyn Dodd Rebecca Huxtable
Recording studio	Yalding House, London
Air dates	since 7 June 2004 (2004-06-07)
Audio format	Stereophonic sound
Website	http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/scottmills
Podcast	Scott Mills Daily

The Scott Mills Show is a Sony Radio Academy Award-winning drive time radio show, broadcast every week-day on BBC Radio 1 from 4:00 pm until 7:00 pm, with a short break at 5:45 pm for Newsbeat. The show began in its present form on 7 June 2004, and highlights of the show first became available as a podcast in 2006. It is hosted by Scott Mills and co-presented by Rebecca Huxtable, with occasional help from Scott's mate Chris Stark.

History

Main article: Scott Mills

Scott Mills began work at Radio 1 in 1998, presenting The Early Breakfast Show. Soon after, he began to substitute for Sara Cox when she was absent. In January 2004, he was made host of a programme broadcast between 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm at weekends. In May 2004, Mills returned to weekday afternoon programming as a temporary replacement for Cox who was on maternity leave. When Cox decided not to return to afternoons, Mills became permanent host in the drive time slot, with Sara's co-host Mark "Chappers" Chapman. The show originally aired from 3:00 pm until 6:00 pm, moving to its current, later slot in a schedule reorganisation. Scott Mills is now also the main cover for The Chris Moyles Show, as well as regularly covering for Reggie Yates on the chart show. On 28 February 2012 it was announced that The Scott Mills Show would be moved to the 1 till 4 time slot, with Greg James replacing the 4 till 7 slot.

Show format

The show contains a mix of music, talk and features. For the final hour, following the broadcast of Newsbeat, there is less audience participation and no major competitions or features.

On Fridays, the show starts with Scott shouting his catchphrase, "It's Only Bley Friday" (a self-censored version of "It's Only Bloody Friday") over a loud piece of music, signalling the start of the weekend. The show is very much different from the rest of the week and contains more upbeat music. The show becomes The Wonder Years with very little speech from the team. Older songs from the nineties are played instead of the mainstream playlist. At 6:00 pm, a separate segment called Ready for the weekend (previously Floor Fillers) begins and again contains very little speech. Dance music and dance mixes of commercial pop tunes are played to celebrate the fact that most people have now finished work for the weekend.

On 25 July 2008, a special edition of The Scott Mills Daily was broadcast live from Barry Island in South Wales, as part of Radio 1's summer events. This special broadcast was dedicated to a regular feature on the show called Barryoke, where listeners with the name Barry ring in to cover a song and change the lyrics to include their name. Barry Chuckle from the Chuckle Brothers recorded a special edition of Barryoke for the Barry Island show, changing the lyrics of Jay-Z's 99 Problems from "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one" to "I got 99 problems but a Barry ain't one".

Features

Popular recurring features and previous features that have appeared on The Scott Mills Show include:

