>Better start this again......!!
>
>NWT: Good!
>Granada Tonight: Bad!
>
London Tonight: Bad!
Newsroom South East: Bad!

North East Tonight: Okay
Look North (North East & CUmbria): Dire (unless Paddy McDee is on when its good...)

Still no news on the NWT relaucnh.

midlands today has the sassy shefali the weather laydeeeee


and central weekend is *the* best programme to watch when depressed
mmm so funny and pointlessly arguementative

North Tonight (Grampian) .. Fab
Calendar (YTV) .. grrrrr....
Look North (Yorks) .. spooky...
Granada Tonight ... tacky
Look North (NE&C) ... kerrraaapppppp.

On the NWT front, Gordy is still with us, but that early morning woman's gone and these two new ladies have joined us. One Asian ( I think ).

No new re-launch this side of MM though. It looks as if those in Manchester don't like the drums&pips look.

Its only been a couple of years since they relaunched NWT anyway.

I have seen the asian woman before - is the other woman called Sarah/Louise or anything? If so she might have moved accross from BBC Radio Leeds so I hear.

should that be
>Look North (NE&C) ... kerrraaapppppp. (beep do do duh duuurrh)

And my take is:

Newsline 6.30
lot's of serious news, but the green/blue BBC News graphics look nice, and it's got decent presenters.

UTV Live at Six
looks a bit tacky in comparison. Lacks the BBC NI touch of class.

Look North (NE & C)
Boring, but a lovely set

Look North (Y, L & NM)
The best! The loveliest news desk in the UK, imaginative camera work, a range of amusing presenters and bizarre banter. No one involved takes the programme too seriously, and the verbal abuse between Peter Levy and Paul Hudson at lunch time is legendary!

Calendar
Horribly tacky, and full of light weight stories that they take too seriously. Christa Ackroyd and Mike Morris are awful!

North West Tonight
A bit more serious than Leeds Look North, but Gordon has a definite twinkle in his eye!

Granada Tonight
Lightweight, cheap version of This Morning. Horrible graphics.

Also, special mentions to the good (Midlands Today, Look East and London Tonight)and the bad (Newsroom South East, South Today).

North East Tonight-
a good stab at a regional news programme destroyed by the axing of News at Ten. Frequently beats BBC Look North to news stories by 24 hours.

Just wondering....may I ask what's so bad about South Today? (being in that region)

It's better and much more acurate than Meridian will ever be, especially with the weather......

I thought it was very boring and too serious. There's no point pretending your regional news is as important as the national news when it's clearly not!

Then there's the awful theme music, and the bizarre title sequence.

>Just wondering....may I ask what's so bad about South Today? (being in that region)
>
>It's better and much more acurate than Meridian will ever be, especially with the weather......

It's sooo blooody dull. They thought it would be exciting today if they came live from the Cascades shopping centre in Portsmouth. How can we take the news seriously if it comes from a bloody shopping centre in Pompey?

German news is a bit better, but that's another thread.

Anglia News is brilliant, especially the West version. And Channel Report beats most local news programmes - gorgeous female presenters too (Hannah Stewart Jones).

Still no NWT relaunch!!!!!

Or Look North (Y, L, and NM) or Look East for that matter. Still there's no hurry, is there?

Anyway, at home in NI for Christmas I got the chance to see a bit of BBC Choice Northern Ireland. Newsline Extra was much better than I thought it would be. The mix of regional and national/international stories was very good and I'm now in favour of a 'Scottish Six' (but only if we get a 'Yorkshire Six' as well!). The in-vision continuity on a BBC channel was a surprise, but it worked much better than UTV's efforts.

Meanwhile on the normal channels BBC Northern Ireland produced a very entertaining promo for Newsline showing the heroic figure of Noel Thompson striding through the Mountains of Mourne. It may not do Newsline much good, but it would probably have got Noel elected to Stormont!

Northern Ireland Newsnight worked alright, even though Kirsty Wark did her best to prevent a smooth handover each night by speaking too fast and rushing through the opt-out point.

On the other side UTV had a very bad Christmas ident. A reindeer stood in front of the UTV logo and the jingle was played on sleigh bells. Never mind...

Glad to hear invision on the Beeb - however what is not good is the DOG on BBC Choice (England anyway).

And I don't want an NWT relaunch - the pink version is far superiour to any beige set with blue and red lettering.

Hmm, strange about that dog. I eventually discovered where BBC Choice Scotland, Wales and Network were on Sky Digital (it isn't really England, is it?). Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland seem to take a real pride in BBC Choice, both in presentation terms throughout the day, and especially during their regional sections. The network version looks bad in comparison - a dog for the sake of it and repeats of repeats between 10 and midnight.

I'm sure the BBC would never contemplate it, but I do think the English regions could run their own late shift as well. BBC Choice NI isn't expensively made, but it's obvious that a lot of effort has been put in.

On the other side, the extra demands of BBC Choice have revitalised the national regions, and I'm sure that the English regions would work just as hard.

Of course, the very idea of more productions from and for the regions is just silly, and I feel ashamed to have even thought about it...

Perhaps what Britain needs in the future is a regionaly based structure of TV companies?

a novel idea

These things come round in circles. ITV's regional structure will be eroded and eroded until finally they're just another Channel 5. Then, particularly since by then most people will have access to DTT, some inspired bright spark will come up and say, "hey, I want to set up a new station for my area. I'll have loads of local programmes, and I'll set up a federation with other local stations so we can pool resources together for higher-budget stuff with a national appeal". And, stone the crows, a new regional framework is born. And this is no pipe dream, this WILL happen. Mark my words. People will only realise how much they miss their local stations when they disappear.

On the BBC Choice regional issue, in England its not going to be easy to do regions surely? Well on DTT or cable, yes, but what about Sky? Until the Beeb starts taking up more space on Sky, giving proper English regions for BBC ONE and Choice, and just proper regions for BBC TWO, then what hope have we? If you ask me they don't take the English Regions seriously.

I wrote to them recently to ask why, when BBC One in Scotland is BBC One Scotland, why BBC One in England is not BBC One England. They said someone would let me know. Did they? Did they bollocks.

Bah! $ky's dominance of DIGITAL TV is a temporary thing. In ten years time everybody will have DTT, and still only about 40% will have Sky. The simple fact is that 60% of the population don't want or need pay-TV. When I sat DTT, I don't mean On-Digital.

Regionality on DVBS is a non-starter. Even with crippling compression you can only get 8 channels per transponder, and it has to cover the whole of the UK. With the expansion of regional services (BBC, ITV and indies) DTT/DVBC are the only options. Take Berwick as an example. It is served by BBC Choice Scotland. ITV is Tyne Tees (North version) and Border (English version). The local BBC1 station is NE/Cumbria. If you have BBC Choice regions (which is coming ... the BBC are committed to english regional programming on digital transmissions, including a regional TV station per region, if the satellite news sites are to be believed, and they're not often wrong) then they will have to be broken off, ie the card will have to be selectively activated (another problem with Sky Digital; copyright dictates that even "free" channels must be scrambled). This means at least 4 different selective access points, along with the associated EPG programming, key-locking the other regions, the whole thing's a nightmare. And they'd need 3-4 transponders PER CHANNEL, for free broadcasts? Sky would have none of it. There's only 64 transponders available, and that's when all the future birds are up there.

No, regionality on satellite is a total non-starter, and really having the BBC on Sky is just a smokescreen to sell more Sky subscriptions. The amount of money the BBC is paying Sky to make sure the cards don't get hacked is just silly as well.

When will people wake up to the fact that Sky Digital is not the future? In 10 years time, digital terrestrial will be exactly as analogue terrestrial is now, watched by everybody, on every TV from pocket-sized upwards, possibly with a Pay-TV bouquet. Sky Digital will be as it is now, although probably dented by cable as the latter takes over the cities. And I tell you what, I'm surprised at you of all people, Andrew, falling for the hype...

Oh, one other thing. The reason BBC1 is not BBC1 England is twofold. Firstly it can be seen in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, so these folk, although small in number, would not like it very much. Secondly if there is a technical glitch at S/W/NI, or it's simply at a time when no-one's home, these stations also default to the London feed.

There is no BBC 1 England because such a thing doesn't exist. Despite what the Scots might think, BBC Scotland is just a region, like BBC South East or BBC West.

BBC 1 is known as BBC 1 NI, Scotland or Wales in those regions because they are allowed to do their own continuity whenever they want. The same now applies to BBC 2 and BBC Choice.

The English regions were once allowed to do this as well. In the seventies programmes were introduced by BBC 1 North/North West/Midlands etc.(and these regions had their own logos).

At a time when ITV is losing it's regionality, the BBC could step in and re-introduce regional continuity. (Even better if each region showed balloons filmed their!) As much as regional programmes, regional continuity really brings the viewer closer to the channel (it worked for ITV once upon a time!).

While this may be a pipe dream, there is some grounds for hope for regional TV on the BBC. As well as the many improvements they've made to the NI, Scotland and Wales services, the South East review was a sign that the English regions are being taken seriously again. (Although it was disappointing to discover that 'Out and About' had been axed.)

The next step would be regional input to News 24, and allowing the English regions to opt-out of Newsnight for short bulletins (similar to what Northern Ireland and Wales now do).

Then there's the possibility that BBC Choice will go regional in England, although I can't imagine how this could work. BBC Leeds doesn't have the studio space for anything other than Look North, and the situation is probably similar in the other smaller regions.

It is quite weird to see but even BBC North East and Cumbria had a go at regional continuity several times last year. They scheduled a few opt-out programmes last year (e.g. Premier Passions 2) and after they stuck with regional continuity for the rest of the night on BBC1 ...it was quite weird to hear Paddy MacDee say 'this is BBC1 in the North East and Cumbra now here's They Think it's all over'..

Sorry Cumbria...Cumbra sound like a character of great evil on Thundercats!

I'm glad you mentioned Berwick, Jase - I live just up the road from there and it's an ideal example of a place that receives two BBCs and two ITVs. Border BTW is fed from Selkirk, so it gets the Scottish version.

