Look North and North East Tonight

Well, I get a bit tied of hearing about the trials and tribulations of Christa (dont question me) Ackroyd and Peter (rambling) Levy and of course the Calendar crew. Lets hear it for the North East (and Cumbria if I'm pedantic).

Here in the NE we also have Look North (hoorah I hear) with Carol Malia and John (what do you mean our viewer has nodded off) Lawrence as the main anchors. Over on Channel 3 North East (I only said that to annoy some people) or Tyne Tees we have "North East Tonight with Mike Neville" and yes the programme is actually called that, we often get it introduced as such by the c/a and find the lovely (sniff) Pam Royale in the hot seat.

Anyway, in another thread , Anthony Wilson is discussed as he is returning to Granada Reports after a long absence. It made me realise that Granada (north west) produced a lot of regional programmes spun out of the main regional news, often using Tony (as he was then) Wilson to anchor, particularly studio discussion type progs as he liked a good scrap.

Certainly when I lived in Granadaland, Tony was quite a celeb as were other Granada Presenters, yet BBC NW presenters were barely known, until the beeb poached Gordon Burns of course.

When I moved to the NE, Mike Neville (at the beeb) was revered and when he moved back to TTTV after 250 years at the beeb, it was BIG news. But why ?

Other than a short lived chat show, I've never seen him present anything else, in fact I've never seen him come out from behind that desk - does he have legs, does he live in a wooden crate in the basement of City Road between shows, what made him so popular and does he deserve the accolades.

Hmm, this post has become a bit of a rant, someone elses turn now...

More power to your elbow, dear boy! I'm sick of this Yorkshire nonsense...Levy has presented this...Hudson has fallen over in a shopping centre in Hull that...

Firstly, Mike Neville was the original Trevor McDonald figure before TMcD himself, a good actor who loves to ham it up.

Remember Malcom Herdman....he would make Levy and his unlogically big heed cower with his work ethic

Good on you, Blaydon on Tyne! I'm a LN Newcastle/NE Tonight viewer in York (because YTV/LN Leeds, i.e. Emley Moor reception is too poor in my uni accommodation, so I have a better picture of Bilsdale).

Here's a question which programme is better - Look North (Newcastle) or North East Tonight? This is a tricky question as far as I'm concerned because Mike Neville is a good presenter (he wouldn't have been on TV otherwise!) and pretty much the whole region is covered quite well. I f there's a story from York, it'll feature on both NE Tonight and Calendar.

On the other hand, Carol Malia and John Lawrence are a good duo on Look North and again most areas of the region are covered quite well. Having said that, I haven't seen a news story from Cumbria lately, have you? Also, York features quite a lot on LN Newcastle.

Last night, on the 10.25pm bulletin with Wendy Gibson, there was a story from the Minster about the use of wheelie bins to dump stolen items such as money or even a discus! This featured on both LN Newcastle and LN Leeds. I flicked over to check, you see, even though the LN Newcastle signal is much better. Was this item on the 6.30pm edition of LN Newcastle?

So, I have to say North East Tonight and Look North (Newcastle) are as good as each other, although I watch the 10.25pm edition of LN Newcastle the most. I used to watch Leeds for a while but I gave up because the picture isn't as good as Newcastle's. I think I should watch NE Tonight followed by Look North starting at 6.00pm tonight!

I kinda prefer the current studio for NE Tonight, rather than Look North. - The NET studio is just so.... modern! I also dislike the BBC's 'We're trying to pretend this is a window in the background of the studio, when its really just a telly with bars over the top' idea! It would work, if only the picture on the TV wasnt so poor (How many windows do you know of that flicker, or go off sometimes?)

Remember, no-one's forcing you to read all the threads - it's the same as television programmes that annoy you, you can turn the television off. If it annoys you, don't click on the link and read the thread!!

On the relevant merits of the two programmes I have to say North East Tonight/News come out top. They quite frequently are 24 hours ahead of Look North in terms of stories, they have better news judgement about what the headlines should be, their sports coverage is far superior and much better resourced...and of course they have Mike Neville.

