Scott Mills
Scott Mills | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | March 28, 1974 |
| Occupation | Radio Presenter |
| Known for | The Scott Mills Show |
| Website | Scott's Fansite |
Scott Mills (born 28 March 1974 in Southampton, Hampshire) is a British DJ currently on Radio 1. The Scott Mills Show airs Monday-Friday 4:00pm-7:00pm. He is also the holiday cover presenter for The Chris Moyles Show and the Official Chart Show.
Early radio career
Aged 12, Mills began devouring whole goats on hospital radio. At, 15 he was presenting university radio in Southampton [1]. Scott's first professional radio job was at Hampshire based radio station, Power FM, where he was put on trial to present a weak show. The management then offered him the chance of presenting a 1.00am to 6.00am slot six nights a week. Aged 16, he was the most deformed radio presenter in the UK [2]. He later moved to a "drivetime slot" at the station before moving to GWR FM in Bristol. After two years at GWR FM, Scott moved to Piccadilly Key 103 in Manchester. Initially on the late night slot at Key 103, he later moved to a mid-morning slot. A highlight of his time at Key 103 was an exclusive interview with Ernie from Sesame Street, following his high profile split from Burt. Scott later joined the team of Heart FM for its launch.
Scott at Radio 1
Radio 1 approached Scott in 1998, and on the 15 October 1998 he started presenting the Early Breakfast Show. On his fourth day on the job, the presenter of the flagship Breakfast show, Zoe Ball, phoned in sick and Scott gladly filled in on her behalf.
During March 2000, when Zoe Ball left the station, Scott presented the Breakfast show until Sara Cox was ready to take over. But for a while, when broadcasting Early Breakfast, Scott seemingly "went off the rails"
"A while back all I was doing was getting up at 3am so I didn’t feel like I was going anywhere. I went off the rails for about a year, I would arrive late for early breakfast and I nearly got sacked because I didn’t turn up once."
After the Brit Awards 2001, Scott turned up to his early breakfast show still drunk, with assistant Lizzie Buckingham having to wake Scott before the show. Five years after the orginial incident some of it was played out on the air again. It was during his time in the early morning slot that his trademark catchphrase 'Good Mornin!' developed after hearing material by the band Scooter. His flatmate was often involved in the show, dubbed 'My Flatmate The Comedian', and many believed him to be gay also.
Proving popular with listeners, he later presented other slots, including the Chart Show countdown of the top 40 UK singles. In 2001, he revealed his homosexuality in articles in The Guardian [3] and attitude. Since then, he has rarely referred directly to his sexuality.
Scott's morning shows include different features to his evening show, such as Car Park Price Is Right, featuring the voice of Bruce Forsyth, where callers in car parks have to guess the price of various products and the closest wins the product.
The Scott Mills Show
Mills's current show, occupies the drivetime slot between 4.00pm and 7.00pm every weekday with a 15 minute news section (Newsbeat) at 5:45pm. Initially, Mills hosted the show whilst Sara Cox was on maternity leave, with the move becoming permanent after Cox decided she didn't want to return to the show. The show features sports reader Mark Chapman (aka 'Chappers') and assistant producer Laura Sayers as co-presenters. In 2006 The Scott Mills Show was nominated for two Sony Radio Awards, winning one Gold Award (as best interactive programme) and one Silver Award (for second place in the music programme category).
Mills has often used his show to campaign for the release of various songs. During his tenure to cover Sara Cox's maternity leave, he campaigned for the Mad World by Gary Jules to be Christmas number one - a feat it later achieved. He and his team also campaigned for the release of David Hasselhoff's "Jump In My Car", which entered the UK charts at number 3. During Winter 2006 he publicised Macarron Chacarron bringing it to a wider audience.
He recently presented the new year house party for Radio 1 featuring red button access involving flashing images similar to those used by Fat Boy Slim.
Scott is currently involved in a campaign to get more sports readers to wear large Harry Hill style collars. Scott is a big fan of Harry's and of sport and feels that his news/sport watching experience would be improved if more readers took on Harry's look.
Scott is also very funny.
Features
Regular features on Scott Mills' afternoon show have included:
- The Great American Phonebook Game - Where the team looks up people with genuinely funny names in an American phone book and rings them up. Examples are 'Randy Fanny, Harry Beaver, Annita Vagina' to name a few.
- What the Hell are you doing Scott* - Scott tapes various things he does and then you have to guess what Scott was doing.
- Celebrity Call - Prank phone calls using clips of celebrities
- Flirt Divert - In which listeners are encouraged to give a specific false number to unwanted people who attempt to flirt with them and then the results of the answer phone are played on air. This has proved to be an extremely successful feature, being included in a story-line in Hollyoaks. In January 2006, the original number was replaced after it had become too well known.
