The Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Thread

Considering how much disruption this caused yesterday morning and throughout the day, I was surprised how far in to the Leeds Look North it was last night. It was nearly 15 minutes in to the programme.

Did anyone else happen to catch the interview with a former UKIP MEP on tonight’s Levy Live? Absolute car crash television, even by Look ’Ull standards.

It’s on iPlayer if anybody is having Partridge withdrawal symptoms.

It was a bit cringe, but pretty tongue in cheek.

Not really watched much of this show previously but I did think that it’s a pretty slick looking production. Graphics are tidy, and things flow pretty well during the intro. Understand some people here aren’t the show’s biggest fans but I think it’s pretty impressive considering it clearly has a very limited budget.

Good grief. That interview was utterly rotten television.

It achieved nothing and it just shows you Levy's total lack of interviewing skills and lack of journalistic expertise.

I had to take a look, and not wishing to jump on the bandwagon but the first thing I noticed is that car crash of a headline sequence? It's hardly punchy or to the point, it's like he's having a chat to Ethel with a cup of tea. The rhythm of the bed doesn't match Levy's style. A full 10 seconds of intro before the headlines
"Hello, good evening, hope you've had a good day, thank you for tuning in, thank you for joining us and err welcome to the programme, now coming up tonight between now and 7"
Then a load of waffle about MEP's salaries, a plug for social media/get in touch, then some vague news headlines and the weather.

Maybe I've been spoilt by BBC London (usually 2 seconds into the headlines 'Tonight on BBC London News', or even Midlands Today's 'Hello and welcome to Midlands Today, the headlines tonight') but how can it take 10 seconds to get to the stories, then a full 1min 15 to the titles, so a full 95 seconds before the programme even starts properly?

I thought the nationals took the proverbial when it came to headline sequences, but a full 1 minute and 15 seconds for a region with 3 'news' stories. Most regional news programmes are 'magazines' but my word. I didn't realise why Levy wasn't that popular on here, but now I've actually sat and watched it's cringeworthy.

Levy basically turns Look North in a televisual radio show. Look out for the MOR videos to come to pad out 30 minutes....

There was a reason why Hull was originally a 5 minute opt out. There isn't enough news around here.

The former MEP interview is bloody awful, but the personable delivery of Levy is distinctive.

If you have a bulletin where the editorial area isn't exactly one of local affinity, then you might as well do something different in the presentation style of the main presenter.

I think the titles are useful padding, it fills up a few minutes of a programme with nothing to say.

I think its been accepted by the BBC for years that there wouldn't be a programme without Levy's 'Style' (for want of a better word). He was, and still is a TV presenter - not a trained journalist- with his heritage and (Training!) in local radio. He is presenting a news programme with no news in a local radio style.
BBC ULL was a failure from the start but too much money was thrown at it to give it up and once created BBC people in management don't like giving up their little fiefdoms.

Something had to be done with the West Yorkshire centric pan regional Look North of the past, so made sense to have a new region produced from Hull.

Lincolnshire is the real issue with this editorial area based on transmitter coverage, some have an affinity with the East Midlands, others with the East of England. This had led to some interesting editorial decisions where they've covered health stories in Leicestershire as the Lincs audience are more likely to use hospitals in Notts or Leicestershire than in Hull and others from North Norfolk which has the stronger signal from Belmont than the BBC1 East/ITV Anglia relays on Freeview.

Forgive me if I'm massively wide of the mark here, but...

Wasn't there originally some BBC project-or-other that had something to do with phone lines or the internet or whatever (i.e. bugger all to do with the TV regional news programme) which was only meant to be for the Hull/E Yorks/Humberside area, but it didn't progress as planned for whatever reason so to save face for the money already thrown at BBC Hull they created a Belmont-only edition of Look North instead so that there was at least something to show for it?

I'm sure that I remember hearing something along the lines of the above, around the era that Look 'ULL was born. Might also explain why for non-news purposes (e.g. Inside Out, Sunday Politics) the original large Yorks & Lincs region remains intact, it's literally only Look North that was split.

Maybe Look 'ULL would be better scaled back to about the same level of sub-opt as Look East (Cambridge), now that sufficient "saving face" years have passed?

Look East (Cambridge) is now a full programme at 1830 and 2230 Monday to Friday and only combined with Norwich at Breakfast, lunchtime and weekends so I'm not sure it would make much difference.

A better comparison would be with South Today's Oxford opt or Channel Islands News which is an opt-out of Spotlight.