ITV wants to axe some regional news services

But who would fund the regional franchises - I'd be very surprised if the advertising revenue generated in their ad breaks covered the cost of running a decent regional news operation. Local news has never been cheap to make - the number of staff required to make a 30 minute local news programme alone is not insignificant - and they need to be paid, given holiday, sick pay, pensions etc. - and studio premises, regional newsrooms etc. need to be paid for. News operations are seldom high profit set-ups.

It is entirely possible that regional newspapers would be interested in running them I guess...

and it does not help the fact that most of the 11 companies made other things.

so with such big stuidos and no Extra income to help for buildings

Strange that Granada / London are staying the same - Place with fully operating studies

Because Granada and what was the old Carlton and LWT Region are only served by one transmitter each to a signifcant area with high populations, where as nearly every other Region has at least two versions of the Regional News within their areas.

So was Cartner's announcement pre-recorded then?

I understand TTTV's (voiced by Neville Wanless) was taped at one point, but as far back as I can remember it was done live. I know that the ITA/IBA were rather strict about this at one point, and heaven alone knows what they would have made of Colin Weston's flat refusal to do the announcement properly!

I read his interview a few years back where he said that he got it wrong on his first day despite it being written in large text on a laminate in front of him at Granada, to the horror of the TX controller But at TTTV he'd never stick to the script. "The good ol'IBA" became almost a trademark in the early 80s.

Another variant, heard by myself on at least two occasions, was "This is Colin Weston at Tyne Tees wishing you a very good morning. Right, the announcement -- This is ...."

Totally unprofessional, but a real gem Colin was!

Not really strange. Granada already covers a big area and significant population - and, although divorced from the regional news operation, Manchester obviously remains a significant production base.

London is a special case. Regional news comes from ITN these days. Obviously the London Studios are important to ITV - but it is one hell of a prime site on the South Bank which will have soared in value in the past decade. There will come a point when they will want to sell up and move out of town.

It was. By the time the start-ups ended, the tape was starting to sound pretty worn-out!

Border's start-up announcements were only changed when absolutely necessary. Until the opening of UHF relays made the list too long, the pre-recorded message was something like "This is Border Television. Broadcasting from the Caldbeck, Selkirk, Richmond Hill and Whitehaven transmitters of the Independent Television Authority". These were the four 405 line transmitters for the region. Incidentally, some useless information, the mast at Selkirk is second-hand. It was originally used at Black Hill. And Richmond Hill was also "pre-owned", to use modern jargon. It was the very first ITA mast at Croydon back in 1955.

Possibly - though The London Studios is a busy studio complex, and home to GMTV and This Morning. It would be interesting to know how profitable TLS is - it seems to have a reasonable amount of work... Be interesting to know whether it makes financial sense to close TLS and rebuild a studio complex outside London and take the income from selling the site.

Though Granada have sold off large chunks of their studio site haven't they? AIUI there are just 3 non-news and non-Corrie studios now operating as part of 3SixtyMedia... Be interesting to see what happens when the BBC move Sport and Kids to Salford.

Still no announcements on who will be providing studio facilities to the BBC there - and whether the BBC will pull out of 3Sixty.

I did hear something along those lines regarding the masts - it kind of befits Border, in a sense. So small, it even had to bring in its masts from elsewhere!

Allan Cartner was well-known for his authoritiveness and clarity when reading the news on Border which, I think, was possibly the reason why he did the start-up announcements.

Some even more useless information for forumers: Allan Cartner's brother, William, was the producer of Mr & Mrs and Look Who's Talking, while the voice that announced the opening to Mr & Mrs was that of Border announcer, Pat Doody.

The late Pat Doody was, for a time, a presenter on Radio 2 and was married, at one time, to Jean Challis from the same station. Michael Rodd, later of Screen Test and Tomorrow's World was a reporter with Border in the 60s and used to perform a topical news calypso with guitar accompaniment on a Friday night. And does anyone remember a continuity announcer called Daphne Neville? She'd acted in Crossroads at one time but distinguished herself in one local bulletin by putting the male bird into Cockburnspath (which is pronounced Coburnspath). The original Lookaround presenter was Scottish poet Maurice Lindsay, complete with trademark bow tie.

There seems to have been an awful lot of staff exchanges between Border and Tyne Tees over the years. Pat and Allan were both TTTV announcers for a long time as well as working over in Carlisle, and Michael Rodd presented numerous business-related offerings for TTTV in the 80s. Eric Robson was another one who worked at both companies, and ISTR that Lyn Spencer worked for some years on Mr and Mrs as well.

There many others over the years as well.