Perhaps best known now for reading the news, Jonathan started as a freelancer in the continuity department in 1990, doing his first stint on the 22nd May 1990.
After some time, he was allowed in-vision to do Lookaround and the Birthday Slot with the naughty ‘Ted’. He combined this with presenting the breakfast show on BBC Radio Newcastle, often getting up at 4am, working on the radio from 6am til 9am and then driving off to Tyne Tees before getting home at 6pm.
He was made to leave Tyne Tees in 1994 by the BBC who weren’t happy that a man who was interviewing politicians in the morning could be seen reading birthday cards in the evening, although shortly after he left Radio Newcastle, moving south for six months which included a stint at Sky News, before returning to the North East. After freelancing for a few years, he joined the Tyne Tees news room.
As well as his news reading duties, Jonathan also presented on the now defunct digital health channel, Wellbeing, owned by Granada Media and Boots.
He left Tyne Tees in the summer of 2001 to work as a freelance presenter, which included stints on Yorkshire’s Calendar, Sky News, and the (now defunct) ITV News Channel. He returned back to Tyne Tees full time in 2004, and was one of the bank of presenters filling in for Mike Neville in 2005.
With the departure of Mike, Jonathan became the co-anchor of the north edition of North East Tonight in January 2006, initially alongside Pam Royle and from September 2006 with Philippa Tomson.
In October of that year, ITV plc announced that the Tyne Tees region would be merged with that of Border, and the two North East Tonight programmes and Border’s Lookaround would be merged into one. This inevitably led to a cull of staff, with Jonathan being one of the many who were made redundant. He presented his final programme on 18 December 2008.
In 2007 Jonathan also returned to radio, joining Century FM in the North East as host of their morning show where he remains to this day.
