Look North and North East Tonight

Pesonally I prefer NET but probably because I don't watch the other side!

About 3 years ago I was on holiday in a caravan in Cumbria and watched LN there. It is not till you are in that situation that you realised how biased the programme is to the East coast. So it was handy to keep up with North EAST news.

Halfway through the week the caravan site owner came and made a confession - there was a double booking and would we mind moving a couple of caravans down - she through in a free meal at the local pub so how could I say no!

That evening as the 6 o'clock news ended I settled down for the local news only to hear, "Och aye the noo Jimmy, this is BBC Scortland." 8O 8O ( Or words to that effect! )

I thought how far have we moved! However a quick adjustment and we were back in England.

I saw North East Tonight followed by Look North tonight. No Bob Johnson, but John Lawrence was back on Look North. It turns out he was away filming the new weekly feature "A Sense of Place" which will be on every Tuesday on Look North.

Anyway back to today. Claire Montgomery presented the Teesside opt-out which featured the isolated outbreaks of stomach bugs in North Yorkshire: at a hospital and a hotel in Scarborough and at a school near Selby. (The latter was on Friday's Look North (Leeds) - I flicked over and saw it amidst the terrible picture)

Later the appointment of York City FC's new manager was reported on both North East Tonight and Look North (and also on Calendar/LN Leeds - again I saw them despite the naff picture but I mostly watched Newcastle). This story was Look North's only one from North Yorkshire.

I wonder who'll present the 10.25pm bulletin of Look North tonight. Carol Malia, Wendy Gibson or Paddy McDee?

Tyne Tees have announced that North East Today will be axed as part of the reduction of hours in Regional programming on ITV - they have also said that some regional news bulletins will be "trimmed".

Is YTV and Granada axing their lunchtime programmes as well?

So all the stuff about investing in the regions previously announced by itv is rubbish then ? What a suprise. Maybe GMG will merge the regional lunchtime magazines "Northern Lunch", "North Today" or something similar for the four north stations, or Granada North as they will probably become.

What do Granada East (Anglia) and Granada South (Meridian have on their lunchtime menu ?

Certainly it is rubbish. ITV have announced what is effectively only £1m extra money to be spent on the regions. For a small station like Tyne Tees that probably amounts to less than £50,000 in real terms which will go absolutely nowhere.

In the meantime the number of hours of regional TV broadcast by each English ITV region is being cut to 8.5 hours, down from an average of around 10.5. It is that fact that accounts for the axing of North East Today.

I wonder if this explains the panic at Belasis Park and the rumours going around that it'll be closed. There really isn't going to be very much for them to do.

It will probably also mean the end of Yorkshire/Central's Jobfinder services and all the mid-day regional programmes. The regional news programmes seem to be being incorporated into the national news as already happens on the 12.30 and 10.00 news broadcasts, which will further erode the identity of the regions.

Make no mistake, this is no commitment by ITV to the regions, it is spin to make a bad situation look less bad.

It's perhaps just as well that Border don't do their own lunchtime programme!

I wonder what the future will hold for them. Other than Lookaround, hardly anything else of any substance comes out of Carlisle now. I can't help but wonder if at some point Border, TTTV, Granada and YTV merge to become one mega-region and South Scotland 'divorced' to become part of STV. Certainly the days of regional telly as we know it are numbered.

I have heard that Border's regional commitments are being cut to as few as 6 hours a week. This means regional news plus around 45 minutes of other programming. That's horrendous. There really will be little justification for keeping Border as a separate entity if that happens, as a company which produces little more than the local news may as well be merged into a neighbouring licence. Sad days lie ahead for Border I feel and when you look at the quality and pride Border had as little as 4 years ago that is very sad indeed. Why they had to sell up to Capital....

Talking of which, what do folks in Cumbria think of Lookaround as against Look North?

Is this why Border dont have a new logo as it's soon top be defunct.

So will we have "Granada North" or will the remaining three regional names be retained with TTTV & GTV absorbing the Border region.

Or, will we have ITV1 North, North-West, North-East or maybe just ITV1 North for the lot.

Somehow I cant see Granada wanting to drop their name altogether - after all they've shoved it onto all their franchises end boards ( is it on Borders?)

It'll be intresting to see how itv re-brand later in the year.

One of Border's current 'regionals', The Borders, is a co-production by both Border and STV; it's made by Moffat Productions on behalf of the two companies.

Border have been sourcing a lot of their output from Granada since 1992 (pre-dating the YTV/TTTV takeover) and which explains why Granada Soccer Night and Granada Sports Action have been beamed onto tellies in South Scotland over the last 10 years. The clincher came at the end of one Granada-sourced show which had the end-cap "Granada in the North-West"!!!

It is sad that it's been run-down and although it would take a change in the law to get rid of the Border region I can see it coming. Border exists in name only now and even then as a generic name under the heap of dross known as GMG North.

I'd assume that in Cumbria and the IoM, Lookaround triumphs over LN - can anyone confirm or deny this?

No - Border don't have the Granada name shoved on to their end-cap, just "A BORDER Production/Presentation" with the BORDER name in the box. They do use the generic-style end credits for Lookaround though.

Never mind closing the Teesside studios I'm suprised they aren't planning to close down City Road. Given the cuts in hours they will argue that 5 studios are not needed and that they may aswell go down to a newer 1 news studio complex.

> Border have been sourcing a lot of their output from Granada since 1992

Many stations did pre-1993 though if you remember. Tyne Tees and Ulster (of all stations) used to follow Granada's schedule quite closely in the early 90's, admittedly not during the week and regional programming was generally totally independent, but a lot of the films, US imports and so on that were broadcast on Tyne Tees/UTV (and Border as well IIRC) were sourced from Granada. I remember it irritating me because Granada's presentation was always a bit dull and lifeless, I preferred Tyne Tees's clunky (clicks, buzzes and sound glitches all over the place ) but more creative slides, trailers etc. Obviously continuity was the same but you can't escape the look of the source station.

That's something I've often wondered about actually, did any of the other ITV stations have as many sound-breaks, dodgy screen wipes, buzzy advert tapes and so on as Tyne Tees? Added to the feeling of liveness, but it did seem a bit amateurish sometimes!!! Have a look at The Continuity Booth's 1986 Bill Steel startup (the one with the clock on the picture) to see what I mean (heh)... The way Bill seemed to clout the microphone button before some announcements was a local institution, you always knew when Bill was on lol.