The Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Thread

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The region has a poulation of 3 million people. The majority live outside Hull.

The region is not a region at all. The East Riding of Yorkshire has nothing in common with Lincolnshire. Hull has very little connection with the East Riding and nothing with anything on the south bank of the Humber. Lincoln has nothing in common with anything North of the Humber and nobody has anything in common with North Norfolk. The problems lay with the fact that The news to the west of the Yorkshire wolds comes from Leeds and gets no coverage. The people to the East of the Wolds get the news from Hull - even though they have more interest in news from York and Yorkshire and not from Lincolnshire.

There is plenty of news in this non region however all the money was spent on an expensive whilte elephant of a building so there was no money left for adequate journalistic staff. The place does not even have a political editor. The whole thing could have been done far cheaper from Leeds - as YTV are doing. It will be interesting to see the ratings when the new Calendar is launched.

The whole thing was invented in London who don't know where anything is anyway so it doesn't matter.

I get the impression that Lincs/E Yorks/N Norfolk is bit of an awkward issue.

On the one hand, the area's not likely to get much of a look-in on a single news service for the whole of "Yorks & Lincs", considering that it's competing with major settlements like Leeds, Sheffield etc.

But on the other hand, the area is perhaps not going to ever generate enough newsworthy happenings to warrant it's own fully-fledged news service.

Therefore Calendar's "halfway house" way of doing things (i.e. a predominantly pan-regional service, with part-time sub-regioning thrown in) seems to be the ideal solution.

The BBC's decision to go for a full Hull region seems, in retrospect, ill-advised. (The fact that the BBC Hull programme is also very Hull-centric is a case of adding insult to injury).

The BBC seem to have been happy for Look East (West) to be only a partial service for many years (since 1997?), so why the "all or nothing" attitude with the Hull service, BBC?

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Everyone managed fine with the original Look North from Leeds as stories had to compete to get on the programme. BBC Hull was set up as half a region and staff transfers from Leeds as there was not the money to do it properly.

The only reason it got the go ahead was due to an arrangement with Kingston Communications to trial local TV. Hull has has this for a while now (KIT) Kingston Interactive Television. If you believe the spin the whole thing was a great success with many happy subscribers and a dedicated service (including a locally made soap opera) provided by the BBC. It was so successfull that the whole thing was closed down last year due to 'Structural Reorganisation at KIT'

The legacy of this £25 million investment (though this figure fluctuates a couple of million depending on who you talk to) is a large building in Hull with an internet cafe on the ground floor sharing with Radio Humberside (there is no such place as Humberside) and two floors of very posh offices in a very expensive building.

True, the building frenzy is happening at the BBC across country. but this is the wrong building in the wrong place with a programme serving people who have nothing in common, so it fails, unless you count the high ratings provided by the strange cult of the love of Levy

Am I right in thinking that Radio Humberside was named as such before the county of Humberside was created?

To be pedantic, just because an area doesn't have a county named after it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Tyneside and Teesside aren't counties, but are still widely used terms, and like it or not, so is Humberside - as any police officer in the area will confirm.

Part of the problem with Lincolnshire is that it's only the extreme north of the county that is served by Belmont, the rest gets Look East from Waltham.

The BBC seems to take a view that much of the overlap area is editorially part of Look East's patch, ITV that it's Calendar's. Evidence for this is the relay transmitter in the centre of Lincoln - it relays Waltham for BBC services, and Belmont for ITV/C4.

Therefore there will be a difference in the coverage given by Look North (Hull) and Calendar East to matters relating to Lincolnshire, because the two services do not cover the same geographical area.

I'm going to be even more pedantic .. North Tynside and South Tyneside are metropolitan boroughs of Tyne and Wear, so that's why Tyneside is often heard.

Teesside is increasingly being used for the towns on Tees estuary, since the abolition of Cleveland in 1996... technically speaking though Middlesborough, Redcar & Cleveland (formerly Langbaurgh-on-Tees)boroughs are now in N.Yorks, with Hartlepool Borough in Co Durham.

