Tyne Tees at 50

Tyne Tees is celebrating 50 years of broadcasting this week. Sadly there is no 'YTV at 40' style programme filling the ridiculously late Thursday regional slot but there are a series of special reports airing all this week on North East Tonight.

Part 1 focuses on the station's launch and its regional programmes of the 1960s.

I've never heard so many 'Tyne Tees' namechecks in years .

happy birthday Tyne Tees

I wonder if we'll see some other familiar faces like Paul Frost.

We'll have to make the most of it. I doubt the Tyne Tees name will be around for any more birthdays.

Part 2

'I wonder what they'll say about the likes of us in 50 years'. Tyne Tees will be lucky to still be around in 50 days let alone 50 years!

I like how they've still included Channel 3 North East in that, that era they tend to write off.

Presuming ITV get their way, the new Tyne Tees/Border region could be on in February.

Paul Frost is on Smooth Radio North East at 6pm tonight, noted to be discussing Tyne Tees and Northern Life as well as what he's been up to more recently.

Would be nice if Mike Neville returned as a guest on friday.

They've even hastily knocked up a page in the ITV Local CMS with links to all the video packages:-

http://info.itvlocal.com/TTTV50.shtml

Of course, nothing particularly spectacular yet, as most of the material has been seen many times on TTTV's look back shows. It's the Friday programme I look forward to though, to see if they stick to looking at the 2000's as a decade, or if they'll just stop after the 90s and switch to something completely different. Besides selling themselves as moving 'to the most modern tin potting shed in Europe' I really can't see what else good they'd have to put in a celebration package from the last decade.

Agreed, nothing ground-breaking yet but it's today's and tomorrow's editions I've been looking forward to the most, in a roundabout way you understand! I'm just curious to see how much detail, if any, they go into.

There were a few goodies in last night's programme though, such as the opening of the Metro Centre, Super Gran and, if you're quick, some old TTTV logos on studio cameras.

Part 3 is available on YouTube for those who despise ITV Local like me.

Has Jonathan Morrell left TTTV now? I thought he was due to be there until the new Border/TT programme started.

I can;t say today was great.

I dont think he has just yet but he has been off since before christmas.