The Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Thread

Excellent! Knowing Martin Kelner, I'd assume there was some irony going on there though... which is probably lost on most of the BBC Local Radio audience - a bit like when he mentions his time at (and says it quickly) Jizz FM.

Martin Kelner's a great character - love his late show on the BBC Yorkshire radio channels!! That Faux-French person Edouardo is SO funny!!

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True, but Peter Levy's smile was innovative throughout the piece. Innovative new levels of swoony grinning; I've never seen him so perky interviewing someone... is he using illegally strong catnip these days or was he that genuinely excited?

The concept of a separate programme for the east of the region was hardly an innovation that Look North can claim.

Calendar had been providing a Belmont service probably about a decade before Look North latched onto it. Even providing full half hour programmes to the region when the need arose, ie. Lincolnshire Show.

Look North came on board, very late in the day. And what we have now, is really not necessary.

Indeed.

Yorkshire Television was recognising the needs of the east of the region right back in the dark ages, when I was visiting that place in Hull's Beverley Road to do taglines for Polar Motors.

Indeed, as this picture (that I believe was one of yours uploaded a while back) shows

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/calendareast1992.jpg
That backdrop is better than the one they use now!

I think I'm being misunderstood here - when I said innovation, I meant innovation pertaining to the actual content of the programme itself, not the innovation of a Belmont-specific service as such. The 'innovation' of having the weather halfway through, or e-mails being read out (and the development of a cult pairing like Peter and Paul), celeb interviews at the end (both Jacqueline Wilson and McFly on Friday's Hull show), 'Leave it to Levy' and the 'innovation' of having more magazine-like articles towards the end of the show (as opposed to other regions that do the show entirely straight-laced).

Having the weather halfway through is hardly an "innovation".

It's a necessity brought about by the BBC being tight and only paying for one weather forecaster for two regions.

If the bloke's expected to do a live down-the-line to the remote cheapskate sub-region, he can hardly be expected to do it at the same time as he's doing the live in Leeds.

But what if the weather presenter in this case is very popular among the populace of both regions, and has a 'cult' pairing with one of the presenters from one of the regions he does? Is breaking that pairing up worth the risk?

Then dump him into that region alone, at the proper time, and leave a real forecaster, rather than a cheap comedian to do the weather for the other region.

Your average Mr Viewer doesn't care who reads the badly typed out forecast to them, so long as it's accurate.

I'm not aware of anyone in the south-west who's committed suicide because Craig Rich has retired, or in the west since Tony Targett left.

I would have thought that a person who has a First Class Honours Degree in Planetary Physics, who has worked at the Met Office as an International Forecaster, who has provided weather forecasts for plenty of multinational companies etc. would be well qualified to be called a real forecaster, and a forecaster with a lively and down-to-earth personality and immense regional popularity to boot.

Thank you, Winifred!