A view from Scott Cam of Scott presenting his show from his living room

• Flirt Divert — Scott gives out a number for people on a night out who meet a 'munter'. Their calls will go straight to the Flirt Divert answer phone and Scott will play them on the air.
• One Night with Laura — In 2006 Scott launched One Night With Laura, a competition to find Laura, then assistant producer of the show, a boyfriend. The show went on the road with a tour bus and held auditions in five UK cities to find Laura a date. The auditions in each city involved 20 single men who were picked from thousands of entries. Judges for the auditions included Laura's dad and sister. The website for One Night with Laura generated 11.8 million page impressions.
• Oh What's Occurring? — This was a long-running daily feature, which was last heard in July 2010. Scott records three situations in which Becky and a listener (who had previously applied on the Radio 1 website) have to guess the outcome of various situations. After Chappers left the show on 24 December 2009 a caller challenges Becky and if the caller win they stay on for another game. On the other hand if (s)he loses a new caller comes on the next time. The rules are very flexible and Scott changes them at will.
• Scott Cam — On 29 September 2008, 'Scott Cam' was launched. Scott had six cameras placed in various rooms of his house which were on 6 am-11 pm (24 hours in the kitchen) for one week with the show being broadcast live from his house. The cameras were viewable by going to the Radio 1 website. 'Scott Cam' was launched after the success of Becky Cam which was a live streaming webcam on the Radio 1 office desk.
• Dear Scott, — 'Dear Scott' is a long-running feature where listeners get e-mails, texts and letters read out by The Posh Radio Four Lady. Who is known on the show as "The PR4L." Questions and queries are answered live on air. This normally occurs on Thursdays, however occasionally it occurs at other times, such as when Scott covers the Chris Moyles Show, when Dear Scott happens twice a day.
• Treadmill Trivia — A quiz-based feature that involves a treadmill and a contestant. For every question that is answered incorrectly, the treadmill speed increases, usually to the point where it becomes too fast, and the contestant falls off the treadmill in comedic effect.
• It's Only Bleyyyy Friday! — On every Friday show, Scott shouts out, "It's Only Bleyyyy Friday!" in a near incoherent voice normally over a classical piece of music.
• Laura's Diary — Ex-assistant producer Laura had her diary from her teens read out by her younger sister, Mary. This includes stories of her first love Ben, and difficult times at university.
• Innuendo Bingo — This feature involves clips from other radio or TV programmes, particularly from other BBC programmes, where what is said can be misconstrued as an innuendo. The clips are played to someone from the BBC or a guest while the said person's mouth is full of water. The challenge is then not to spit out the water while laughing. This feature is played on tuesdays, just after 6pm. It has become one of the show's most popular features. The previous assistant to Scott, Laura, is reputedly bad at this game.
• The Take Away Game — The show involves many classic prank call games. This involves two take away stores, where Scott rings one and orders food from their menu and subsequently puts them on hold. Scott then rings the second take away store and just before he is about to give his order, he asks the first take away store to repeat his order to him, when in fact it is said to the second take away store, where consequently inevitable confusion arises.
• The Florist Game — A florist (normally foreign) is rung up with the perception of buying flowers, however the real intention is to write a message which is actually a song (normally of a hip-hop or rap genre). Scott tries to get the florist to repeat the message, which is later played on top of the real song.
• The Great American Name Game — Involves finding humorous names in the American phonebook with the objective of getting them to say their name.
• The Library Book Game — Involves ringing a library and enquiring about the existence of a fake book and author which as a combination is normally performed as a double-entendre.
• The Honesty Game — A feature where Scott, Chappers and Beccy answered questions from the public about all sorts that have to be answered as truthfully as possible. This game occasionally in the past included a special guest, normally another Radio 1 DJ such as Huw Stephens, Zane Lowe and now Radio 5 Live presenter Colin Murray.
• Livestock Lounge — The Livestock Lounge involved live animals that must be identified while blindfolded, performed in the Live Lounge. Chappers performed the first on 20 April 2007, which included a rabbit, a duck, a lamb and a snake. The second game, which happened on 20 December 2007, involved Chappers identifying a turkey, a ferret and a toy singing goat. Scott brought back the feature renamed Livestock Lounge Extreme on 9 April 2009 which now involved Scott coming into contact with a python, a squirrel monkey and a warm weather penguin.
• Phonebook Roulette — This involved writing a text message on a mobile phone and sending the message to a random person by freely scrolling through the phonebook and stopping at a random time. The message is usually of a curious nature or a mild innuendo, enticing the recipient to text back with an inquiry.
• Beccy's Classifieds — Beccy finds weird or interesting online classifieds, and then has various people from Radio 1 read them out. On 7 August 2008, the only classified they have actually purchased is an empty jar advertised to contain the ghost of Beatles legend, George Harrison. Missed connection adverts have also become a part of the feature on more recent shows.
• What's Beccy's Forte? — This feature first began on 28 May 2009, and involves Beccy trying to find something she is excellent at. The first 'episode' featured UK beatboxer Beardyman. Cheer-leading, mind-reading, playing tennis, interviewing celebrities and escapology have also been attempted, none of which has been identified as Beccy's forte.
• Just for the pun of it — Beccy and Scott phone up specialist shops and try to slip in as many puns related to the profession as they can. Phone calls have involved a Cheese shop, a Pet shop and a French Restaurant.
• Coxipedia - This is a new feature first heard September 2010, whereby Sara Cox talks for a minute about a listeners chosen subject. The feature aim to have more entries into Coxipedia than Wikipedia by 2011. Listeners can apply to have their idea features on the show on the radio 1 website
• Scott Mills: The Musical — This was performed at the Pleasance One Theatre at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for three nights between 11–13 August 2009. Listeners did send in ideas that could be put into the musical itself, due to its lack of stage material. The team got listeners to send in audition video's to play scott in Scott Mills: The Musical. The final 3 were Adam from Southampton, Joe from Gloucestershire and Luke from Merseyside. The phone lines were opened in the early morning of Friday 17 July 2009 and listeners sent in votes for who they thought should play Scott. The votes were counted and Joe was declared winner at 5 pm that day.