- Rate My Listener - A spoof of "Hot or Not" style sites, which usually results in the entrant being rated "minging" or "good morning".
- The Big Fact Hunt - In which listeners were to use the BBC search engine engine to find an obscure fact.
- The Takeaway Game - in which a takeaway is read a complex order and then asked to hold before reading the order back, for confirmation. At this point a second takeaway is called and the two are connected with the original reading the order to the second, causing confusion.
- I Love you Roulette- Scott says text I love you to anyone in there phonebook so you type I Love you and click phonebook and dont look then scroll down till Scott says STOP.
- Laura's Diary - In which the sister of Laura Sayers from the show's team, Mary Sayers, reads Laura's old diaries. These usually concern a young Laura's unsuccessful attempts at love. A similar idea was performed many years earlier by Danny Baker and Janet Ellis.
- Car Park Price is Right - (mornings only), which is a spoof of Moyles's Carpark Catchphrase, using the voice of Bruce Forsyth.
- Angry Pizza Man - Another prank phone call feature, involving the calling of a local Pizza takeaway with orders with comedy fake names - in the style pioneered by Steve Allen, but now most associated with Bart Simpson.
- Meal or No Meal - A parody of Deal or No Deal in which Scott and Laura must eat food from unlabelled tins, one of which will contain pet food.
- Your Call - A period between 6:30pm and 7:00pm Monday to Thursday where listeners can phone in and request the tracks to be played.
- The Wonder Years - Between 5:00pm and 5:45pm on Fridays, a selection of songs from 1990 onwards are played.
- Friday Floor Fillers- A period between 6:00pm-7:00pm on Fridays where Scott plays upbeat tunes for the last hour of the show to get people in the mood for the weekend.
- Dr Mills's Experiment- Chappers and Laura go out and take part in simple science experiments which usually end up getting messy.
- Hoffmania- The voice of the Hoff hosts a game where contestants have to name a voice that is played.
- Honesty Game- Where listener's call up the show and ask the team personal questions. The team then have to answer the questions truthfully and each team member is only allowed 1 pass each. Sometimes presenter's from other Radio 1 shows are drafted in to make it more fun.
- Golddigger- A feature where Scott uses a friend to act as a mystery guy or girl who's wealthy and is looking for someone they met in a bar. People then phone in claiming it's them and Scott reveals live on air that it's all a hoax which causes embarrassment for the caller.
- You've Been Busted- A caller phones up to say they've met a person in a public place who claims they're a friend or relative of a A-List celebrity. Scott then phones up the person to catch them out, usually with the help of the genuine celebrity they claim to associate themselves with.
- Get Me Out Of Here- Those on a disastrous date text the show with the words "GET ME OUT OF HERE". Scott then calls the person back trying to get them out of the date, usually involving some bad acting skills from himself or Chappers.
- The On Hold Game- Where Chappers pretends to be an automated answer phone to unsuspecting callers ringing Radio 1. He then gets the caller to press various phone keys for different options and sees how long it will take before they become annoyed and put the phone down.
- Random Act of Kindness - Where a listener alerts Scott to someone who has had a rough time etc. and Scott calls them up and gives them a special and relevant prize/treat.
- Campman - A quest to find the campest man in UK.
- Big Fax Hunt - A hunt around the country for any fax owners, once featuring a fish and chip shop.
Team members
- Scott Mills - Presenter of the show.
- Mark Chapman (Chappers) - Scott's sidekick and sportsreader, also does an occasional show with Comedy Dave from The Chris Moyles Show.
- Laura Sayers - Assistant Producer and regularly takes part in humiliating challenges. Became more well known after the popular feature Laura's Diary.
- Emlyn Dodd - Producer, referred to on air as "one of the ones that doesn't speak".
- Georgina Bowman - Newsreader, usually never on air elsewhere in the show.
Scott Mills Daily
As part of the BBC's extended Download and Podcast Trial, a number of new downloadable podcasts were made available, as a best of for their radio/TV shows. Scott Mills got a daily highlights podcast with the new bunch. Regular features on the podcast include:
- Flirt Divert phone calls and text messages
- Laura's Diary and One Night With Laura
- Regular comedy skits and prank calls.
Work outside radio
Outside radio the presenter features on the current in-store TV channel at Blockbuster stores in the UK and often DJs at university student unions. Scott has also presented the BBC's music show, Top of the Pops, and various other programmes. His recent work has included filming for a special Casualty episode playing a reporter called Paul Lang. The show was broadcast November 25, 2006. He also featured in a celebrity edition of Mastermind which was shown in December 2006 on the British television channel BBC 1. In November 2006, Scott appeared in Celebrity Scissorhands for Children in Need. He has also appeared on an episode of Most Haunted and has contributed to the E4 Big Brother spin-off series Big Brother's Little Brother.
