Northern England and Southern Scotland Thread

North East Tonight has really gone to the dogs. News should be formal and not informal. Newscasters calling reporters "mate" is not professional. Another thing: is there really a need for that email address pam&ian@itv.com? Newscasters should look for news in their work time not to air their personal opinions which really should be in their own time. Personal letters sent to them is acceptable but "tell us your views about absolutely anything" and "Follow us on Twitter" is really unnecessary. As a very casual viewer of this, because I no longer live in North-East England, it puts me off. You can't imagine Mike Neville saying this. Or continuity announcers such as Bill Steel, Kathy Secker, Neville Wanless etc. for that matter.

Probably because email and twitter weren't around in their heyday. Kathy Secker read out birthday cards at tea time for the best part of a decade when she did the continuity slot, which is the equivalent of what you appear to be complaining about re the twitter and email situation. Times have changed and we all have to start getting used to it.

To be honest I love the informal style especially for local news, its more inviting for the viewer to communicate with the presenters and not just see a robot behind a desk reading an autocue.

If you want to see a robot behind an autocue then check out Helen Ford doing the Tyne Tees & Border bulletins on a weekend.

Where the heck have you been hiding? It's 2009, this is ITV who, in case you hadn't noticed, don't give two hoots about the quality regional news. They consider it to be something of a burden and are trying everything within their power to downgrade the quality of their service, ensuring the value of said service to viewers depletes which will ultimately result in their burden being lifted.

In short, we know it's not a patch on the Mike Neville days but times and budgets have changed beyond recognition. They're only trying to make the most out of a dire situation that's only going to get worse.

Looking at the views here I don't think Regional news is completly 'informal' but it's not as formal and serious as the main news. With itv's cut's you have to say it's working extremly well with the chaos of jigsaw puzzling opt out's etc.




On the subject of that earlier comment on Helen ford i have to completly agree!!! I've mentioned before her voice is sooo Mono-tone!

Well, at least their is around 10 minutes of actual news per night. Though I thought they'd keep the fluffier stories/non-news stories for the pan-regional bit, but its crept up into the opt-outs, it's beyond dumbing down.

ITV Border's Kate Fisher is an excellent reporter. Put's Helen Ford to shame I noticed Tyne Tees correspondents also report from the Border region too.

(Amazing what a haircut can do to make Helen Pearson look that little bit better!)

Majority of the Tyne Tees reporters who cover storys in the Border Region is tending to be on the border between 'border' & 'tyne tees' they don't go past the english border



Lol! but in the Last week or two - a more frequent return to poka-dot tops though :r

Rachel Bullock doing today's Lunchtime news... Usually Helen Pearson is the one that covers Lunchtime whenever needed. I pressume Helen done GMTV this morning? Rachel just doing a one-off bulletin I pressume?

Usually, the weekend presenter usually presents the Friday late bulletin aswell. So, presumably, Rachel was unable to do this, or Pam and Ian weren't availible for the lunch bulletin, so presented the lunch bulletin instead. I think Helen Pearson may be contracted to do one or two lunch bulletin's per-week, and report, so might not have been needed.

Hmm.. it's interesting how some regions alternate the main presenters for the bulletins and other regions the gmtv presenter always does the lunchtime bulletin

What's interesting? What difference does it make who reads the little bulletins and when they read them too?