The Big Breakfast known as 'The Cottage'. After renovation following a fire, it has also been used for a number of television shows. Mark Lamarr, Keith Chegwin, Paul Ross, Richard Orford, Richard Bacon and Mike McClean were "down your doorstep" outside broadcasters, often turning up live and unannounced at an unsuspecting viewer's house, while rooms within the Lock Keeper's Cottages featured the puppets Zig and Zag and video games guru Ben the Boffin. The show's style, with hand-held cameras moving around all of the set, meant that many of the crew members could be seen on screen. This led to them getting nicknames,
The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show of renowned producers including Adelle McDonnell and Alison Curtis, who resigned from the post after being given her own weekday radio show on the station in 2008. Another notable former producer of the show is Paul McLoone, a fellow Today FM radio presenter and current frontman of the Northern Irish pop-punk band, The Undertones and who also helped co-create the highly popular and successful comedy series, Gift Grub alongside Rosenstock. In 2008, "The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show"'s listenership figures were reduced by 4,000 to 234,000. "The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show" has been on air since September 1998 and originally broadcast