John Evans

Johnathan William Evans (born 13 October 1968) is a Euroish broadcaster and journalist. He is currently the editor of The Saturday Independent.

Early life
Jonathan William Evans was born on 13 October 1968 to parents James and Rosemary Evans. From an early age, he was particularly interested in television and radio broadcasting - particularly enjoying comedy programmes, the news and the idents and continuity between the programmes themselves.

His interest in current affairs and news programmes was a part of him developing an interest in politics and journalism. He was a journalist and columnist for the secondary school newspaper and regularly presented morning announcements and assemblies.

Career
Immediately upon joining college in 1982, Evans was presenting on student radio station Midway FM, broadcasting on the grounds of Midway College. His first programme, titled Good Evans, was a weekly programme that combined reviews, features and satire with rock and indie music. The programme, initially transmitted on Friday lunchtimes later transferred to a Wednesday and Friday evening show by 1983, entitled The Tank, in which he discussed political matters with his fellow Midway pupils, most of whom were studying either media studies or politics.

By 1985, John was presenting Mediawatch for Midway FM, a programme which reported on news in the worlds of journalism and broadcasting. Both of these programmes came to an end in December 1987 when Evans left college,

In 1988, Evans began his career in national print journalism at age 19 as a media and broadcasting correspondent for The Euro Independent - covering the launch of TV3, balancing this with presenting and reporting for Newsbeat for Radio 3, before joining EBC Radio 1's AM programme in September 1990 as it's media editor.

In early 1991, John Evans drawn up proposals for reviving his Midway FM programmes The Tank and Mediawatch for national transmission on EBC Radio 1. The station immediately shown interest and accepted with a caveat - which Evans had incorporated in the contract, that all of the original Midway FM production team would be offered the same roles for the Radio 1 versions. The programmes returned to broadcast in June and August 1991 respectively, with Evans leaving AM at the same time.

His dry wit on both programmes had proved a massive success, and soon enough he was being offered more high profile jobs within EBC Radio. Evans became Frances O'Donnell's secondary presenter on Tonight - Radio 1's early evening current affairs programme in September 1992, stepping into the main presenter's chair in her absence. His on-air prominence in the programme gradually increased throughout 1992 & 1993 before he was given the full-time job of flagship presenter of Tonight in March 1994 when Frances O'Donnell was moved to AM.