To further ratchet up the excitement as we get to number one in this chart, and definitely not because it gives us more time to think of what might replace it, we’re going to stretch out the final few places with extended profiles and two rather than three people featured each week. Easier to scroll through as well, we suppose.

7) NOEL EDMONDS

Noel’s career has had its up and downs but these days he seems to have established himself as a respected, if not necessarily well-loved, face on our screens, though we think his current beard is all wrong and makes him look weird (it should be a tidy beard, Noel, not a full unkempt one!). In any case he certainly deserves a high placing in this chart for his masterful performances on live TV and reinventing the role of the light entertainer. Born in Ilford, Noel was an only child and spoilt rotten, though his parents were a bit concerned when he decided to eschew going to university in favour of joining Radio Luxembourg. Initially employed as a newsreader, his continual corpsing during bulletins saw him swiftly reassigned to the role of DJ, and in 1969 he was poached by Radio 1, making his first broadcast in the week of the moonwalk. Noel filled in around the schedules until Kenny Everett got the sack and he was parachuted into his slot, self-deprecatingly apologising for not being half as good as Ken and hoping listeners wouldn’t hate him too much. In fact he became very popular very quickly and by 1972 was given the breakfast show, much to Tony Blackburn’s disgust, where he became one of the most famous people in the country. Eager to get onto telly, he fronted Come Dancing though Top of the Pops was more his scene, where he almost always wore a suit to add a touch of class (and to make him look less short). One important show, though, was Z Shed, a live kids’ phone-in, where a light failed one week and he promptly moved next to one that was working, which he thought was a pretty logical thing to do but he got huge acclaim after the show for coping so well, and this professionalism saw him considered when they were casting for a new Saturday morning show.

It was Swap Shop that was the making of Noel on TV, the first time he could relax as much as he had on the radio, and his intimate approach was phenomenally successful, getting him on the cover of the Radio Times two weeks running in 1977. The following year he gave up daily radio to do a Sunday show, set in a faux stately home, that might have inspired a later project, and only for six months a year because he was so famous. It wasn’t long until primetime beckoned, and he more or less invented factual entertainment with Time Of Your Life, recreating memorable moments in a celebrity’s career, which proved a sturdy hit for a few years. Noel was slagged off a bit for not being a traditional light entertainer but his skills at live telly and his role in the creation of his shows were just as impressive as any other talent he might have. Then came Saturday nights and The Late Late Breakfast Show, though sadly the first series was pretty hopeless, with an attempt to bring his slow-paced, intimate Swap Shop style to primetime looking hopelessly out of place, with clunky gear changes and plain boring features (not least some utterly tedious celebrity interviews), while a disastrous car jumping stunt almost got it taken off air. However much hard work later, the show became a hit, ramping up the silliness with items like The Golden Egg Awards and Mr Puniverse and feeling more at home at teatime. Noel still loved live telly too, so relished his Christmas Days at the top of the Post Office Tower, setting up ridiculously overcomplicated feats of engineering, like live broadcasts from a jumbo jet, which he’d suitably hype up. Less dynamic, though entertaining, was the launch of Telly Addicts in 1985 which ran successfully for a decade. But in 1986 it all went wrong after a fatal accident on The Late Late Breakfast Show, leading to its immediate axing and a memorable morose appearance on Wogan. A dull quiz in Whatever Next kept him busy and then in 1988 he was back with the Saturday Roadshow, where nobody was going to get hurt because nothing serious happened, with the gimmick being that the show was coming from a different location every week via a hilariously unconvincing studio set. Features like the Gotchas and the gunging actually began here, but they didn’t become national talking points until the Roadshow mutated into Noel’s House Party in 1991, adding that familiar setting and regular live broadcasting (we think the Roadshow might have been pre-recorded), plus NTV (which doesn’t stand for Noel TV, that exactly what it isn’t), which saw ratings skyrocket. This was Noel’s imperial phase, thrashing the opposition, winning BAFTAs and watching serious critics queue up to commend his skill at live telly and his ability to construct a successful light entertainment show, and everyone slags it off now but it was perfectly acceptable to stand up and say how great it was. Sadly in around 1996 it all started to fall apart a bit, with items running out of steam, new ideas not being very good and a sense of the show imploding, thanks partly to Noel spending too much time arguing about who owned what and who was in charge rather than concentrating on the show, reaching a nadir at the beginning at the end of 1998 when Noel hated it all so much he refused to do the show. Panicked discussions and a revamp papered over the cracks but from then on it was a soiled brand and it was no surprise it was axed in 1999. Sadly at the same time too Telly Addicts got an equally rotten revamp which saw ratings plummet and by the end of the nineties he’d left the Beeb and had no shows on telly, and for five years he concentrated on his business roles – with a brief resurfacing on Radio 2. Then in 2005 he was back with Deal or No Deal, which was a massive hit and cemented himself as a consummate presenter. Primetime beckoned again, though the less said about Noel’s HQ the better, and these days he’s more or less realised that he should just shut up and get on with his proper job, at which he remains a master.
THE DEFINING ROLE: It’s a toss-up between him sat in a garish shirt behind a desk and fielding requests for a 29-function digital watch, or stood in a garish shirt operating the Big Pork Pie.
THEIR BEST BIT ON YOUTUBE: Yeah, yeah, but as Alan Partridge said of the Titanic, The Late Late Breakfast Show had four years of perfectly acceptable broadcasting before someone died on it. Here’s a late period episode in full and we like the reference to the Six O’Clock News during the Whirly Wheel, the day after there’d been a fire in the newsroom. A bit earlier on, we like this messing around. Everyone knows the Reeves and Mortimer Noel’s Addicts sketch, but nobody remembers it was a parody of an actual show, and despite it missing out Chris Bell we include the official Beeb version because the opening titles were identical to the real thing.

