Five reasons why Greg James is smashing it

More than 230,000 extra listeners have tuned into Radio 1 since Greg James took over from Nick Grimshaw as the host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show.

The DJ has been presenting the show since August.

It comes as the rest of Radio 1 has been losing listeners.

But why is he so popular? Here are five reasons why we think Greg James has been smashing it as breakfast host!

#passthepasty

The pasty went all the way from Cornwall to Aberdeenshire

"We went away and thought, what's the stupidest thing we can do?" That's what Greg James said after he managed to get a pasty all the way from the South West of England all the way up to Aberdeenshire in Scotland, back in September 2018.

He blamed the idea on footballer Michael Owen, after the former England international admitted he'd never had a cup of tea.

A listener called Sarah got in touch and said she'd never had a Cornish pasty.

The pasty, which was baked in Cornwall, made 19 stops via Radio 1 listeners before being delivered to Sarah in Aberdeenshire four days later.

Why hellooooo Jill!

Greg James and Ainsley Harriott on Greg's Instagram

Greg James is obsessed with celebrity chef Ainsley Harriott.

His obsession started after seeing Ainsley surprise a 76-year-old This Morning viewer at her home. He burst into the unsuspecting Jill's house and said "why, helloooooo Jill".

The catchphrase went viral online and caught the attention of Greg James.

After speaking to Jill about the experience, Greg decided to get Ainsley Harriott onto his programme in order to ring up random Jills and say his now famous catchphrase to them. The results were hilarious.

Jump around

Were you watching Strictly when the audience started fist pumping to one of Joe Sugg's dances? That was down to Greg James too.

It happened because Greg has a good relationship with the warm-up performer at Strictly Come Dancing.

Earlier this year, he pushed this relationship to the max by asking MC Stuart Holdham to get the audience to fist pump during Joe Sugg and Diane Buswell's performance of "Jump Around".

For the first time in Strictly history, the audience fist pumped along to a performance instead of clapping. (You can watch it in the video above)

"The Battle of Hastings never happened"

Radio 1 listener, Matt, claims the Battle of Hastings never happened. Here's the Bayeux Tapestry

Greg runs a weekly segment in the show called "Unpopular Opinion". People usually phone in things like 'Marmite is delicious' and 'Harry Potter is overrated'.

In January 2019, a listener called Matt called up to say that the Battle of Hastings never happened and was one of the first examples of 'fake news.'

There's an awful lot of evidence to show that the Battle of Hastings did indeed happen. You can even read our guide here.

But that evidence wasn't enough for Matt. He claimed that the Bayeux Tapestry was a fake.

In the end, Greg James invited BBC historian Dan Snow onto the programme to take on Matt.

Honk your horn for the Hootenanny

A popular dance track by Australian DJ Fisher called Losing it has a really distinctive horn part to it.

Greg wondered whether or not he could make the horn part in the song better by making listeners honk their horns at the same time.

He managed to get lorries, buses, cars and even cruise ships involved and called the whole thing a 'Hootenanny'.

On 7 February, a crew member from the HMS Queen Elizabeth - the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy - got in touch to say they'd be on hand in the future to sound the horn whenever Greg wanted.

The largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy has promised to honk its horn for Greg!

And, as a bonus... It's not always silly

In the build-up to Christmas, Greg got together lots of young carers to throw them a special party in Oxfordshire.

According to the Carer's Trust, there are approximately 376,000 young carers in Britain, looking after loved ones who are in need of care.

He asked listeners from up and down Britain to try and make it the best Christmas party ever for the young carers, by providing things like food, decorations, bouncy castles, performers and disco lights.

You can see the amazing results in the video above.