Hope this helps!

Regionality on News 24? Could happen. We'll have to see. I was going to mention that idea myself but didn't.

Anyway, Regional Newsnight. Wouldn't it be better to stick a 15 minute regional roundup bulliten for all regions at 11:15 keeping Newsnight as one programme, then going off to the regions? After all, the 9:28 regional bulliten is pitiful. A further, later bulliten may be the key and could allow the Beeb to sort out its BBC 2 scheduling a bit - it gets rather odd at 11:20 sometimes.

And before anyone asks, I doubt Sky will ever reign supreme in the digital stakes - unlike most Sky Digital subscribers I know who can't see beyond pay-per-view.

At some point digital dudes are going to HAVE to accept that not everyone wants Pay-per-view TV. But thats another argument.

The BBC haven't even got the regional output for digital sorted out yet on BBC1, never mind their other channels. Various sources have told me that they are a *long* way off in getting the regions up and running as well. ITV was the best bet for regional strength, but they went and blew it.

The Northern Ireland Newsnight worked quite well at 11pm. Kirsty Wark said "Now let's take a look at the main headlines of the day" and it was straight into the Northern Ireland version of the Newsnight graphics, and a 6 minute bulletin with Donna Traynor, returning in time for Kirsty to introduce the next item.

Although they did use the normal Newsline set, it was relit and redressed to look like the national programme. The opt-out and in flowed quite nicely (unlike the very obvious jump from Breakfast News to the regional bulletins with their own names and graphics).

The 11pm bulletin within Newsnight also gets away from the stereotypical view that regional news is an afterthought tacked on at the end of the 'proper news' (9.28 for example).

Talking of which, I seem to remember reading that the news at 11.00 on ITV was to have the local news programmes as an "integral part" of the programme. That idea never really got off the ground, did it?

Thank Carlton for that, Jase.

Regionality on Digital Terrestrial is just one of the thorns that prick the skin of Sky's bosses as they trawl through the garden of technology.

Or something.

The thought of integrating the national and regional news at 11 on ITV is an interesting one... Especially when you consider that while YTV, Granada and Tyne Tees all have shit loads of ads and really short bullitens, HTV actually does a really indepth bulliten meaning they tend to go to the 'networked' nighttime programmes later. And they have fewer ads than Granada meaning the bulliten is nearly twice as long.

Some stations are obviously morecommitted than others

Unlike the Granada stations, HTV Wales has the political baggage of being a 'national channel'. Half an hour at 6.00 and three minutes here and there would look very bad compared to BBC Wales.

UTV often have a round-up of the local headlines on the hour at peak time - lucky that ITV schedules always run late(!)

Of course, that doesn't mean that the Granada channels should get away with less news, but there's no political pressure for them to do otherwise.

This leads me towards the interesting debate about English nationalism on BBC Online currently - but I'm not going to get into all that now!!

But TT actually has a much longer bulletin at mid-day, and also the weekend ones are longer than average (esp. Sunday teatime). I think you'll find they all even themselves out. TT also has a shorter Weather forecast, and less trailers at the end of the news than YTV/Granada. At the end of the day TT produces 625 hours of regional programming a year, and will do for the next 10 years at least, unless ITV manage to find a way of worming out of contracts altogether...

I'm sure if Carlton try to worm out of any contracts they will get away with it.

Just e-mailed NWT, who tell me that North West Tonight will relaunch "in March".

So there.....

The woman claimed that only 2 other BBC regions have so far relaunched....

that'll be english regions...Newsroom South East and Look North (NE&C)

Shame. The beige and yellow set is no where near as good as the current pink NWT set with its strange arches and funky theme music and graphics.

At least they (probably) won't have two presenters on it meaning that Diane Oxbury can continue to have surreal chats with Gordon Burns.

The arches of the NWT set is pure class. I'd much rather go for pink than beige...

And as for Diane's chats...er....will I be sad to see them go??

Oh, but the excitement of the new look, the oh-so-subtle differences between the regions.

Will it have:

A round desk like Wales Today?
The nice remix of the news theme like Newsline?
A blue wall like Reporting Scotland?
A yellow wall like Newsroom SE?
A comfy seating area like Look North (NE&C)
Gunshots between the headlines, only before the first headline or not at all?

And which towns will be named? What shape is your region?

There are a lot of aspects of the current Look North (Y,L&NM)I'll miss, but I am looking forward to our re-fit when it comes (next few months apparently!)

Knowing NWT the towns highlighted will be Blackpool, Manchester, Blackburn and Liverpool.

Preston is criminally ignored in all aspects of NWT Reporting.

If you think preston has it bad, pity everyone who isn't in London who gets Newsroom South East. Oxford, Slough, Redding... all appear in the title sequence but never appear in the show. In fact if its not in Greater London, you'll be lucky to get a news report.

The South East problem of places being ignored is far bigger than any other region I have ever seen.

I too have often wondered why it does not just flash up LONDON, LONDON, LONDON on the opening titles of Newsroom South East... I wonder if it will when London gets its own news?

The problem is the the BBC's SE region is too large in the first place. It's impossible to do places like Oxford and Dover justice when London issues are being covered as well.

Lookat London toninght. It has a slightly smaller catchment area but news outside the capital is usually restricted to some non-event in Essex. Although Hertfordshire is in a double overlap area, Its gets far superior coverage by Anglia News West!

Lets hope BBC's SE Review will help get their local news to the right people.

Probably not since places like Surrey will still be lumped together with London and continue to get completely ignored

NWT just gets more bizzare. Now the sports crew are being brought into the Gordon/Diane surreal chat bit of the show.

Hmmm, sounds like a case of Look North syndrome (also known as Levyism).

For the last few weeks, Diane and Gordon have been drifting into complete surrealism. Now the sports crew are in on it as well. Last night Diane threatend that sports man with violence if he spoke over her bit. Gordon just sat there with a frozen grin on his face.

NWT does like its little chats doesn't it. I guess they're just doing in the studio exactly what they did on the outdoor show over the summer.

So where does this three way chat fit then?

It couldn't be more surreal than Clare and Harry hitting each other with their scripts followed by the weather man brandishing a wooden plank? Clare taking a pair of scissors to Peter Levy's tie? A dream sequence where Clare was Elvis and Harry was Hank Marvin?

Surely not!

The "roadshow" from the NWT was the best TV event I have ever seen.

Surreal is not the word....Give Nigel Jay one whiff of whiskey and he's gone.....

A few things on this subject that I would like to clear...NWT is relaunching in March, and the new set will be very similar to Newcastles Look North. It will be presented by Gordon Burns, and I am assured the bizzare chats will continue.
The "new" faces that have appeared whilst Julia Sharp has been off are Carol Lowe (reporter), and Sam Ali-Khan (presenter/producer Radio Lancashire) who will still appear on screen along with the occasional stint by Tony Morris.
I understand the frustration over Regional opts on the digital platforms (By the way Scotland/Ireland/Wales are NOT called regions, they are called Nations !!) If you are with "OnDigital" there will be regional opts coming soon, but only on BBC 1 at first. If you are with "Sky Digital", there are mutimillion pound plans to get enough transponders to beam your regional progs to you....but it is very expensive, and will probably take some time.

Ooooh, I am out of breath now !

Calling Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales 'nations' is just pandering to those Scots with delusions of grandeur!

They're spending millions to get the regions on flamin' $ky Digicrap?!? Time to write to your MP's, methinks...

Our MP, Audery Wise [Labour], gives not one shit about this town so I wouldn't bother.

Well, Preston is a bit depressing, isn't it? Is that really a surprise?

Can I ask a question - who is spending millions on getting BBC One regions on Sky? It might not necessarily be the BBC after all.

(My new job at a certain broadcaster starts tomorrow so I'm going to be more diplomatic from now on :)

Good luck at your new job with a certain broadcaster, Andrew!

And yes it is good to be diplomatic. I have to be careful reading these messages in the office, as several people have noticed the I Hate YTV thread!

At the moment it is the BBC that is looking at funding the cost of putting the regions on the Sky dish...baring in mind that eventually analogue TV will be switched off...leaving on digital outputs..On Digital will carry regions soon...but what for those who go down the satelite route ???

By the good luck in your new job !

Regions on Digital???

Excuse me while I laught like a loon

A friend of mine mentioned that Sky were in talks with ITV at the end of last year about putting ITV and ITV2 on SkyDigital. Talks broke down because Sky wouldn't set aside enough transponders (27 required, 20 offered for ITV alone) and were looking for more cash. The Beeb would probably need 12 each on ONE and TWO, however (I think).

Don't hold your breath, folks!

How many BBC Regions are there?

Currently 13, and 14 from next year.

Why 14?

London is to get its own service, with the rest of the South Esat getting south east news , without the dominance of London stories !

Well I'm pleased.-

And we'll all have to wait until March before NWT gets the big new-look.

As if it'll happen. Methinks Gordy Burns'll stand tall with his arches and purple haze for as long as he can.

Those arches are sheer brilliance. They should never go.

Perhaps I should start a campaign to 'Keep Gordon Pink'...

Keep Gordon Pink!!!!! Join us here at KGP to stop the drums & Pips infesting the North West!

I can pick up BBC One Wales now! So I can dance to the funky Wales Today themetune!!!

For some this will be good news for others eagerly awaiting the "new" look NWT it is bad !! NWT has had its re-lauch date pushed forward...the projected date is now towards the end of May !! Sorry about the good/bad news !!
By the way...NWT may be well worth watching next week, due to a new vision mixer being fitted, which no vision mixers understand...could be a belter of a week !!

OOh how I wish I was up north...

Wha--??

MAY?! I was told March....

March 27th is the date I've got for the big change for Look North (Y, L & NM).

There appears to be a shortage of the Backprojectors needed to show a "window" type pictue behind the presenters, and re-lauches are postponed for NWT at least...don't know about Look North (leeds et al). NWT will be in May at the earliest.
Boo Hoo

Look North (NEC) didn't bother with such technology, they've just but a big screen tv behind and the picture shakes with every gust of wind.

A quick plug for my new regional TV website

http://members.xoom.com/roundthe/regions.html

It's got Peter Levy, Gordon Burns and Mike Neville!!

>A quick plug for my new regional TV website
>
>http://members.xoom.com/roundthe/regions.html
>
>It's got Peter Levy, Gordon Burns and Mike Neville!!

Excellent site! Ahh the memories!-

Anyone know when this umpteenth revamp of 'North East Tonight with Mike Neville' is supposed to be happening...March 8th is approaching (that will mean it's been relatively untouched for a year)

Thank you very much!

And if it does revamp, will someone tape it for me?

Incidentally, I discovered recently that the North East Tonight and Calendar graphics aren't produced by YTV but by a Leeds based company called Keyframe. They are also responsible for the We Can Work It Out graphics (hence the chunky look on all three programmes).

Don't you think Look North (NE&C) has improved since Steve Sutton left (or should that be resigned)?

PS Damian like the website.

For your info, Cumbria came back from the wilderness (NWT with Stuart Hall and John Mundy) in 1992. I was on Look North with some piece about work experience in schools. I even met the legend himself, a certain Mike Neville, in Carlisle.

I noticed that the Newcastle news studio is a hell of a lot bigger than the London newsroom south east studio.

And looks better...

Shame not everything about Look North is better...

Preston College have blocked Damian's site

*confused*

Quite right too - nothing but filth on the internet...

I have to agree with the comments about the Look North (NE+C) set. It appears to be the biggest of all the regions so far, and the cosy seating area is very nice.

I think East Midlands Today also has a seating area in their current set (unless you know different?).

The only downside is the rather small virtual window preventing us from getting a good look at Newcastle. Hopefully Leeds will get a big window like Northern Ireland.

You can't get better than a big window ;)

I hope NWT does not go for the spiky G's sofa and chat angle...

I can reveal that NWT will have 2 sets...the Hard News end + "window" behind Gordy, and a soft seating end, rather like Newcastles, with a Plasma screen thrown in for good measure !

I've just received another email from BBC North, this time saying our relaunch will be 'in about a month's time', not the firm date of March 27th I was previously told...

odds on that Harry will have a comfy sitting area as well

Not sure that their studio is big enough for both sets !!!

The North East studio isn't physically that big either but they use the camera angles to make it look massive.

Long live S4C's Newyddion and its bleeps+drums theme tune, BBC Wales set and beardy presenters I say.

I've seen the opening titles to S4C's Newyddion and they look like a rather cheap sub-standard copy of the network BBC news graphics.

Where else can you see words like "Rwsia" and "Yr Albyn" on a BBC tip?

BBC tip?!

Foe anyone who is interested, the NWT relauch will be on 8th May...probably for the lunch time bulletin...however for a sneaky peak, watch NorthwestMinster on the Sunday before, as they will be using the "soft set" first on air !!!
Hurrah !!!

*looks forward to it*

Why Thank you !

A whole new un tapped resource: best regional political show....

IT WASN'T A NEW VERSION YOU MOOSE!

I've just noticed something that proves that BBC NE+ Cumbria's new set was done on the cheap. The video screen behind them with the view of the Tyne Bridge is just recycled from the old set because the old Look North logo has been burt on the screen. It looks too small aswell now that the light nights have started.

There's a webcam on the BBC site showing the aforementioned picture.
No wonder it's so small have you seen how far away the flats are from the Tyne Bridge?

Having seen the pictures of Midlands Today on TV Worls, I have to say it looks exactly like Look North's set, even down to the crap little window. One has to assume that this is to be the model for all the English Regions. But does Nick Owen have a comfy area?

PS The new LWT ITV idents are an improvement. Please Granada make a version of them for Tyne Tees

Didn't someone say there was a shortage of video walls? I await the revamp of Look north on Monday with baited breath...

>Having seen the pictures of Midlands Today on TV Worls, I have to say it looks exactly like Look North's set, even down to the crap little window. One has to assume that this is to be the model for all the English Regions.

Not quite. Newsroom South East's studio is not like the North East one and has a full background rather than a video wall. And the comfy seating area consists of one lone armchair against a plain (boring) beige wall for the sports guy. And there is no plasma screen for the weather - thats done from the BBC Weather Centre, and the interaction with presenters is done with a monitor. Nice.

If you thought Newcastle's was small, you'd probably find its bigger than the South East's...

Newcastle's set isn't particularly small. In fact it looks to be the biggest of the regional variants (although the Welsh one is sizeable). Belfast have a desk, a video wall and a plasma screen - no seating area and no weather area.

What do the other regions do for short daytime opt-outs? I know that Belfast and Glasgow have sets looking on to the newsroom, while Wales have a presenter against a beige backdrop - very seventies! Does Newcastle just use their main set at these times?

But what about Leeds?!! Five days to go...

Newsline (Only BBC Local News prog not to mention the Region? - oh sorry forgot about Spotlight in SW) - V good.

UTV Live (6-6.30)- poo
UTV Life (5.30-6)- even pooier

And while we're on the subject of News, does anyone from N Ireland think that the new-look Swimming Pool in Bangor Leisure Centre look like the Old News 24 set?

>I wrote to them recently to ask why, when BBC One in Scotland is BBC One Scotland, why BBC One in England is not BBC One England. They said someone would let me know. Did they? Did they bollocks.

I think it is because BBC ONE England isn't particularly English, is it? Just because BBC Scotland is doing an opt-out doesn't mean BBC Wales or NI are.

I don't really see why they should, unless there is a programme not broadcast anywhere else. Also, viewers would ask why some programmes were BBC ONE and some were BBC ONE England because viewers are funny like that.

But a thing I find strange - on BBC CHOICE NI they say "We're going to rejoin CHOICE England shortly". They Never talk about BBC ONE England or anything like that.

>Regionality on DVBS is a non-starter. Even with crippling compression you can only get 8 channels per transponder, and it has to cover the whole of the UK. With the expansion of regional services (BBC, ITV and indies) DTT/DVBC are the only options. Take Berwick as an example. It is served by BBC Choice Scotland.

If you try a postcode for digital coverage of South-west Scotland (Portpatrick, Stranraer etc), you'll find it is served by Divis nr Belfast, so you would get NI channels if you lived there.

Richard

>The Northern Ireland Newsnight worked quite well at 11pm. Kirsty Wark said "Now let's take a look at the main headlines of the day" and it was straight into the Northern Ireland version of the Newsnight graphics, and a 6 minute bulletin with Donna Traynor, returning in time for Kirsty to introduce the next item.

But notice that the rest of Newsnight is delayed from BBC TWO Digital/BBC TWO England. Apparently they use a hard-disk-based delay method to delay the rest of Newsnight so they can fit more into the regional bit. Then they don't bother with the weather forecast afterwards (Weatherview is on BBC ONE now anyway) and hey presto, they can join the network again!

>The Beeb would probably need 12 each on ONE and TWO, however (I think).

According to the BBC, BBC TWO English Regions will never appear on SkyDigital.

Also I have heard that BBC TWO English regions will disappear from all platforms, which would be a shame.

They could use my idea to have 10 English BBC ONE channels and 10 English BBC TWO channels, but only 11 data streams - 10 regional and one national. The 10 regional would normally be linked to the appropriate BBC ONE region while the 1 National would be linked to all BBC TWO regions. But when a regional item came on BBC TWO this would change round. THe only thing would be that regional programmes could not be on both BBC ONE and TWO at the same time. But this rarely ahppens in England anyway.

>For your info, Cumbria came back from the wilderness (NWT with Stuart Hall and John Mundy) in 1992. I was on Look North with some piece about work experience in schools. I even met the legend himself, a certain Mike Neville, in Carlisle.

Where was it in the intervening years - NWT?

>If you think preston has it bad, pity everyone who isn't in London who gets Newsroom South East. Oxford, Slough, Redding

When I was in Reading in 1992 it was South Today, not NSSE. NSSE was available but the picture was much worse. My relatives had their TV tuned to Meridian also, instead of Thames.

>Belfast have a desk, a video wall and a plasma screen - no seating area and no weather area.

The actual set is a bit cramped to make room for the Newsnight/Sports set which faces it.
The weather presenter does face the newsreaders, but there are no longshots before the weather like there were for the previous set.

And I apologies for all the messages I've posted today - I just rediscovered the site!

>

>
>Where was it in the intervening years - NWT?

I can only presume so.

> According to the BBC, BBC TWO English Regions will never appear on SkyDigital.

Must annoy people in the rest of the UK to get a regional show like Around Westminster which centres entirely on London. It annoys me, and I'm only 20 miles outside London.

> Also I have heard that BBC TWO English regions will disappear from all platforms, which would be a shame.

Surely it's much simpler just to move all regional programmes in England from BBC2 to BBC1 - there's only two a week anyway, and one of those has finished its current series.
Plus there's a daily afternoon bulletin. Now we have BBC1 South East on Digital Terrestrial it seems odd to still have one bulletin a day on BBC2 which remains as UK Today.

>What do the other regions do for short daytime opt-outs? I know that Belfast and Glasgow have sets looking on to the newsroom, while Wales have a presenter against a beige backdrop - very seventies! Does Newcastle just use their main set at these times?
>
Newcastle's short bulletin set is a poor effort. Its a half and half effort with an 'ivory' coloured board of wood up one half and a yellow backdround with 'rings' in the other half...knocked up in 30 minutes I'd say.

>>Where was it in the intervening years - NWT?
>
>I can only presume so.


Indeed it was. The Friday before Cumbria 'moved' we had a handover chat between Stuart Hall and the someone else, who I seem to think were in Leeds, but logic dictates they should have been in Newcastle. When Cumbria went again, there was less of a fanfare.

>What do the other regions do for short daytime opt-outs? I know that Belfast and Glasgow have sets looking on to the newsroom, while Wales have a presenter against a beige backdrop - very seventies! Does Newcastle just use their main set at these times?

Don't know about Newcastle, but Newsroom South East has a mini studio with an armchair in it for the breakfast bullitens - as they have no room to interview anyone from their main studio, they once shoved the interviewee in the breakfast studio and interviewed them via a monitor linkup which looked rather bizairre.

Four days to the new Look North...

Has News West relaunched? It would seem from their website that it has.

>Has News West relaunched? It would seem from their website that it has.

I don't think so. Although BBC West has a new website with Local News and so on, the News West Website at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/newswest/

still has the logo they have used for years.

The logo for NEWS WEST still uses (according to this page) is one of the old BBC fonts - the italicised one that was used for the word
E A S T/W E S T/S C O T L A N D whatever underneath the BBC on BBC 1/2 idents.

They obviously haven't had an update in years.

Nope - News West is still in the old BBC blue look. It hasn't been revamped for many years - it had a mini change when the new BBC logo came in 2 1/2 years ago when the titles were altered slightly. They tinker with bits of it every now and again (when they show the newsroom they bring up a logo down the side which is in the new BBC font, if not the right look for new news) and redid the weather a month ago to make it exactly the same as the national look (it was always similar).

The News West site was revamped the other week to link in with the new BBC Bristol site bringing local news sport and entertainment to the city. It is apparently the first of 50 city sites that the BBC want to launch. It is quite good, and has its own forum, competitions and webcams of the zoo! It is found at www.bbc.co.uk/bristol

>The News West site was revamped the other week to link in with the new BBC Bristol site bringing local news sport and entertainment to the city. It is apparently the first of 50 city sites that the BBC want to launch. It is quite good, and has its own forum, competitions and webcams of the zoo! It is found at www.bbc.co.uk/bristol

It actually launched just alongside the London one which has the branding London Live. Manchester's is not far away.

Now you may ask why Bristol would be up there as one of the early sites... The reason apparantly is, cos it was ready. Absolutely true.

Apparently, the new Look North has been delayed by a week.

Very disappointing....

>Apparently, the new Look North has been delayed by a week.
>
>Very disappointing....

when they do get round to relaunching I do hope that they don't use the images from the webcam camera.Leeds Uni's Parkison building may be a fine imposing structure of academia but the thought of all those p*ssed up students on Woodhouse Lane waving whilst harry's trying to read the news is just not on!

Afraid I have to defend the BBC Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland identities....and the lack of BBC England !

The reason is fairly simple...for major parts of the days the Nations will carry the main output direct from London, with NO seperate symbols, trails etc...peak viewing times there will be a continuity person on both BBC 1 & BBC 2....as it gets later into the night, there is only one announcer covering both networks...popping between the two, therefore many junctions would be London output and a BBC England ident would be very unsuitable, See its simple !

Sorry only me again !

Look North was always intended to re-launch on the 10th April and they are still on target to hit that date...if you were told any other date, you were LIED to !

NWT still on course for re-launch on 8th May !

>as it gets later into the night, there is only one announcer covering both networks...popping between the two, therefore many junctions would be London output and a BBC England ident would be very unsuitable, See its simple !

It used to be the case that only regional BBC TWO progs on Scot/Wales/NI had regional presentation. But now every BBC TWO prog during the week at least has regional intro in Northern Ireland. Not sure if this is the case elsewhere - wasn't in Scotland last time I looked. There is a seperate TX suite for BBC TWO NI though this will be used for BBC TWO NI Digital when that starts.

BBC North lied to me?

When I emailed them, Clare Frisby said March 27th, and Ian White contacted someone else to say April 3rd.

If the management knew it was April 10th, why did the presenters think otherwise?

>It actually launched just alongside the London one which has the branding London Live.

Of course, the same name as the relaunched GLR and the forthcoming 24-hour TV station.

Will this spell the end of Newsroom South East in the capital? Let's bleedin hope so!

By the way, I have to say London Tonight was quality when it launched, think it was an hour long back then and had all sorts of features and ITN headlines etc.

>Of course, the same name as the relaunched GLR and the forthcoming 24-hour TV station.

Well its not quite a 24 hour TV channel...

>Will this spell the end of Newsroom South East in the capital? Let's bleedin hope so!

Well yes. Thats the idea. The Tv version of London Live is the replacement for Newsroom South East in the capital. Viewers in the rest of the South East will get a different service (South East Tonight anyone).

>>Of course, the same name as the relaunched GLR and the forthcoming 24-hour TV station.
>
>Well its not quite a 24 hour TV channel...
>
>>Will this spell the end of Newsroom South East in the capital? Let's bleedin hope so!
>
>Well yes. Thats the idea. The Tv version of London Live is the replacement for Newsroom South East in the capital. Viewers in the rest of the South East will get a different service (South East Tonight anyone).
>

Ah, I see.. the BBC site was a bit confusing on that.

Looks like the end of the show that combines 25 minutes of people getting blown up, stabbed and shot in London followed by a story on ramblers in the Kent countryside.

>Well its not quite a 24 hour TV channel...

What is it then? Is it just a rebranding of NSE?

> Viewers in the rest of the South East will get a different service (South East Tonight anyone).

Or maybe just 'Newsroom South East'

Although to be fair, they probably will change the name to let people know the service will be more regional to them.

So we'll have BBC London and BBC South-East?

Pretty much so. The current BBC South East region will be broken into three - Kent and East Sussex will form the new South East region, London and the home counties will form the new BBC London region, and Oxfordshire will receive South Today but with their own ten minute opt-out.

>BBC North lied to me?
>
>When I emailed them, Clare Frisby said March 27th, and Ian White contacted someone else to say April 3rd.
>
>If the management knew it was April 10th, why did the presenters think otherwise?
I hate to think why they had that Idea...I have seen the roll out timetable, and Leeds was always intended to be the 10th ! I shall slap Mr Whites legs for you !

> Oxfordshire will receive South Today but with their own ten minute opt-out.

What region is Reading in?

When I was in Tilehurst in 1992, it was BBC South and South Today. ITV was TVS. But from what I have seen of Newsroom SE, Reading is marked on the map in the titles.

Note that Thames/LWT/BBC SE were available, but with deteriorated quality, and they weren't even tuned in before I got my hands on the set.

I think South Today and Newsroom South East both lay claim to Reading. In the past I've seen the same item concerning Reading on both programmes on the same evening.

>I hate to think why they had that Idea...I have seen the roll out timetable, and Leeds was always intended to be the 10th !

There's a rollout timetable, eh? Go on then, when is everybody else changing? And is there any rhyme or reason as to the order the regions have changed in?

I was under the impression that there would be 3 whole new regions, BBC Lndon Live, BBC South-East, BBC Thames Valley. I think this is a sensible system, because I actually thought it up first, I actually spent a day trying to reorganise the ITV regions so they made some kind of sense - how sad am I?

>I actually spent a day trying to reorganise the ITV regions so they made some kind of sense - how sad am I?

And.. care to share with us what you came up with?

Look North changed today!!!

Very nice so far, full review tomorrow!

>>I actually spent a day trying to reorganise the ITV regions so they made some kind of sense - how sad am I?
>
>And.. care to share with us what you came up with?


Sure. It involved some serious downsizing of the Carlton regions, scrapping HTV West in favour of something which had a point to it, a separate region for Cornwall, and one for the Isle of Man and a lot of fiddling with the boundaries - I'll scan in a map of what I came up with nd post a link to it. - If that's ok with everyone - I rather like my system actually.

>Sure. It involved some serious downsizing of the Carlton regions, scrapping HTV West in favour of something which had a point to it, a separate region for Cornwall, and one for the Isle of Man and a lot of fiddling with the boundaries - I'll scan in a map of what I came up with nd post a link to it. - If that's ok with everyone - I rather like my system actually.
>

A seperate franchise for the Isle of Man is certainly interesting. I'd give it six months before it became only the second ITv company to ever go bust, following on from that radical company, WWN who did it first in 1964 :)

Of course, there is nothing really to stop the Isle of Man government from setting up a small, local TV service for the island - the RSL stations in Oxford and the Isle of Wight have done quite well. An ITV service just for Manx I just can't see working.

Which brings to mind a memorable quote from the early days of the BBC, The then Diredtor Ganeral said - "Television? The word is half Latin, half Greek, it will never catch on"

Stranger things have happenned - I just think that, quaint though it is, something has to be done about Border, it seems to serve no useful purpose to me.

Legislation in the Isle of Man would permit a new television station, although whether it could be part of the ITV network is unlikely.
Bear in mind that the island makes up only 10 per cent of Border's population. How viable?
It would have to erect new transmitters in the north of the island, as people there tune directly into Caldbeck in Cumbria.
In Onchan, where I used to live, the Border transmitter for Douglas is obscured by C5 from Winter Hill in Lancashire, so there might be problems on the more populous east of the island. We watch Granada or HTV.
However, these technical difficulties could be overcome.
And Manx Radio has by far the biggest reach of any local radio station in the British Isles. More than 90 per cent of adults in the island listen to it every week. So that would bode well.
The best, realistically, would be an opt-out of Border, with Manx news instead of Lookaround, or as part of Lookaround.
Or how about an opt-out of North West Tonight? Except the north and Laxey gets Look North (NE&C). More technical problems.

>And Manx Radio has by far the biggest reach of any local radio station in the British Isles. More than 90 per cent of adults in the island listen to it every week. So that would bode well.

Has anyone heard it recently ? Have they changed the name of the station or something? I can't remember what they were calling it though? 89.0 is the frquency, yeah?

I can pick up Manx Radio on MW ( about 1400 or 139-something) through my multi-band. They claim that Blackpool can pick up the FM signal on good days. I'm in Preston.

>Has anyone heard it recently ? Have they changed the name of the station or something? I can't remember what they were calling it though? 89.0 is the frquency, yeah?
>
89.0 FM from Snaefell, 97.2 from Douglas and 102 ish from Jurby on FM. 1368 AM. Reception is particularly good in North Wales, apparently. And the IoM, of course.

I know that the 89 frequency on FM can be heard in parts of Lancs, and presumably, Cumbria.

My main point was that Border is a major anomaly, serving nothing resembling a community.

My system involved the following regions with crappy invented names where required.

Channel (same)
Carlton Cornwall (Westcountry)
Wessex TV (Devon, Dorset+ part of Somerset)
Meridian (Hampshire, W Sussex+ part of Surrey)
Carlton SouthEast ( E Sussex+Kent)
LWT (London all week, never mind the name, smaller area)
Anglia (same)
Oxford3 (Oxfordshire+Bucks)
3West (HTV West)
HTV (same)
Carlton Central (downsized)
Trent (Nottinghamshire+Lincs)
Granada (same)
YTV (same)
Northumbrian (TTTV+English Border)
Manx
STV (Including Scottish Border)
Grampian (same)
UTV (same)


It has dodgey bits, but I think it would work better than the current system

Manx = very dodgy around the 1360's...only around 1400 can I hear the signal clearly. On FM? No chance, I've tried and failed.

Blackpool, Fylde coast and I presume North Wales but not this far in land!!

Ben, you've missed out possibly the biggest anomaly in British Broadcasting -- YTV! It doesn't even cover the whole of Yorkshire, yet it covers part of Notts, Lincs, The Wash and bits of Lancs! I think the North of YTV should be stretched to complete North Yorkshire, then the southern bit (Lincs, Notts etc) should come under a new franchise run from Nottingham. But I'm not sure how this would hold either. Maybe give Lincolnshire it's own TV station?

Oh, and the present system in Central land doesn't work either. Nottingham is next door to Derby, yet most people in Derby get Birmingham's output! So maybe a redrawn franchise to include Notts, Derbyshire and Leicestershire, and give large parts of Central South to Anglia?

Ah but if you stretched YTV up to the North Yorks border, why bother having Tyne Tees at all. Middlesborough could traditionaly claim to be in the North riding so Tyne Tees would loose even more of its potential audience. The smoggies are in a strange position, traditionaly Yorkshire folk but realy in the North East region.

Also, is it my imagination but has the Look North Yorks region shrunk in the new titles. It doesn't seem to claim anything like as much of North Yorkshire and the South Tees valley as YTV's Calendar do

If you had the map I drew of my new regions, you'd see that this is pretty much what I did. Central region shrunk, New franchise for Lincolnshire and Notts etc - my descriptions in the last post were v vague.

Yeah, I saw that after I sent the post. To NF (is that Neil Fleming?), North Yorkshire has always been a problem. Thing is no-one in North Yorks actually watches Tyne Tees anyway. By giving Cumbria to TT and resolving the problem with North Yorkshire, TT would be in a better position. North Yorkshire is the key to why TT has always underperformed. 400000 potential viewers, but none of them are watching. Waste of time really. Cumbria has less, but they'd be completely contained. If Border is going to be pulled apart anyway, why not?

The new Look North titles put the region at an odd angle and perspective making it look smaller than it should be. The Midlands Today regions also looks smaller than it should be.

That said, the LN weather map includes all of North Yorkshire, and Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire - overstating things a little!

New ITV map:
North Scotland: Carlton
Central Scotland: Carlton
Cumbria, SW Scotland, the Borders and the Isle of Man: Carlton
Northern Ireland: Carlton
North West England: Carlton
North East: Carlton
South, west and east Yorkshire and Lincolnshire: Carlton
East Anglia: Carlton
Midland (east, south and west): Carlton
Wales: Carlton
Gloucestershire, Avon, Somerset: Carlton
South West: Carlton
South coast, South East and Thames Valley: Carlton
Channel Islands: Carlton
London (weekdays): Carlton
London (weekends): Carlton

And let's rename ITV2. How about Carlton2?

>Channel Islands: Carlton

I think Channel is safe. I don't actually think it is legally possible for any non Jersey-based company to take them over.

As for the rest - well, we'll see...

No - It'll never happen - people would actually protest, hang on - they did that when Carlton removed Central and Westcountry...Ooooh dear.

Seriously, I think The Carlton thing will stop short of that, simply because even Carlton realise that they rely in the other companies to make the decent programmes. ITV cannot live by Peak Practice alone - as the saying doesn't go.

>Yeah, I saw that after I sent the post. To NF (is that Neil Fleming?)

Ahh my identity is revealed!!!!!!!!!

I agree that Tyne Tees are hampered by North Yorks but its a problem that never will go away as the Billsdale transmitter in North Yorks is the UK's most powerful (I believe) and if YTV had that then South Durham, parts of Gateshead (I kid you not) and Teeside would all be under Mike Morris droopy eyed control making TTTV totaly without a point. Aparently according to Granada Airtime sales Tyne Tees signal can be received down to parts of South Yorkshire due to the might of Burnhope.

As for no one in North Yorks watching, who can blame them, as YTV's advert on the old Radio Teeside used to say, 'if you're not watching YTV then you're not a yorkshireman'. Curiously when I lived in Leeds my local pub was always tuned to Tyne Tees

The new look Scotland Today is their best attempt yet and anchor Shereen Nanjiani has gone for a trendy new wardrobe.

The weather guy on Wales Tonight really has to calm down his hand gesticulations....

Ooh-err...

Wales Tonight? I thought the name had been dropped last year, when it went back to 6pm and became HTV News.

BBC Wales Tonight.or whatever it's called.....all I know is the weather guy has hands like a windmill

A few more points to throw in..

1) Noticed some of the different regions/nations have different versions of the BBC News theme for their regional news. Question is, why bother? Why didn't they just choose the one BBC Wales or maybe Newsroom South East uses? Definately when it results in something as boring and tuneless as the Scottish version.

2) Any thoughts on treating the BBC London Live region like the BBC nations? It's a sizable population with different needs to the rest of the country, especially now with the mayoral stuff. Also, it's an area that's probably done worst as far as regional identy goes (apart from the late great Thames). After all, it took long enough for the SE to even get a half-hearted attempt at BBC regional news.

3) Back to the 'generic' looks to the BBC regional news - ok, so red for Wales, blue for Scotland and green for NI, but the English regions can't seem to decide whether or not to go for a sort of blue and red with a hint of purple (Newsroom SE) or the national red and beige (think it was Look North..?)

>A few more points to throw in..
>
>1) Noticed some of the different regions/nations have different versions of the BBC News theme for their regional news. Question is, why bother? Why didn't they just choose the one BBC Wales or maybe Newsroom South East uses?

Well, there haws to be some diversity. But I think NSE has the same one as Look North (Newcastle), IIRC.

> Definately when it results in something as boring and tuneless as the Scottish version.

I quite like the Scottish version
>
>2) Any thoughts on treating the BBC London Live region like the BBC nations?

I don't think the Beeb could afford it. And it would get the rest of England wanting something similar.

> Back to the 'generic' looks to the BBC regional news - ok, so red for Wales, blue for Scotland and green for NI

Actually Blue also for N Ireland.

On another point - remember how one of the reasons for getting the new logo in 1997 was that is was monochrome and would cut stationary costs? Well I just got a compliment slip from BBC NI where the logo was in Green and the text was in blue!

I'm not keen on the Scottish music - I prefer the English/UK Today version, or the upbeat Newsline theme.

Meanwhile, thank heavens Look North (Y, L, NM) got a decent sized 'window'. We haven't been quite as embarrassed as Birmingham. Oddly enough, BBC North are still using the old set for 'North of Westminster'. Things must be quite cramped in that studio now!

Look North has blue, yellow and orange colour scheme to the titles

Leeds can only fit one set in the studio at a time....so when N of W is recorded (yes...that IS recorded) the sets have to be swapped. Newcastle studios are big enough for two sets and the same for Manchester, who are still on target for the 8th May for relaunch...with North WestMinster being the first programme to use the set the day before, but using the same titles and graphics.

>Leeds can only fit one set in the studio at a time....so when N of W is recorded (yes...that IS recorded) the sets have to be swapped.

Which begs the question, why bother? Every other region just uses the same set, so why doesn't Leeds, especially as they have to go to the hassle of changing it...

I did hear that on the first day of the beige set in Leeds, they chroma keyed in the weather map behind the weather man, despite showing him stood in front of a plasma screen, so perhaps they like doing things the hard way

I think Look North Newcastle do the same with their weatherman as he satnds in formt on a widescreen tv for the first part of the broadcast

No, the Leeds weather screen is a proper chromakey screen. The plasma monitor sits beside the main desk for down the line interviews only.

Be thankful you get a weather 'board' at all. Newroom SE just has a small monitor on the desk (often used for interviews).

The BBC have jsut announced that it is going to rename News west. It is going to bring back the POINTS WEST name, that it was known as up until 8 years ago or so. They say they are doing this as, whilst the programme went from strength to strength, people never really caught onto the name. Should please Chris Vacher (one of the main presenters) who has always seemed to me that he was fighting for it to come back.


The changes come in on Monday 22nd May, when I assume the new corporate look will come in.

That's very interesting...

After that victory, let's start a campaign to bring back Scene Around Six, Northern Life and Look North West!

>That's very interesting...
>
>After that victory, let's start a campaign to bring back Scene Around Six, Northern Life and Look North West!

Look North West? Let's go back to Look North its title pre-1980.
And bring back Home at Six (BBC NE), People and Places (Granada) Scene at 6.30 (Granada, again) Granada Reports, Report Wales, Wales at Six, Wales Tonight (all HTV) London Plus, South East at Six, Sixty Minutes Scotland (BBC's shortlived programme), About Anglia. IS this list endless?

>IS this list endless?

Six Tonight (Ulster), Inside Ulster (BBC), Lookaround Monday, Lookaround Tuesday etc etc (all Border), or the only one I know which finished for the Summer - Good Evening Ulster. I can't remember what it was replaced by in the Summer months - anyone from NI know?

I'd like to see London Plus brought back when the South East region splits up. However I somehow think they'll go for London Live to fit in with the radio station & website, which I think will get rather confusing.

And then what about the new South East programme? South East at 6.30?

I always thought that London Plus was a very apt name (although the Plus did give the indication there might be some news form outside London)

What else can we bring back?

Coast to Coast, Day by Day, Westward Diary, ATV Today...