6) JOHN PEEL

John Walters said that John Peel was the most important person in the history of British music, and whether you believe that or nor, it’s impossible to argue he was one of the most intelligent, amusing, likeable and dedicated broadcasters we’ve ever had. One of his teachers wrote that it was possible that the young John could fashion some “nightmarish career” from his delight in listening to awful music and writing long and self-indulgent essays, which shows remarkable prescience. Eager for some excitement after national service, the young John Ravenscroft moved to the USA, working in Dallas when JFK was shot and after lying that he was a reporter for the Liverpool Echo (who promptly printed one paragraph under the headline ‘Heswall Man In Dallas’) being invited into the press conference, being in the room when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot. Getting work on radio, Ravenscroft was apparently too complicated to pronounce so he became, er, John Ravencroft and, as he came from near enough to the Mersey, sold himself as a Beatles expert and got work on KMEN. Later he became John Peel but left the USA pretty sharpish after he got married to someone he was led to believe was far older than she actually was. Coming back to the UK he started working on pirate radio and introduced The Perfumed Garden on Radio London which became highly influential listening, although Peel was later hugely embarrassed at his affected presentation. When the pirates were sank Peel joined the Beeb to give the new Radio 1 some credibility, hosting the progressive-leaning Top Gear and realising there was actually some benefits from the requirement to play live music by inviting bands in for sessions. As with all the jocks on the new station he was invited to present Top of the Pops but forgot the name of the Amen Corner and was told he would never be invited back, much to his delight, though there was occasional telly work including a memorable guest appearance on The Goodies (though they later beat him up when he slagged them off, and was forever embarrassed he wasn’t attacked by someone more credible) and a satirical spot on How It Is where he met his future wife in the audience. In 1975 a Beeb cash crisis saw his shows moved to a hugely unsuitable teatime placing but by the end of the year he was back in his familiar late night slot and the following year his producer John Walters was asked by the Controller to confirm he wasn’t playing any punk, to which Walters replied they’d played nothing but for a month, such was Peel’s enthusiasm for – and pivotal role in – this new rock phenomenon.

In the eighties Pops came calling again, and his droll presentation was a huge success, and while the show may have seemed an unusual platform for Peel he was smart enough to realise what the show was about and had the support of producer Michael Hurll to take the piss when required, especially when he was paired with his Rhythm Pal Kid Jensen. Indeed he was never as humourless or as precious about music as his reputation suggested, saying he’d happily play Kylie on his show because he’d met her and she was very nice. However a stint on The Late Late Breakfast Show was less successful, especially when he seemed to be blamed for the car jump going wrong and was never asked back. He didn’t always have a happy time on Radio 1 in the eighties either, occasionally thinking he was only kept on because he’d gone to public school and there’d be too many complaints if they got rid of him, and being flung into increasingly hopeless slots. But in the nineties the people who’d grown up with his show were becoming the people who were employing him and he enjoyed much greater prominence, coming back before midnight and seemingly summing up the new credible Radio 1. His regular Radio Times column helped, which showcased his thoroughly amusing comic writing, his thoughtful approach and his generosity – his friends often said he would cry tears of joy or sadness at virtually everything – and this lead to excursions to Radio 4 with Home Truths. When he became sixty in 1999 he was surely one of the most loved and respected figures in broadcasting, thanks to his unassuming and endearing personality, continued enthusiasm for new music and the fact he still never appeared to know what he was doing. His sudden death in 2004 was utterly devastating, meaning we would never be able to find out what he’d be like, as John Walters once memorably suggested, when he reached puberty.
THE DEFINING ROLE: Smiling that much loved half-smile, we always enjoyed Peel bringing that touch of anarchy to Top of the Pops.
THEIR BEST BIT ON YOUTUBE: Many of his best bits from the Pops, and here’s another one where two minutes in he gets away with telling a very rude joke.