Christian O'Connell
Christian O'Connell is an English radio DJ who presents the Virgin Radio weekday breakfast show. He has formerly hosted BBC Radio Five Live's weekend sports game show Fighting Talk alongside the weekday breakfast show on indie music station Xfm London.
Radio Career
Christian has presented shows on stations in Liverpool, Bournemouth and London, and whilst still at XFM replaced Johnny Vaughan as presenter of Radio Five Live's weekend sports show Fighting Talk after Vaughan left to present the Capital FM breakfast show. Christian presented his last regular show for Radio Five Live on the 18th of December 2005.
Xfm London
When starting on Xfm, O'Connell ironically promoted his show as the "18th most listened to breakfast show in London" though by the time he left was proudly touting it as the 11th most popular, with 349,000 Londoners tuning in every week (399,000 nationally) - the station's best ever figures up to that point. In 2004 O'Connell won the DJ of the year award, and in 2005 best breakfast show and best entertainer at the Sony Awards. He and his team (Chris Smith, sidekick and news reader; Roque Segade-Vieito, producer and; a bloke called Brian) were subsequently poached by Virgin Radio to present their weekday national breakfast show.
O'Connell presented his final Xfm breakfast show on the 21st of October 2005, after which Shaun Keaveny deputised until the 31st of October when former drivetime presenter Lauren Laverne took up the position on a full time basis.
External Links
- Wikipedia entry on Christian O'Connell
- Virgin Radio Breakfast show minisite
- Christian O'Connell presenter page at Virgin Radio
- Christian O'Connell interviewed From London's Evening Standard (May 2003)
- Press Gazette interview (Jan 2006)