Alma Evans-Freke

Who is Alma Evans-Freke?

Alma Johnson is a New Zealand television personality, actor, producer, teacher and adjudicator of speech and drama and public speaking. She first joined broadcasting in the late 1940s at Dunedin's 4ZB as a trainee copywriter. A few years later she took up a government bursary to study drama in London. This was followed by professional theatre and teaching. In 1960 she rejoined broadcasting and was transferred to Auckland as New Zealand's first female television presenter, then known as a continuity announcer, on Auckland channel AKTV2.

AKTV2 had been launched in June 1960, initially broadcasting for three hours a night, three nights a week. Alma began her appearance from August. She worked alongside fellow presenter, former Royal Air Force pilot Tim Evans-Freke, whom she later married. With her immaculate presentation and chic hairstyle, Alma became an icon of the early days of New Zealand television.

Being the only female presenter for the first nine months of television, Alma fronted a range of shows which included ballroom dancing programmes, children's programmes and The Victorian Music Hall.

In an interview with New Zealand Listener magazine in 2010, marking 50 years of television in New Zealand, Alma recalled those days in typically understated fashion: