Chris Evans: Saturday night saviour?

Take a quick peek at recent snapshots of Chris Evans, currently residing in Hollywood, and you see a man revelling in marital bliss. The former media mogul and his young pop-star wife Billie, so observers say, are loving their new-found freedom from the limelight, released from the strain of running a radio station and the demands of hungry record companies.

How can we forget those holiday snaps of Chris and his 19-year-old beloved having a quiet curry on their anniversary, Chris and Billie playfully sticking their tongues out at each other over a long lunch at their favourite diner, Chris handing a beggar a $50 note, Chris buying Billie a new Range Rover and Chris and Billie hanging out at their local coffee shop.

Who do they think they are kidding? These aren't just snatched moments, they're part of an elaborate hoax: they are not on holiday, they're unemployed. Evans may have amassed a fortune of more than £50 million, but you don't move to Los Angeles to escape. As Steve Brennan, the international TV editor at the trade magazine Hollywood Reporter, explains: "It's unthinkable you would come here to rest. Maybe San Francisco, but everyone in LA works an 18-hour day."

In fact, Chris Evans has been spending the past months hard at work, plotting his much-anticipated return. The knight in shining suits who "saved" the ailing Virgin Radio station could become the new saviour of the BBC. In the past few days, Evans has been in London meeting BBC top brass in a bid to inject some much-needed glamour and inventiveness into its tired Saturday-night schedules. He met BBC1 controller Lorraine Heggessey last week to explore two ideas - a game show and a chat show.

"She met with Chris Evans recently at his request," says a corporation spokesman. No details were given of what was discussed, and the story is further downplayed with the words "she often has meetings with 'talent'". Given, though, that Evans also lunched last week with Jane Lush, BBC1's controller of entertainment commissioning, it is impossible not to speculate that the ginger-haired 'talent' is being courted to perform one of his fabled media miracles on the sick man of the BBC schedules.

These are not the actions of someone who is happy just lounging by the pool - as his friend, radio DJ Danny Baker, insisted to the Evening Standard. "We speak or e-mail every day - we're best friends," he said. "Chris is usually sitting pool-side in Hollywood and doesn't worry about the wicked world one bit, and that's made him happier than ever. All he and Billie think about is where they're going for lunch today. Then it's back to the pool and later they watch TV all night. He'd be mad to come back and get up at 5am to go on radio when you consider the sort of idyllic lifestyle he has."

Are we talking about the same man - Chris Evans, a workaholic, who sold Ginger Media Productions for £225 million two years ago and, in 1998, attracted the biggest radio sponsorship deal in history when BSkyB paid £5 million to be sole sponsor of his breakfast show?

As for his return to the BBC, Baker said he knew nothing about it, then blew his bluff by adding: "But like all of us who love the BBC, who've worked here and done good stuff, it's still in his blood. I mean, he still answers the phone: 'Hi, Chris Evans, ex-BBC.' You can't get the place out of your system."

As for escaping the limelight to relax in the sun, as Baker suggests, photographers at a local news agency say he's only too keen to be snapped around Hollywood. Perhaps it's a bid to keep his face in the papers, so that his old bosses won't forget him too easily. And no doubt one look at the Radio Times will have had Evans salivating. The corporation is currently without a signature entertainment show with which to court a "family audience" on a Saturday evening - a situation that cries out for Evans's skills.

Noel's House Party shut three years ago, after its audience of over 10 million fell below six million. The Generation Game, which was watched by 19 million at its peak, was taken off air earlier this year prior to a relaunch (without Jim Davidson) in 2003, after its ratings fell to just 3.3 million.

With all Saturdayevening ratings on the slide, the latest Barb viewing figures show ITV's Stars in Their Eyes pulling in half a million more viewers than BBC1's National Lottery Jet Set. The one-off Test the Nation scraped No 10 in the week's 50 mostwatched programs, with an audience of almost 10 million, but the only other Saturday-evening BBC programme listed was the news.

This represents a golden opportunity for Evans. The former localradio DJ's quick-witted presentation is credited with the initial success of Channel 4's Big Breakfast, and he's still referred to as the man who "saved" the Radio One breakfast show. His Channel 4 shows Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and TFI Friday were both successes.

The fact that a 1999 poll showed that most young viewers considered TFI "naff" is all to the good. Saturday-evening television is naff, and now that he's 35 and married, Evans may be better placed to chase a family audience. He's old enough to remember the 1970s "golden age" of Saturday-night TV, and his particular skill is bringing a new look to an existing concept.

And if all fails, he can always run back to lie pool-side in LA.

?Additional reporting by Nick Curtis.