JK and Joel

JK and Joel (Jason King - born Jason Griffiths in January 1975; and Joel Ross - born Joel Hogg in May 1977) are a British duo who have co-presented radio shows since 1999 and are most famous for hosting the the official UK chart (at one time, the most listened to radio show in Europe) on BBC Radio 1 between 2005 and 2007 and currently hosting on Absolute Radio, from 10am - 1pm at weekends and covering the breakfast show.

Career

The two first worked together at Viking FM in Hull from 1996 when Ross joined the station from Yorkshire Coast Radio to present the overnight programme. King was hosting the afternoon show at the time. In 1998 King took over the breakfast show and Ross, who was on the afternoon programme, later began reading the travel bulletins on the show. Eventually the two were paired up as co-hosts and together they won a both a bronze and silver award at the acclaimed Sony Radio Awards in 2000 for Best Breakfast show.

They left Viking FM to join Key 103 in Manchester in 2000, taking over from Mike Toolan as hosts of the breakfast show where they won a further 3 SONY radio awards, GOLD for UK best breakfast show, SILVER for UK's best presenters and Bronze for the competition award. Joel was sacked from Key 103, after agreeing to join Radio 1 towards the end of 2003, after turning up three hours late for work, while JK saw out his contract with Key 103 and presented the breakfast show alone before joining Radio 1 in 2004. They went on to join BBC Radio 1 in Spring of 2004. They initially hosted a weekend afternoon programme before moving to the Radio 1 Chart show in March 2005. They also presented the early breakfast show every Monday - Thursday from 4:00 a.m. - 7:00 a.m. as of September 2005, replacing Nemone Metaxas who left to join BBC 6 Music. Unusually they didn't host the early breakfast show on a Friday, to compensate for their Sunday chart show and TV commitments, being replaced previously by Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates of "Top of the Pops" fame.

They have also hosted programmes for BBC Three, Pure Soap, and Men & Motors. Joel distinguished himself by winning Channel 5's 2005 "Britain's Worst Celebrity Driver" competition on September 25, 2005, despite the best efforts of JK, his co-driver. They were also seen every Saturday morning on CBBC show "Top of the Pops Reloaded" on BBC Two which ended in April 2006.

In January 2006, the duo won a "celebrity pairings" edition of "The Weakest Link", raising £12,900 for the Five Stars Scanner Appeal, a children's charity they had supported while working in Manchester.

In February 2007 JK and Joel appeared on Virgin Media TV channel 999, 'Virgin iD' introducing the new features of the cable service.

In February 2007 the pair became presenters of the new CBBC show "Hider in the House", where a celebrity has to be hidden in a house, without one parent finding out. The children involved must undergo a series of tasks to win prizes which they will receive if the parent doesn't find the celebrity. The last episode in the series of 20 finished at the end of June 2007. The second series of 22 episodes is still running on Sunday mornings on BBC2 at 9am and is one of the most watched kids programmes on the channel.

On 7 July 2007, JK and Joel launched on ITV with their new show music quiz show "".

In October 2007 they left Radio 1. Their last show being the chart show on September 30th. They were replaced by Greg James in the early breakfast slot, and Fearne & Reggie for the chart show.

They then joined Virgin Radio presenting their 10am - 1pm slot at weekends, but have decided to leave the station in the later part of 2008cite news | first = JK| last = Joel| url = http://onegoldensquare.com/2008/09/new-arrival-by-clive-dickens/| title = http://onegoldensquare.com/2008/09/new-arrival-by-clive-dickens/| publisher = One Golden Square| date= 9/1/2008| accessdate = 2008-01-09 ] [cite web|url=http://www.virginradio.co.uk/about/questions.html|title=Listeners' Questions about Absolute Radio|date=2008-09-01|accessdate=2008-09-01|publisher=VirginRadio.co.uk] following the radio stations take over and subsequent rebranding as Absolute Radio.

They are to present the next two series of Escape from Scorpion Island in Australia for BBC1 and ABC1.

References

External links

* [http://www.jkandjoel.com JK and Joel's official website]