Returning to Points West, which is coming back, what did other regions do whilst the new set was being installed. Here in the West it will apparently take them a few days to bring in the new set, so they are looking for interesting or unusual places to present the news from for those days whne they don't have a studio!

It was also interesting to see in the package marking the change that you had the same presenters telling us about the change from Points West to News West that were telling us about the change back again toady. The News West presenter team is nothing if not stable. It is also the most-watched local news programme in the country, and beats the opposition by at least 2:1.

Are you sure about that? I always thought that Border's Lookaround programme was the most watched regional news proggy in the country.

And as for the old programmes... bring back North East Roundabout, that's what I say! And bring Adrian Cairns and Tom Coyne out of retirement to present it!!

>And as for the old programmes... bring back North East Roundabout, that's what I say! And bring Adrian Cairns and Tom Coyne out of retirement to present it!!


<images of Mike Neville sat reading the news in a fairground...>

>Are you sure about that? I always thought that Border's Lookaround programme was the most watched regional news proggy in the country.

According to the Ceefax report "[News West] has become the UK's most popular regional evening news programme" and they were certainly making this point in the report on TV. Although HTV is not much in the way of competition.

or the only one I know which finished for the Summer - Good Evening Ulster. I can't remember what it was replaced by in the Summer months - anyone from NI know?

- Summer Edition.

In the days of UTV Reports, it was followed by Summer Reports (both with Gordon Burns, later David Dunseith).

>It was also interesting to see in the package marking the change that you had the same presenters telling us about the change from Points West to News West that were telling us about the change back again toady. The News West presenter team is nothing if not stable. It is also the most-watched local news programme in the country, and beats the opposition by at least 2:1.

Is the BBC West region the smallest geographically as well? It also seem rather strange that the west region is so far south... I guess that's just where it is!

>or the only one I know which finished for the Summer - Good Evening Ulster. I can't remember what it was replaced by in the Summer months - anyone from NI know?
>
>- Summer Edition.

I've been trying to remember that for years! Thanks. Did any other regions do something similar?

The new NWT in 2 and a bit weeks time!!

Glossy new set, the *duff-duff* theme and Gordy Burns with his legs out for the lads.....what fun!

>The BBC have jsut announced that it is going to rename News west. It is going to bring back the POINTS WEST name, that it was known as up until 8 years ago or so.

I'm not sure if someone mentioned this, but they are looking for somewhere else to do the show from for the two last News Wests. The studio will be refitted those days.

I wonder why it will take them so long? No other region is having to do this as far as I know. In fact, when they did Northern Ireland, the old Newsline set was used on Friday and they had a clip of the new Newsline set which sits where the old one used to and the new Newsnight NI set which sits across from it.

So they obviously had to build and dismantle the new set at least once.

Incidentally, there is also a small sports desk in the corner which is used for 'Northern Ireland Results' at the end of Grandstand.

BBC North still have their old set up for North of Westminster, so there was no delay in getting the new one up. On the other hand Newcastle decamped to a smaller studio for a week when they were changing over.

Meanwhile on the subject of Northern Ireland regional news programmes, is this the complete BBC list:

Today in Northern Ireland, Six O'Clock, Six-Five, Scene Around Six, Inside Ulster, Inside Ulster Newsline, Newsline 6.30 and Newsline ?

Not to mention that old standby favourite BBC Northern Ireland News!

A sneaky peak of the new NWT set TONIGHT at the end of the programme!!! And footage of the old set going out and the new one being built !! Hope people see this in time !!!

New look NWT this morning at the Breakfast News opt-out. I saw Preston ( m home town)next to Blackburn in the background so that's good....;0)

>A sneaky peak of the new NWT set TONIGHT at the end of the programme!!! And footage of the old set going out and the new one being built !! Hope people see this in time !!!

No I didn't - but even if I had I wouldn't have been home in time to see it. Though I did catch the NorthWest Tonight show on Saturday when the hot weather enabled me to get BBC ONE NW (any ideas where from? It was Channel 40). Good to hear that old music anyway, even if it was (as I realise now) for the last time.

I also got Look North (I think it was NorthEast/Cumbria from Caldbeck Ch30) but I only saw the end of it (as I was watching NWT at the start) so I didn't catch the new titles (damn them for not have proper closing ones!)

On another point - when is BBC SE Splitting? And will BBC TWO SE split also?

This autumn, I believe. And the new London and South East regions will be separate, stand-alone regions with their own Ceefax pages, Online sections etc so I presume BBC2 will split as well.

>This autumn, I believe. And the new London and South East regions will be separate, stand-alone regions with their own Ceefax pages, Online sections etc so I presume BBC2 will split as well.

Last I heard the plan was for Spring next year. And of course, there is no SE Online section to split - the region's only section on Online is the London Live City Site.

Yea! to Tyne Tees, not content with Community Link graphics (circa 1990), crimestopers graphics (circa 1992) now they've gone back to the realy old cheap weather titles (circa 1995)...do they spend any money?

The new NWT folks?
OK. But why do we have to have "weather headlines" in the middle? Dianne Oxberry, shut up! Cringe, cringe, cringe.
Also that view from the window is clearly not from the BBC's building on Oxford Road as it appears to look down Oxford Street to Peter Street and you'd have to go around a corner to do that.
Gordon did say you could see Peter Street and a tram, although I couldn't. Where is it taken from? And is there a camera positioned there specially to relay live images?
Or is it just really high on the BBC's building and focused in?
Won't viewers in Liverpool, Preston, Blackburn, Douglas etc be vexed that it's always Manchester behind Gordon's shoulder?

>>Gordon did say you could see Peter Street and a tram, although I couldn't. Where is it taken from? And is there a camera positioned there specially to relay live images?

In some/most regions the camera is the same one used on the weather. Belfast's is probably positioned on top of Broadcasting House and is trained on the River Lagan and M3 bridge. In stormy weather, the camera shakes around a bit. In case of signal failure there is a blind which comes down in front of the screen.
>Or is it just really high on the BBC's building and focused in?
Probably
>Won't viewers in Liverpool, Preston, Blackburn, Douglas etc be vexed that it's always Manchester behind Gordon's shoulder?
They could chroma-key in various locations. Though that would be a bit of a pain, I'm sure. And I don't think the IOM has its own transmitter anyway. How does it fare on NWT anyway? Border doesn't seem to cover it very well.

The Leeds camera isn't on the BBC building. There is a camera that points up Woodhouse Lane for weather purposes, but the view of Leeds city centre is from the top of one of the buildings belonging to Leeds Metropolitan University.

Cue the regular 6.51 joke - "I can see Peter levy's house from here - should that smoke be coming coming from it?"

Boom boom!

The NWT camera is on top of the Palace Hotel, a few doors down from BBC. Isle of Man IS featured sometimes on NWT...not often tho' as sod all ever happens there. They are arguing with the Beeb management to have their own opt !!

The new NWT is great, as ever.

The theme tune is just as the old jazzy one left off - a lot more catchy than the standard BBC drums+pips.

I'm glad PRESTON ( or RESTONP or ESTONPR or STONPRE......) is right at the start of the titles and all, but.....

Where is the sliver of North Wales that NWT used to "cover"?

And I've never noticed just how tall Diane is 8-)

I don't think the IOM has its own transmitter anyway. How does it fare on NWT anyway? Border doesn't seem to cover it very well.
>

The island has a series of relay transmitters: Douglas, Port St Mary, Beary Mountain, Glen Maye, Union Mills and Laxey.
All broadcast BBC NW and Border (no C5), except Laxey which has BBC North East and Cumbria direct from Caldbeck all the time.
In point of fact, they all use Caldbeck except for regional programmes, when they switch to Winter Hill and the NW. There is a noticeable flick. In the early eighties, BBC2 couldn't do that, so the island was in BBC1 North West and BBC2 North East. Probably unique.
This system still has a big downside now that Ceefax has gone regional. IoM viewers get NE&C's service during networked programmes.

The island gets far better coverage in terms of news from Border than the BBC (viewers in the north of the island get NE&C so have zero coverage).

After all, the Manx make up 10 per cent of Border's population and less than 1 per cent of BBC NW's.

Border even does special programmes for the island's general elections, which are at different times from the UK's as the island is independent politically. That's good for a station 90 per cent of whose viewers are completely unaffected. Whether this will continue under the Granada regime is another matter.

>The island has a series of relay transmitters: Douglas, Port St Mary, Beary Mountain, Glen Maye, Union Mills and Laxey.
>All broadcast BBC NW and Border (no C5), except Laxey which has BBC North East and Cumbria direct from Caldbeck all the time.

This seems a bit silly. Why don't they re-relay NW from one of the other relays on the island?
>In point of fact, they all use Caldbeck except for regional programmes, when they switch to Winter Hill and the NW. There is a noticeable flick.

>This system still has a big downside now that Ceefax has gone regional. IoM viewers get NE&C's service during networked programmes.

So CEEFAX switches regions? That must be bizarre! Especially if IoM stories appear on BBC CEEFAX NW, then IoM viewers would be unable to get it.
>Border even does special programmes for the island's general elections, which are at different times from the UK's as the island is independent politically.

Are these on Border in the UK as well or does the island opt out?

>That's good for a station 90 per cent of whose viewers are completely unaffected.

I think they should lump the IoM in with BBC NE&C all the time as it gets the same news as Cumbria with Border.

Is the IOM the only BBC NW/Border Overlap?

A similar case operates in the Channel Islands. While Channel TV is a seperate company it takes nearly all of its output from Meridian.

But for the BBC, they get BBC SW (apart from one regional news a day iirc).

I wonder in each case, where abouts on the mainland the Channel Islanders and Manx feel closer to?

On a different area, a report on BBC News Online says that the ITC has branded SMG's operation of Grampian as "unacceptable". They say that there are too many programmes listed as co-productions where there is little or no Grampian involvement (such as the "High Road" soap) and that there shuold be more programmes just for the Grampian region. I wonder if the ITC will start to make such findings in other regions?

(The story is at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsid_743000/743371.stm )

>This seems a bit silly. Why don't they re-relay NW from one of the other relays on the island?