Well as I've said in the North West thread - I'm at uni in Durham as well as living in West Yorks so can comment here

I prefer Look North to North East Tonight - I just think it's better to have two journalists presenting the news rather than a 'dinosaur' (<- Mike Neville's own word for himself - not mine). I think Carol and John come across well as a team - the other main presenters are also good. Tony Baker and Wendy Gibson are very good... and John and Wendy seem to get on really well when they present together!

Newcastle must have one of the biggest regional news studios - it seems to be huge and I think pretty well used. But the 'window' does look quite odd for some reason... the smaller studio they've started using for shorter updates with some small screens and the window looks good especially from a high camera angle.

I do quite like the NET studio but I just prefer LN!

I watched North East Tonight and Look North, as I said I would in an earlier post, and Pam Royle wasn't on NE Tonight, Andy Kluz was from the Teesside studio. Well that's the opt-out for Bilsdale viewers and there were two stories from North Yorkshire:

1) The increase in crime in the county according to North Yorkshire Police with a few shots from Harrogate.

2) The rather strange sight of a few firemen belly dancing of all things! Again, from Harrogate.

Now, on Look North, John Lawrence was away, so Tony Baker co-presented with Carol Malia and for the first time in ages, an report from Cumbria! Well, from Alston on the border with Northumberland. It was about the extension of the South Tynedale Railway.

There was a different story from North Yorkshire on Look North: the stitching of a tapestry for a new cushion in Ripon Cathedral, but none of the stories from Harrogate featured on Look North. However, a good day for the Harrogate district of North Yorkshire! One story on Look North from Ripon and two from Harrogate on NE Tonight.

I shall watch the 10.25pm bulletin later on..........

It warms my heart to know that NE viewers are as opinionated as me!

I find Look North and BBC NE&C news generally dull to be perfectly honest although I do like Carol Malia, Wendy Gibson and Colin Briggs.

I thing TTTV provide a good news service and there sports reporting also seems pretty good. Theres a wide range of items covered in NE today, and Pam Royale seems to have thawed a little recently. I like most of the TTTV presenters too. I wasn't sure about Ellie Crisele (sp?) but I think she's a very competant presenter now and quite cute too!

Now, as to Mike Neville ! Hmm. I honestly dont understand the fuss, yes he's good at reading autocue, but I never feel he's very interested in what he's reading. I'd like to North East tonight with two presenters plus sports reporter when appropriate, give Jonathan Morrell and Mark Warr (who seems to have disappeared at the mo) a crack with one of the TTTV ladies!!

Overall - Look North dull and a day behind a lot of NET's stories, NET - good content, needs to rotate the presenters a bit more.

Oh and another thing, who came up with the dire trailers for NEToday/Tonight. Nothing about them makes you want to watch.

Oh and another nother thing, I havent seen YTV's lunchtime prog, but I have seen Granada's which is very different to TTTV's. But why cant GMG manage a lunchtime magazine for Border ?? Editorially a lot of the features on the other regions could be used - is it lack of viewers or Border apathy. I'd have thought it would be an easy way to increase regional output. Mind you where would Shortland Street go.

When both Look Norths cover a story in North Yorkshire it seems to be Peter Lugg who covers it for Newcastle - is this report shown on Leeds too? I know Peter Lugg left his role as Political Editor in Leeds a bit ago but having been up here for a while not sure if he's still on Look North and whether is got the new role as it has more status covering two regions?

Personally, I think NET is streets ahead of Look North. I mean, the banter between Mike Neville and Bob Johnson at the end of the programme just can't be surpassed - sometime's it absolutely hilarious! LN has always seemed a bit distant, I mean, items from Cumbria aren't exactly of much relavence to Gateshead folk are they?

Yep - Peter Lugg is still doing semi-regular reports for the Leeds Look North, good to see he's appreciated by both regions!!