Team members

The main host of the show, Scott Mills, is joined by current assistant producer Rebecca Huxtable, who was first known as "Wacky Beccy" and has a publicly acknowledged affection for cheese. She has become a vocal part of team, taking part in games and creating her own feature: Beccy's Classifieds, which has since been dropped. Beccy was also involved in a new feature, What's Beccy's Forte?. The original assistant producer was Laura Sayers, who left in April 2008 to work as producer for the Fearne & Reggie Request Show. She created the Laura's Diary feature of the show, in which her sister would read extracts of Laura's teenage diary on air. The show's producer, Emlyn Dodd, referred to as "The One That Doesn't Speak" (although he was heard to speak during Radio 1's Access All Areas Week on 10 December 2009, when the show was broadcast with viewers of a webcam being able to hear the presenters' conversations during the songs played on the show), previously worked for Top of the Pops, Radio 1's Chart Show, and the Breakfast Show with Zoë Ball and Sara Cox. Chapman, referred to by the team as 'Chappers' was originally a reporter for the breakfast show with Sara Cox and later became a regular on the show. He moved to the drive time slot with Cox, remaining there when Mills took over. Chapman left the show on Christmas Eve 2009, whilst Scott and the team were looking after The Chris Moyles Show.

Other regular contributors to the show include voice over artist Peter Dickson, 'The Posh Radio 4 Lady' (Kathy Clugston), who reads listeners' questions for Scott in the feature Dear Scott. The newest member of the team, referred to as Scott's 'mate', is Chris Stark. He often features with Becky in features such as Innuendo Bingo: The Duel. He has also featured in a documentary called "It's Chris" voiced by David Hasselhoff, and regularly reads extracts from his autobiography '24 Years at the Tap End'. Whilst it has not been confirmed that he is a permanent member of the team, it appears that he is.

Controversy

BBC Radio 1 was criticised by Ofcom in 2006 for what they said was “serious misjudgement” over a “prank call” on this programme. The regulator said that the call was "overtly aggressive" and "clearly unsuitable for broadcast". The woman who was the recipient of the call was told to “shut the fuck up” and her child called a “little shit”, although these swear words were bleeped out when the call was played out on air.

In 2008, Ofcom and the BBC received complaints about a feature called Badly Bleeped TV - a feature where words were bleeped from TV/radio clips and the co-presenters are asked to guess what the bleeped-out words are. The words that were bleeped-out were censored in such a way that they seemed offensive but were revealed to not be offensive at the end of the feature. Ofcom decided that this was a breach of broadcasting regulations, and as a result the feature was dropped from the show.

Podcast

In February 2006, a daily podcast version of the show, called Scott Mills Daily, became available for download from the BBC as part of their downloads trial. The podcast varies in length depending on the amount of suitable material from the show available each day. It is intended to contain the highlights of the programme, usually features, guests and talk. Due to copyright issues, the podcast does not contain music played on the show. The Scott Mills Daily has done well in the UK iTunes store chart, currently at number 13 in the most downloaded podcasts; early figures from the BBC had shown it had been downloaded 330,471 times, and a week in December 2006, The Sun reported that the Scott Mills Daily had been downloaded 535,051 times.

Awards

Year	Ceremony	Award	Result
2006	Sony Radio Academy Awards	The Interactive Programme Award	Gold
2007	Loaded Laftas	Funniest Radio Show	Won
2007	Sony Radio Academy Awards	The Interactive Programme Award	Bronze
2008	Sony Radio Academy Awards	The Entertainment Award	Silver
2008	Loaded Laftas	Funniest Radio Show	Won
2009	Sony Radio Academy Awards	The Music Radio Personality of the Year	Nominee
2010	Loaded Laftas	Funniest Radio Sidekick (Beccy Huxtable)	Won
2010	Sony Radio Academy Awards	The Music Radio Personality of the Year	Won

External links

• The Scott Mills Show at BBC Programmes