Douglas does exactly that for most of them. It's technically impossible (or too expensive for Laxey). Ramsey and the north of the island get their TV direct from Caldbeck, Cumbria.
>
>Border even does special programmes for the island's general elections, which are at different times from the UK's as the island is independent politically.
>
>Are these on Border in the UK as well or does the island opt out?

On in UK too. No opt outs.
>
>I think they should lump the IoM in with BBC NE&C all the time as it gets the same news as Cumbria with Border.
>
>Is the IOM the only BBC NW/Border Overlap?
>
No, there are places in the south Lakes that overlap. In Grasmere, for example, Border is ITV, while NW is BBC.

>I wonder in each case, where abouts on the mainland the Channel Islanders and Manx feel closer to?
>
No Manx person would ever say mainland. "Main" is a matter for debate.
The Manx feel far closer to the North West. There have always been links with Liverpool. The ferries go there and Heysham, Lancs, so that is a common point of contact with England. Many people in the east of the island direct their aerials to Winter Hill and watch Granada rather than Border.

When the whole of Cumbria switched to the NW from the NE for a short time in the late eighties, the BBC problem was illiminated for the island. BBC Cumbria News (an opt-out of the opt-out) even carried some Manx news very occasionally.

>>This seems a bit silly. Why don't they re-relay NW from one of the other relays on the island?
>
>Douglas does exactly that for most of them. It's technically impossible (or too expensive for Laxey). Ramsey and the north of the island get their TV direct from Caldbeck, Cumbria.

Strange. I wonder what will happen with DTT? On another point, I believe the new NWT titles contain all of the Isle of Man. Do they have any IOM placenames, though, like
Douglas or Peel.

>>I wonder in each case, where abouts on the mainland the Channel Islanders and Manx feel closer to?
>>
Many people in the east of the island direct their aerials to Winter Hill and watch Granada rather than Border.

I heard people in North Wales prefer Granada also. Is this the case?

I'm surprise the IOM doesn't have opt-outs, especially when it has its own government.

They have 75,686 people there - just under half the Channel Islands' population. Obviously they are not going to have their own ITV station or have a full BBC opt-out, you'd think they would have something.

>Many people in the east of the island direct their aerials to Winter Hill and watch Granada rather than Border.

I wouldn't say its a preference - Granada has a relay transmitter which covers quite a chunk of the North Wales coast. The Granada weather maps show it very clearly - the two 'regions' (North West and Wales) are hardly connected at all. It's rather odd but its also the reason why Granada never has onscreen weather presenters - they'd stand in front of Wales and block it off.

>I heard people in North Wales prefer Granada also. Is this the case?
>
>I'm surprise the IOM doesn't have opt-outs, especially when it has its own government.
>
>They have 75,686 people there - just under half the Channel Islands' population. Obviously they are not going to have their own ITV station or have a full BBC opt-out, you'd think they would have something.

That's nonsense Andrew, you can just put the map to the left of the presenter... some other regions do this. Granada have no in-vision weather people cos they're lazy, pure and simple.

Meridian has one of the strangest setups when they broadcast their weather on a Sunday after Meridian Tonight which an exception to the rest of the week. They provide a three-minute pan-regional forecast which is recorded at HTV Cardiff with the normal Meridian Weather graphics. The presenter (usually Emma Hignett) moves around from left to right and back again as the graphics zoom in and out of specific areas, like Kent and Essex, for example. So she never stays in the same place!

All the other local forecasts are recorded with an on-screen presenter in Southampton or just a slide with text on it, and most are locally split. Are there any other areas where the forecast is actually recorded outside the region?

Tyne Tees's weather is actualy recorded at Yorkshire Television in Leeds using YTV presenters on a weekend and when Bob Johnson is off on holiday. Granada do the same at the weekend but they don't use the on screen presenters

Emma Hignett is a Central weather person, isn't she? I remember Tyne Tees used to use Central's facilities when Bob was off, and their graphics. HTV did the same. But then when TT changed to C3NE they changed to YTV graphics and presenters when Bob was off. I think Granada use the presenters, but because they use a different computer for the graphics they just send the voice through for Granada to edit. They also use this set-up for all bulletins now as the Granada announcers who used to do it no longer work there.

Isn't it a bit strange if HTV Wales are using Meridian's graphics and Central's forecasters? How does that work then??

Ooooo I am all a quiver, I know that somewhere on this site someone commented on the New look on BBC World...I have it on infront of me now...and it knock spots off all the local, national and News24 !it is in the same style, and some how very relaxing !

I believe the United group use the same company as Central for their weather graphics (WSI?) although the graphics (apart from showing a different map, of course) are slightly different for each area. In which case, the thing must be recorded at WSI in Birmingham and fed via HTV Cardiff to Meridian Southampton. Why it isn't fed direct I'm not sure ...

>I believe the United group use the same company as Central for their weather graphics (WSI?) although the graphics (apart from showing a different map, of course) are slightly different for each area. In which case, the thing must be recorded at WSI in Birmingham and fed via HTV Cardiff to Meridian Southampton. Why it isn't fed direct I'm not sure ...

Last time I watched HTV Wales a few months back, the presenter was one of their old continuity announcers...

>That's nonsense Andrew, you can just put the map to the left of the presenter... some other regions do this. Granada have no in-vision weather people cos they're lazy, pure and simple.

To be fair to Granada, if they did as you suggest, the actual map of the region would hev to be smaller, and would have to show more areas that aren't in the Granada region. Currently the Granada weather map show very little of any area outside its region.

Also of note, Granada do of course have their own weatherman - Fred Talbot who, when This Morning is on, does the daytime weather bullitens as well as Granada Tonight. When this morning is off air, he doesn't. I've even heard Fred doing the mid morning weather voice overs for Tyne Tees . As the graphics were correct (unlike Yorkshire who never get the Tyne Tees graphics right), I'd guess he just sends it up to Newcastle and they put the graphics on.

Yes, there is Fred, but he does not do the TT weather as you say. That is a TT producer (Oliver Martlew I think his name is) who just happens to sound a bit like Fred. I know, I've met him. Jolly nice chap he is as well...

Here's a thing. TT have gone back to using the intro to the weather they were using in 1995. Can't they introduce anyhing new??

And I hate the NWT weather headlines. Apart from Diane's legs.....

la la la

>Here's a thing. TT have gone back to using the intro to the weather they were using in 1995. Can't they introduce anyhing new??

The sound of scrapping the barrel can be heard at City Road, how much can it cost to produce some new weather graphics. They only do it when the weather is sponsored, one can only hope that a new sponsor comes along soon and buys them a new weather map aswell so they can drop the YTV thing circa (1992)

>The sound of scrapping the barrel can be heard at City Road, how much can it cost to produce some new weather graphics. They only do it when the weather is sponsored, one can only hope that a new sponsor comes along soon and buys them a new weather map aswell so they can drop the YTV thing circa (1992)

The gap between Sun Life and Northumbria Water was only a week last year. Why they can't do it so that new deals start straight after each other is anyone's guess.

And what is it with weather sponsorship anyway? Its hardly flagship programming.

perhaps because it comes after the news, which itself can't be sponsored

>And what is it with weather sponsorship anyway? Its hardly flagship programming.

I think the weather has a lot of viewers, primarily because it comes after the news. Since they can't sponsor the news, sponsoring the weather is a good way to get at the viewers.

I don't think it matters whether it is flagship or not, whether people watch it is the main thing.

the corniest weather titles ever must be the one Tyne Tees used between the Lagal & General and Northumbrian Water sponsorships...it was a spinning cube with Bob Johnson in different outfits depending on the weather conditions...clasic Tyne Tees

spelt classic

Oh and that jingle, eh NF? Sort of like the silver shung shwing on some sort of drugs ... Anybody got a copy?

Paraphrased from Private Eye:

When Capital got Border, they took not very long at all splitting the wares with Granada.

So there is now an ITV 3 way split - Scotland, Granada owning the north and Carlton in the south....

With Ulster and Channel clinging to the wreckage

>So there is now an ITV 3 way split - Scotland, Granada owning the north and Carlton in the south....

Don't forget about United (though Carlton does also have a 20% stake in Meridian)

And also Granada owns LWT.

>With Ulster and Channel clinging to the wreckage

An intersting thing about UTV is that they used to own a stake in the Republic's Third channel TV3. They actually sold the stake before the channel went on air. The idea was to have 'An Irish ITV' - basically through agreement with ITV, they would act like a UK regional ITV company, taking network output and doing their own 'local' programmes. For one reason or another, this didn't happen. UTV also sold their stake (I'm not sure whether this was connected). UTV were getting unhappy about this idea as well because TV3 would have replaced them on cable TV in the republic, meaning southern viewers couldn't watch their regional shows (including advertising).

On another point, UTV is 40% owned by CanWest. Do any other ITV companies have such a large foreign ownership?

As for Channel, I don't think they can be legally bought out by anyone. Though they will presumably always have a link with Meridian.

Channel might me owned by an illegal Jersey mafia.......

Are they still repeating Bergerac in the afternoons, Líam?!

CanWest have large stakes in both UTV and TVthree

>CanWest have large stakes in both UTV and TVthree
See http://www.canwestglobal.com/overview/operations.html#ire

>Are they still repeating Bergerac in the afternoons, Líam?!


*doo-doodoooo dah-dah-dah.....*

>>Are they still repeating Bergerac in the afternoons, Líam?!
>
>
>*doo-doodoooo dah-dah-dah.....*

Hehe.. Last time I saw it in the afternoons a few weeks back (just watched the opening titles, obviously, not the whole show!) I noticed they've stuck a '97 BBC logo in the titles, which looks particluarly bad given the grainy filmstock in the background.

Just 2 days to the return of Points West!

You can see how the studio is progressing by looking on the web cams on the BBC Bristol Online site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol

It seems we are getting a full sofa, rather than just an armchair! The studio seems very yellow and blue as well.

I can hardly wait!

Oh, David. Are you going to have to laminate your television before 6.30pm?

South Today has received the corporate look today as well.

So this leaves how many regions still to relaunch? I think it's just Look East and East Midlands Today left.

