Steve & Karen's Breakfast Show is the Hits Radio weekday breakfast show airing in the North East and Teesside. It is presented by Steve Furnell and Karen Oxley (née Wight).
History
The radio breakfast show began on Tuesday 1 June 1999 when Steve Furnell launched regional radio station Galaxy North East. Karen Oxley became his co-presenter in January 2001 after a year as senior broadcast journalist with the station.[1]
Galaxy was rebranded as Capital North East on 3 January 2011 as part of a merger of Global Radio's Galaxy and Hit Music networks to form the nine-station Capital radio network.[2] Furnell and Oxley were retained at the relaunched station.[3]
On 14 July 2011, Metro Radio breakfast presenter Tony Horne left, prior to his contract ending.[4] Furnell and Oxley were announced as his replacements two months later, remaining at Capital until 23 December 2011.[5] The Steve & Karen Breakfast Show aired on Metro for the first time on 6 June 2012 after 5 months of being off-air due to a clause in the contracts issued by their previous employers, Global Radio.[6][7][8]
The show resumed airing in Teesside and North Yorkshire on Monday 8 April 2013 when TFM merged with Metro and ceased all local programming apart from news.[9]
On 17 April 2024 both Metro Radio and TFM were rebranded to Hits Radio with Steve & Karen’s Breakfast Show unaffected.
[10]
The show currently uses the following features in its broadcasts:
First Bit Last Bit - Listeners get the first bit and last bit of a song, film, tv show or something else; and have to figure out what it is.
Scrambled Songs - Steve or Karen sing lyrics from one artist over music by another and the caller has to guess the two artists, winning a Steve and Karen Breakfast Show Mug.
The Wonky Minute - Listeners come on and have to answer 10 questions correctly in one minute to win £1,000.
Charva Choons - Every Friday, at 9:30am, listeners choose their favourite Charva Choon, a song typically heard in the club scene in the North East in the 90s and 00s.
Previous features
Hummer Bummer - Steve or Karen hum a song and a caller must answer correctly.
Missing Link - Karen gives a caller two things for them to guess the link.
Morning Glory - Answer a question correctly and win the 'Morning Glory'.
Tombola of Doom - Two contestants compete in answering some random questions in a certain amount of time. The player with the most points wins an 'I took on the Tombola of Doom and won' t-shirt.
Baby Jukebox Generator - A song from the year a caller's child was conceived is played.
Birthday Bangers - Call in if it’s your birthday for a treat and to choose a song from either Steve or Karen’s selections.
