2019 is clearly his breakthrough year; he's been Controller Radio 5Live for six years, but has only just joined the over-£150k list of senior managers, at £165k+. It looks like he'll stay domiciled in Knutsford, spending three days a week in London, and 'the rest of the week' (is that two days ?) based near his 5Live chums in MediaCityUK. Winter weekends will still be given over to the under-13 Panthers at Egerton FC.
It's an edgy time for 5Live staff, with the station once again appearing on a list of savings the BBC might have to mark if forced to cough up for all Over-75 tv licences. But at least the job is going to be advertised.
Jonathan is a BBC lifer, he remembers listening to the launch of 5Live when he was studying at Falmouth. He started a few months later as a news and sport broadcast journalist at Radio Humberside. He tried a spell as a researcher in TV Sport, before joining the 5Live sports bulletins team in 1998.
As Deputy Controller, he talked about the challenge of keeping the 5Live weekly reach above 6m. It hasn't been there since June 2014.
What gave Jonathan the edge on podcasts ? Football-loving James Purnell probably noted the 2017 5Live successes of "Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong Guy" and "Beyond Reasonable Doubt", and the more recent "You, Me and the Big C" and "That Peter Crouch Podcast"; it was 5Live that birthed "Brexitcast", and claims over 50 other offerings. Jonathan made a trip to the States in 2017 with Bob Shennan to talk to podcasting companies.
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