Countdown : Jeff and Rachel take over

Unless I'm behind the times (admittedly quite possible because TBH I have next to no interest about anything to do with ITV any more), but I thought that only Carlton, LWT, Westcountry, Anglia, Meridian and HTV West are transmitted from London by whatever LNN is called these days. Aren't Central, HTV Wales,Tyne Tees, Border, Granada and of course Yorkshire itself still transmitted from Leeds by Yorkshire Television?

Isn't Leeds also the designated backup site to keep ITV on the air should London ever fail?

Being that no other ITV plc-owned station outside of London still retains transmission facilities after Central lost that ability in 2004, closing down YTV would mean giving London sole responsibility for all of ITV plc's regions, and leave them with no remote backup at all.

Admittedly none of this means they need studio space, but if they still need Kirkstall road (or would need the expense of replicating this facility at any scaled-down new YTV building) then surely they may as well keep the studios open?

A lot of jumping the gun going on here, we've gone from Carol leaving Countdown to the programme being axed to the whole of YTV being closed down in one night!


Emmerdale interior scenes are filmed at YTV studios (although in a seperate building round the back on Burley Road), i'm not sure what else is filmed in the main studios but I imagine a lot of smaller series that we never hear about are

sadly these guys have never updated their website, http://www.the-leeds-studios.tv/ so we'll never know, its probably Countdown and a few interior scenes for other shows.

I think you mean perhaps the largest exterior lot for a single programme. That is rather different to the largest studio which I believe is at TLS. However, Europe's largest 'sound stage' (007) is at Pinewood.

Your hyperbole is therefore unwarranted without better definition, Mr Barcode/623058

Yes that is still the case, although the playout of ITV's channels is now done by Technicolour/Thomson and a brand new facility is being built in Chiswick to house ITV. There's no reason why this new place couldn't playout all of the diffrent versions of ITV1 therefore making Leeds redundant. After all if they can play 8 or so diffrent adverts/news simultaneously there's no reason they couldn't do the whole of England and Wales

Channel 4, five and the BBC all have remote backups, there's no reason why ITV wouldn't be able to have a disaster recovery site if they closed Leeds. It could even be at an STV or UTV site

For any viewers of Countdown who wish to complain about Carol's treatment then here are the details:

Phone: 0845 076 0191 (lo-call number)
9am – 9pm Monday to Friday
10am – 7pm on weekends
10am – 6pm on public holidays

Write:
Channel 4 Enquiries
PO Box 1058
Belfast
BT1 9DU

Website: via a webform on www.channel4.com

Oh but of course, women are innumerate, didn't you know? I asked 7 of my friends and 90% of them agreed.

Seriously, when Carol beats the contestants, it's almost always because the contestants panic at the thought of having to multiply by anything other than 10. And the rest are because while the contestants have 30 seconds to do their calculations, Carol often just says "I know it's possible" and then spends another three minutes working on it while the DC guest does their monologue. Which is cheating, frankly.

The answer probably is possible, it's just that Carol didn't get it in 30 seconds either. There's probably nothing to stop contestant from doing his/her own frantic scribbling during the DC monologue - it just wouldn't get any points.

In any case, present Carol with any six number combination and a target and she'll always claim that it's possible. Even if you then feed it into the online RoboVord and it tells you that it can't even get close.

We survived without Richard and we'll survive without you

I'd disregard at least half of that though as it is the News of the World, which is pretty much the worst tabloid of any of them

It also refers to 'Channel 4 bosses' at the start and then later 'ITV bosses', so who cut the budget is still unknown. That's if Carol even spoke at all to the NotW which is doubtful!

Its a News of the World story so I think I would take it with a pinch of salt.

As for YTV, anyone who has seen the last Yorkshire TV at 40 episode the closing words from Whitley's partner Katherin Apanowicz says it all,

" they had just taken the big YTV chevron of the front of the building, Richard turned to me and said I think I've had the best days".

As for the speculation about the studios. The YTV news is made in the old ice rink next door to the studios, Emmerdale is behind that. The actual purpose built studios across the road make Countdown but - again as that documentary states ' they are not as busy as they used to be'. Depending on what playout facilites they build into Granada Salford (which is equally placed to be a back up centre) It leaves Kirkstall road with the archive and a rather large redundant studios.

The problem with having accountants running a TV company is that there is little creativity, something which can be seen on TV generally today - especially ITV. Look at the front of YTV's studios - who thought to put a dark coloured ITV Yorkshire sign on a dark coloured wall???

I think we have to accept that YTV & ITV has a short to medium shelf life remaining. I would be very suprised if it isn't bought up very soon.

The news on ice - now there's an idea!


Typical NOTW journalism, though the article does go on to squarely put the blame at the door of ITV bosses, who in turn blame C4 for cutting the budget. Considering Carol supposedly wants the truth to be known she really should name and shame the boss who made the Richard Whitely comment.