Stockton-on-Tees Borough uniquely is split between N Yorks and Co Durham, along the line of the River Tees.

The media tend to ignore that in favour of "Teesside" (probably because atlases show county concil/unitary authority areas in England rather than geographic counties)

I think people object to Humberside, because of the deeply unpopular county that existed between 1974 to1996-- despite the fact the radio station existed before then!

Intrestingly Humberside was abolished a couple of years after the English regions were created, hence N Lincs and NE Lincs (formerly "south Humberside") being part of the Yorks and Humber region. So part of Lincs shares something in common with the E Yorks.

However, the TV studios in Hull sound like a white elephant. I only occasionally watch Levy Live (!), and in comparison with Calendar it covers the Belmont patch badly.

I think Calendar have the right set-up. YTV seem to realise that Lincs, north Notts, north Norfolk and E Yorks are predominantly rural so they don't generate that much news, so only keep the Belmont area news as a part-time operation.

I shall be interested to see how the new Calendar East set-up will cover the Belmont catchment area.

Radio Humberside opened on 25th February 1971, Humberside officially came into existance April 1, 1974, but the legislation which created it was passed in 1972 and would presumably have spent quite some time before Parliament before it was passed, so the beeb would have been fairly confident that Humberside was going to happen.

Hate to be pedantic - but I will be anyway. Teesside IS NOT increasingly used to refer to towns on the Tees Estuary.

Whilst the name Cleveland is used less and less with the exception of BBC Radio Cleveland and Cleveland Police etc, over the past two years or so, there has also been a concerted effort to distance the area from the Teesside name.

Those in the know, believe that Teesside creates a negative perception in peoples mind and have been promoting the area as the Tees Valley. This stretches from the mouth of the Tees as far inland as Darlington, a town which never would have been known previously as part of Teesside. Indeed, the former Teesside Airport (located on the boundary of Darlington and Stockton) is now officially known as Durham-Tees Valley airport.

Incidentally - it's also spelled MiddlesBROUGH !

In addition to this there is evidence that the BBC was used to soften the way for the new county. The existance of Humberside was purely to pay for the Bridge - that is a matter of public record.

Since the Tory led boundary commission did away with Humberside in 1996 it is only the civil service (including the BBC) and Labour administration that clings to this name.

Radio Humberside has little relevance outside of Hull and Grimsby.

The new BBC region is largely a waste of money which could have been invested in decent programming rather than the Yellow and Orange monstrosity that is the open centre and BBC Headquaters in Hull.

D'oh, I can't believe I spelt Middlesbrough incorrectly-- I ought to know better I'll put that down to tiredness last night.

Interesting to hear about the Teesside thing, I just hear it all the time in the media. What is/was so negative about Teesside though? I could never understand why they scrapped Cleveland as a geographic/ceremonial county, it seemed logical for the Tees Estuary conurbation to have its own county. I didn't think Cleveland was unpopular like Avon or Humberside? Berkshire had its county council fully scrapped, but it still remains as a geographic/ceremonial county.

I know that Tees Valley is used as de facto subregion in the North-East region; alongside the geographical counties of Tyne+Wear, Northumberland and County Durham. Although isn't Teesdale an administrative district based in Castle Barnard, might be confusing
Why is Darlington suddenly associating itself with the former Cleveland counties?

Also why don't the "Tees Valley" towns associate with their geographic counties, Co Durham and N Yorks. I often hear Hartlepool, Teesside/Cleveland-- but not Co Durham. Or Middlesbrough Teeside/Cleveland, but not N.Yorks.

After all, nobody says Beverley, Humberside or Bath, Avon anymore!!

Look North's reporter Phil Connell left on Friday and at the end of the programme they showed a montage.

He is joining Look North's "sister programme" Look North Hull

He'll still be seen here as "we share some stories with Hull" as Penny put it

In a totally seperate incident, Paul did the weather with no shoes on

Was it Thursday or Friday that they had a young magician on at the end of the show? Harry seemed to be determined to screw up the lad's act in one way or another, giving the smart arse answer to questions about the card he'd picked etc.