Jon is undeniably one the UK’s most decorated radio presenters.
He has won numerous broadcasting awards including being the only presenter to win three Sony Gold Awards, the Oscars of the Industry, in one night.
However, Jon almost fell into his radio career…
Returning from Edinburgh, where had been running one of the UK’s biggest rave venues, a friend suggested that he should have a go at presenting a show on the local BBC radio station. Jon met with the station boss, Andy Wright, and they immediately hit it off. Andy was keen to get Jon’s local knowledge and contacts on air and so he promised to train Jon for three months. However, it only took a few weeks for Andy to offer Jon a full-time position at CWR, and a couple of months later Jon was on the breakfast show.
Andy became Jon’s mentor. He sent Jon and his young family on holiday to Florida on one condition: Jon was to buy a $10-dollar radio as he went through customs and listen to AM talk stations as he sat by the motel pool. The influence of US talk radio made Jon one of the most distinctive voices on radio in the UK and his shows some of the most interactive.
After BBC CWR Jon went on to work for five years at BBC 3 Counties Radio serving Luton and Milton Keynes. He started on the mid-morning show but again rapidly moved on to the breakfast show which became a four hour show, five days a week and achieved the highest ever audience ratings on the station. It was in Luton that Jon covered the closure of the local Vauxhall car plant. The broadcast on the morning of the closure and the subsequent near riot which Jon broadcast from a radio car won him and his team three Sony Gold awards beating the likes of the Today programme on Radio four and BBC 5 Live.
After this amazing achievement Jon was offered a slot on struggling BBC London Radio station and, along with the likes of Danny Baker, Jon revitalised and increased the audience. Jon was initially employed to present the afternoon phone-in and was on air when 9/11 happened. Six months later he was sent to New York to do a series of programmes from the city. Immediately after this he was promoted to the morning phone in based on his audience growth. He was also on air on the day of 7/7 when terrorists attacked the Tube. In fact, Jon’s show was the first programme in the world to actually talk to the survivors as they emerged from the underground. The show was so compelling that it was extended for six hours with Jon presenting the whole time and the decision was taken for the whole of the UK Local network to simulcast Jon’s programme. People still talk about how Jon and his team handled this unfolding drama and it remains a highlight of Jon’s career. You can listen here.
Shortly after this historic broadcast Jon was approached by The Sun Newspaper to become a columnist and he was then approached to present the mid-morning current affairs phone in on national radio station talkSport. Jon held this position for over two and half years and built the audience up to over a million. He was sacked by talkSport for calling a local councillor an ignorant pig and a Nazi over the council’s policy of banning people who smoke from fostering children. Jon, who had been in care as a child, believed and still believes that children are in much more danger in a residential children’s home than from passive smoking. The Sun, knowing how popular Jon was both as a columnist and on air, offered him the chance to build and create his own talk radio station on their website. The station, SunTalk, was launched by Prime Minister David Cameron. It was the first app-based radio station attached to a national newspaper in the world and Jon and his team were awarded the Digital Innovation award at the prestigious British Press awards for their efforts. SunTalk was closed down by the Sun at the beginning of the phone tapping scandal.
However, utilising all the experience he had built up with SunTalk Jon was one of the first broadcasters in the UK to spot the potential of podcasts and launched his own show as a podcast and built up millions of downloads. Jon truly believed before most radio people that the future was going to be app based and not broadcast or linear any more. It would appear he was correct.
Most recently Jon has been producing a weekly podcast for Sputnik International. He has also developed his own personal podcast from being just an audio show to a live YouTube and Facebook show, three times a week.