The Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Thread

Indeed, which is why I posted about the Inside Out Floods Special in the Y&L thread.

Two other posters had suggested this was national though, possibly misunderstood.

Peter Levy made a cameo appearance in this week's Still Open All Hours.

Really.

Given that the show's setting is apparently supposed to be Doncaster, would Harry Gration not have been more apt?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06xlcnk/still-open-all-hours-series-2-episode-5 (watch from 24:38 to 24:52)

Peter Levy has been in Open All Hours last series as well. He was once in Last of the Summer Wine as well. It fits with the age of who his biggest fans are!

Presumably SOAH primarily appeals to people "of a certain age" (so speaks a mere 35-year-old who enjoys it...) who, if they happen to live in Emley-land, would certainly be old enough to remember Peter from the days before the separate Hull region was created.

Whether such viewers actually *do* remember him (fondly or otherwise) and/or recognise* him 14 years after he was last a Leeds anchor, is another matter... (*he certainly wouldn't have had a fully-white head of hair back then).

Levy is also an actor by trade.

I caught a bit of Paul Hudson's radio show at the weekend, and I was a little surprised, for similar reasons as above, to hear him mention both Harry Gration and Peter Levy in conversation with guests. (The show goes out on the local radio stations at various points over the weekend).

As opposed to a newsreader and/or journalist?

That explains a lot...

Yep, child actor (I'm pretty sure he's the boy in https://youtu.be/4fhMXuQ8fJQ?t=51s ) then radio DJ at Pennine in Bradford, City in Liverpool and Aire in Leeds
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8cTQk486OxQ/Tp_Kgx_5xDI/AAAAAAAAAc0/K-3KF7DVhwE/s640/Pennine+Listing_1.jpg



Moved to Radio Leeds and started doing bits of TV continuity (before Darren Bett joined the weather used to be done by Brian Baines or Peter over a slide, out of vision), before moving into newsreading. I think he told the story on one of the anniversary shows that he only got the job because Judith Stamper recommended him as a "radio presenter who wears a tie" or something to that effect.

His radio work at Radio City and presumably also at Pennine before was quite speech based, several celebrity interviews on YouTube if you search for his name and Radio City. But not really what you would call journalism.

Which is probably why in the first few years of the Hull Look North, it seemed more like a televised radio show, get the news out of the way as quick as possible, so he can do a showbiz interview down the line with someone who is tenuously linked to the region.

I couldn't say if Look North Hull is still like that now.

This goes along with another thread, listing BBC News presenters who haven't been a reporter in a previous life.

The irony is that tonight's LN Hull had Jo Brand in the studio talking about walk for Sport Relief and being.... Well being Jo Brand.

First "celebrity " interview I've seen in a while.

Living in the London region now, they run plenty of interviews with film stars, when the only connection is that their films are premiering in London. And one of the most famous interviews on Calendar in its Twice Nightly Whitely Golden Age was with Kenny Everett. What did he have to do with the Yorkshire region?

Anyone who suggests that celebrity interviews are exclusive to Look North and exclusive to Peter Levy's tenure is very much mistaken.

Well, that's no different to numerous other people on regional news, especially those who have been there for a long time. As mentioned in the ITN thread, 25 years or so ago when Levy joined there would still have been a market for the career announcer, someone who didn't have masses of news experience but had a good voice and could read a script without stumbling over it. It's not a role that exists now much in the would of bi-media journalism but in those days it was quite common, especially on local TV. And of course you don't hang around a newsroom for 25 years or so without getting some experience in news, and in the early days of independent local radio they did far more news-based programming than they do now. Levy may have been a newcomer to news when he joined the Beeb, not now.

I don't see how it's any different to someone like Andy Crane, we all know that he doesn't have a news background, he came up through being a DJ and then kids' TV. But in later years he has specialised in news both on the radio and now on Granada. When he does the news on Granada it's not any worse than when a "proper" journalist does it, is it? Nicky Campbell is another one, a DJ turned news presenter.

And Levy doing a bit of acting in his spare time is no different to someone like Fred Dinenage doing a quiz or Harry Gration doing some football reporting.