Jon Briggs (born 24 January 1965) is an English television, radio presenter and narrator. He is best known for his

voice-over Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice—that is not part of the narrative (non-Diegetic#Film sound and music, diegetic)—is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, th ...

work, and particularly as the British voice used by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

Siri Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer questio ...

virtual assistant software.

Career

Briggs's voiceover credits include appearing as the voiceover statistician in over 1,800 episodes of the

BBC TV BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 19 ...

quiz show ''

The Weakest Link ''Weakest Link'' (also known as ''The Weakest Link'') is a television game show which The Weakest Link (British game show), first appeared in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 14 August 2000 and originally ended on 31 March 2012 when its host ...

'' (2000–2012, 2017) and as continuity announcer for

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ...

(1996–2009) and

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

(1988–1990). Briggs was the first presenter on air when

QVC QVC (short for "Quality Value Convenience") is an American free-to-air television network, and flagship shopping channel specializing in televised home shopping, owned by Qurate Retail Group. Founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel in West Chester, Pen ...

launched in the UK in 1993. Briggs also provided the narration for the start of the drum and bass song "

Blood Sugar Glycaemia, also known as blood sugar level, blood sugar concentration, or blood glucose level is the measure of glucose concentrated in the blood of humans or other animals. Approximately 4 grams of glucose, a simple sugar, is present in the blo ...

" by

Pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the ...

. Briggs's radio credits include the breakfast show ''Oxford AM'' for

BBC Radio Oxford BBC Radio Oxford is the BBC's local radio station serving the county of Oxfordshire. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios in the Summertown area of Oxford. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audienc ...

(1985–1987), the breakfast show ''

Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 AM ...

'' for BBC Radio 5 (1990–1992), '' Night Ride'' for BBC Radio 2 and ''The Weekend Wireless Show'' for

LBC LBC (originally the London Broadcasting Company) is a British phone-in and talk radio station owned and operated by Global and based in its headquarters in London. It was the UK's first licensed commercial radio station, and began to broadca ...

(1998–2003). His reporting credits include

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

's '' PM'', ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 A ...

'', ''

The World at One ''The World at One'', or ''WATO'' ("what-oh") for short, is BBC Radio 4's long-running lunchtime news and current affairs programme, produced by BBC News, which is currently broadcast from 13:00 to 13:45 from Monday to Friday. The programme de ...

'' and ''

The World Tonight ''The World Tonight'' is a British current affairs radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4, every weekday evening, which started out as an extension of the 10 pm news. It is produced by BBC News and features news, analysis and comment on dome ...

'', as well as travelogue and transport programmes '' Breakaway'' and ''Going Places''. Briggs now works as a conference moderator and facilitator and owns the London-based artists' agency Excellent Talent Ltd. In October 2017, he was a contestant on the celebrity version of the UK quiz show ''

Pointless ''Pointless'' is a British television quiz show produced by Banijay subsidiary Remarkable Television for the BBC. It is hosted by Alexander Armstrong. In each episode four teams of two contestants attempt to find correct but obscure answers to ...

''. In July 2019, Briggs co-presented

's "Voice in the Machine" episode of the ''

Archive on 4 An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

'' series. In November 2020 Briggs launched the podcast ''You're On the Air!'' talking to UK broadcasters about the skill of broadcasting.

Siri

In 2007 Briggs recorded his voice for

text-to-speech Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal languag ...

software developed by ScanSoft, later acquired by

Nuance Communications Nuance Communications, Inc. is an American multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, that markets speech recognition and artificial intelligence software. Nuance merged with its compe ...

. In 2011, Nuance's software was used by

for their British Male version of

, the personal assistant application for Apple devices. Briggs's voice is renamed "Daniel" for these purposes. The voice is also the default British voice for Voice-Over on the iPhone, built-in software found within accessibility. This software reads everything out on the screen to enable blind and visually impaired people to use a phone independently. It has been rumoured that "Daniel UK” was dropped as the default Siri British Male voice option once Apple realised that Jon Briggs' voice was actually a well-known voice in the UK, as Apple wanted the voices used to be "anonymous" unknowns. However, he is available as an option in Settings, as above. The Daniel UK voice has since become an internet meme, particularly in meme compilations, for the absurd things that can be said in the monotone voice.

References

External links

www.jonbriggs.com
nbsp;— Jon Briggs's website.
www.youreontheair.co.uk
nbsp;- Podcast website *
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJLxEvL6eCo
nbsp;— BBC Radio 2 Voice Party Video from The

Jeremy Vine Jeremy Guy Vine (born 17 May 1965) is an English television and radio personality, presenter, broadcaster and journalist. He is best known as the host of his BBC Radio 2 lunchtime programme which presents news, views, interviews with live guest ...

Show
The iconic voices of technology
- BBC Technology "Meet the real Siri, and other iconic voices of technology" {{DEFAULTSORT:Briggs, Jon 1965 births British radio personalities Living people People educated at The Dragon School People educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford Radio and television announcers