Was it at the Teesside studio though? If so they've decked the whole thing out in a weekend.
I have a horrible feeling that the Teesside studio has been quietly dropped.
The clue in the programme statement was fairly strong, and I pointed it out at the time:
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During the first half of 2005 we will equip our production teams with the latest digital technology
- cameras, desk top and mobile edits, new links and a server-based news system. The investment
is part of a £6m scheme to move out of Tyne Tees Television’s out-dated headquarters in City Road,
Newcastle. We will transfer this summer to a purpose-designed production complex on the banks of the River Tyne at Gateshead’s MetroCentre. We will also further develop our news gathering base on Teesside.
Distinctive sets will be commissioned to enable both news services to transmit separate programming to the North and South of the region.
The two new studios will also be used for non- news programming such as Soccer Night and Around the House.
Quote:
We are committed to the principal of using separate transmitters to provide two different news services at various points in the day, tailored to viewers in both the north and south of the region. We are further committed to getting both services on D-Sat – Pontop is already available on the EPG and Bilsdale will follow early in 2005.
If it's taped from Gateshead, then it is still very easy to make it look like it is coming from Teesside simply by switching the background to a shot of Teesside.
Thinking about it, no way in the world did that bulletin come from Teesside today -- even the Astons were animated in the same way, and I cannot believe that they've sorted Teesside that quickly.
If this has happened, then this is very very sneaky. Still, the only reason Belasis came into existence in the first place was nasty political decisions by YTV in Leeds in 1993, so perhaps it is fitting that the site has been dumped as a studio base in this way.
If it's taped from Gateshead, then it is still very easy to make it look like it is coming from Teesside simply by switching the background to a shot of Teesside.
I'm fairly sure that the Watermark has two studios, both with generic ITV regional sets - one for each sub-region.
Teesside will be a newsgathering-only base, like Nottingham, Newbury or Maidstone.
If it's taped from Gateshead, then it is still very easy to make it look like it is coming from Teesside simply by switching the background to a shot of Teesside.
I'm fairly sure that the Watermark has two studios, both with generic ITV regional sets - one for each sub-region.
Teesside will be a newsgathering-only base, like Nottingham, Newbury or Maidstone.
If that's how they've done it then it is an outrageous waste of money. And of course, if they wish to make a studio-based series in Studio 2, then they'll have to dismantle the set each time. How utterly pointless, when they have a perfectly good studio in Teesside.
Run it from Teesside, or tape it from Gateshead. Running two studios parallel is ridiculous.
if they wish to make a studio-based series in Studio 2, then they'll have to dismantle the set each time.
Well they won't, will they. There's hardly any studio-based regional production these days, and the news set can be redressed and re-lit for sports programmes, election specials and the like.
Well, I hope they have another disaster in the near future and can't broadcast news out of any studio at all.
There have been a fair number of occasions in the last 12 years where one or other studio has been unable to broadcast.
And TTTV have produced a small number of studio-based programmes in the last year. There's another part of their service down the plughole as a result of this folly then.
And it is extremely disingenuous of the company to put a Teesside background in a Tyneside-based studio. I do not appreciate being deceived.
How many minutes is the North/South split portion of the 18:00 weekday programme?
And which whole short bulletins are separate North/South editions?
There are seperate bulletins during 'This Morning', for the lunchtime news and from tonight seperate bulletins during the late news.
The opt during North East Tonight is about 6-7 minutes long.
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Hence why I find it surprising if they've been afforded a full set
What's surprising is that Meridian couldn't even manage to get one rear projector when Tyne Tees have two.