Has Spotlight had the new look in the South West?

I think I read somewhere that it had...

South Today has the same beepy music as NSE, but there's lots of maroon and orange in the title sequence. Yeah ... lovely.

It's been reported on the MHP list that East Midlands Today and Look East will switch to corporate look on 5th June.

I haven't heard that Spotlight has changed, but it may have done so.

Has South Today got a proper video wall, or has it had to make do like Midlands Today? (whilst I am at it, does it have a sofa area as well?) And will there be enough video walls for East Midlands and Look East I wonder?

>Has South Today got a proper video wall, or has it had to make do like Midlands Today? (whilst I am at it, does it have a sofa area as well?)

It does have a video wall, smaller than Newsroom South East's, but much bigger than the Midlands Today 'window'.

And it does have a separate area with some comfy chairs.

So it's:

Reporting Scotland - oval desk, blue wall, large window
Newsline - oval desk, large window
Look North (NE C) - small desk, small window, comfy seating area
NWT - comfy seating area
Look North (Y,L, NM) - oval desk, medium window, yellow walls
Midlands Today - silly window, blue wall
Points West - big desk, seating area, two windows (very impressive!)
Wales Today - roundish desk, bench, large window, raised area for weather
NSE - large window, separate chair (no sofa)

What about the others? And not quite a uniform look is it?! I think Points West would be my favourite, and thw wooden spoon goes to Midlands Today.

Come to notice it, South Today's window looks suspiciously like a cheapy CSO blue screen.

Looks like they've run out of video walls.

The ITC today received a formal expression of interest from Anglia Television Ltd to renew their licence from 1 January 2001.

Anglia Television Ltd has provided the ITC with business plans and details of their proposed service to be provided over the next 10 year period of the licence to assist the ITC in determining the value of the renewed licence.

The ITC will take account of the costs and revenues associated with current licence obligations and any firm commitments from licensees to improve upon these obligations (by, for example, developing the programme service or increasing their commitment to training). The ITC must set the amounts to be paid to Government by licensees over the next ten years.

The licensee can either accept the financial terms set by the ITC or reject them, in which case the licence will be readvertised by competitive tender. The terms are not a matter of negotiation.

>The ITC today received a formal expression of interest from Anglia Television Ltd to renew their licence from 1 January 2001.

I thought all the franchises were already sorted till 2009. Or were some regions left out?

>I thought all the franchises were already sorted till 2009. Or were some regions left out?

I seem to remeber that some franchisees rejected the terms of renewal offered a year or so ago, and decided to wait until this point as they thought the ITC was asking for too much money (or something like that).

Some of the ITV companies have had their franchises renewed until 2009 including CARLTON LONDON & CENTRAL, HTV and ANGLIA

So all the regions have now gone BBC corporate. While Points West is still the winner, special mention must got to the thrifty people in Plymouth who repainted the old Spotlight set rather than build a new one, and the rather cheap looking 'window' used on South Today.

So how soon before the look is broken? It'll be interesting to see what look London Live, South East Tonight (???) and the new super-duper South Today go for next year...

>So how soon before the look is broken? It'll be interesting to see what look London Live, South East Tonight (???) and the new super-duper South Today go for.

I wonder what will happen in 8 or so years, when the BBC decide to change their corporate look away from the beeps and drums. Will all the regions have to follow suit?

>So all the regions have now gone BBC corporate. While Points West is still the winner,

Hooray - a winner in the West! But yes, it does seem to be the best, especially with the 2 "windows" at the back of the studio looking out on the Suspension bridge.

>special mention must got to the thrifty people in Plymouth who repainted the old Spotlight set rather than build a new one,

I have to say I am not surprised at this. When I first saw the old look Spotlight I was struck by how close it was to the national set (with the obvious addition of a lighthouse). This was at a time when not many regions had changed, so it seemed as if they had almost planned for the future with it!

>So how soon before the look is broken? It'll be interesting to see what look London Live, South East Tonight (???) and the new super-duper South Today go for next year...

I think it is probably still too early to ditch the look next year, so they will probably keep this look. I noticed that the Look East opt-out bit has the same look (even a proper desk etc) as the main programme and I imagine that the Oxford South Today opt-out will be done like this.

>I noticed that the Look East opt-out bit has the same look (even a proper desk etc) as the main programme and I imagine that the Oxford South Today opt-out will be done like this.

Wouldn't it make sense to have slightly different titles for opt-outs with only the area in the opt-out shown. Of course this would cost money.

But for the Channel Islands opt-out (only at 9.27pm iirc), it seems strange that they would use the normal spotlight titles which I believe only show the islands briefly. Do they?

It seems strange to me that South Today didn't stick Oxfordshire in their titles now - surely they are going to have to do a new version next year?

And what about the Tunbridge Wells programme - South East Tonight? Look South East? Points South East? South East at 6.25?

Does the map for South Today cover the Oxfordshire region? I don't imagine it is that difficult to bring out new versions of the titles once you have done one...

As for the South East: Spotlight South-East? South-East Today? Reporting South-East? Newsroom South East? London Plus?!?

Newsline South East? News South East? Scene Around Six Thirty? South East Live? South East Calendar? Day by Day to Coast? South Eastern Life? Good Evening South East? Newyddion South East? Inside South East? Today South East? About South East? South East Diary?

Kent Plus?
Kent Live?
Newsroom Extremely SouthEast?
Nearly France?

Actually the region itself will end up rather small. How many people will be living in the new region, and how will it compare in size to other regions.

Newsroom South East used to claim their region was 12 million people. If there's 6 or 7 million in the new BBC London, and 700,000 in the Oxford area that's joining BBC South, then there's still 4 or 5 million or so in the South East.

Meanwhile BBC Northern Ireland and BBC South West have populations of just over 1.5 million.

How about:

"Hello Kent"?

Inspired by the recent comment by Jeremy Paxman that the nickname for London Plus among the production team was "sod off Kent":-))

> Newsroom South East used to claim their region was 12 million people. If there's 6 or 7 million in the new BBC London, and 700,000 in the Oxford area that's joining BBC South, then there's still 4 or 5 million or so in the South East.

The new South East region is only Kent and East Sussex - too small in my opinion, it should have included West Sussex as well - which in total is about 2 million.

The London region will consist of London AND the home counties, so it'll be more like 10 million.

>> Newsroom South East used to claim their region was 12 million people. If there's 6 or 7 million in the new BBC London, and 700,000 in the
Oxford area that's joining BBC South, then there's still 4 or 5 million or so in the South East.

> The new South East region is only Kent and East Sussex - too small in my opinion, it should have included West Sussex as well - which in total
is about 2 million.

To put West Sussex in with East Sussex and Kent would be a technical nightmare as it is served by different transmitters: Crystal Palace to the north, Midhurst to the west, Rowridge to the south and Heathfield to the east. You could change the Heathfield and Midhurst txrs to receive the BBC South East service, but that would mean viewers in Hampshire that use Midhurst would have their main news from Kent instead of just down the road from Southampton ...

Maybe when everything goes digital properly (DTT tranmitters can alter their strength in each individual direction) it will be possible to rework the regions so they're a better shape

The BBC's plans are to get more sub-regions. After the South and South East business, they are considering sub-opts for the northern regions.

This was first mooted back in the late eighties in the days of the giant BBC North East. Newcastle was to be split into north and south, and the Leeds region into east and west for short bulletins. I wonder why nothing came of it?

>The BBC's plans are to get more sub-regions. After the South and South East business, they are considering sub-opts for the northern regions.

You'd think Scotland would have opt-outs. The same 'local' programmes from Shetland to Stranraer? I know Reporting Scotland markets itself (or used to) as 'Your only National News', but even so, I think Inverness should have an opt-out. How does Rep Scot compare to Lookaround/Scotland Today/North Tonight?

Actually, I have heard rumours of an Aberdeen sub-opt as well. Meanwhile when I was in Stranraer a few years ago, I ended up watching Inside Ulster!

Yes - although subregions are a bit of a half-hearted effort, better than nothing though, and ITV are way ahead of BBC on this - shameful, the dreaded Carlton (actually Westcountry) broadcast 4 optouts in the South West.

If they're going to go to all this trouble, why not just have lots of mini regions?

>Actually, I have heard rumours of an Aberdeen sub-opt as well. Meanwhile when I was in Stranraer a few years ago, I ended up watching Inside Ulster!

Certainly in Portpatrick (down the coast), the Divis Picture is much better than the Cambret Hill picture (Divis is 5 times stronger on most channels, though is is further away). Also, due to the lack of DTT in south-west scotland, if you put a Stranraer post-code into one of the DTT reception predictors, then it will return the coverage as uncertain, but the best bet as being Divis!

They can also get RTE in parts of SW Scotland.

>This was first mooted back in the late eighties in the days of the giant BBC North East. Newcastle was to be split into north and south, and the Leeds region into east and west for short bulletins. I wonder why nothing came of it?

The BBC studied spliting NE&C into North and South but decided against it because a large part of Gateshead and South Tyneside would receive the souther opt -out. This fear has proved unfounded as Tyne Tees has had an opt out for years. The BBC promised to look at it again when Network North started.

Sorry - uneduacated person here - Network North?

>Sorry - uneduacated person here - Network North?

I think it is/was a Tyne Tees sub-opt-out.

>>Sorry - uneduacated person here - Network North?
>
>I think it is/was a Tyne Tees sub-opt-out.

Not really an opt out - there were two programmes - one for north (Tyne Tees Today) and one for the south (Network North). Sub region. Ran from 1993-1995 when both programmes were renamed Tyne Tees News. They were still different programmes though.

I can't help wonder what will happen to London Live (TV). London Live has its own corporate brand, as does English Regions news.

Perhaps it's style will encompas both.

Do note also that the current Newsroom South East set is at Elstree. London Live will be based at Marlelybone High Street. Which doesn't look a very big building to fit a TV news show, a radio station and an online presence in. I'd guess there is more to it than meets the eye

>I can't help wonder what will happen to London Live (TV). London Live has its own corporate brand, as does English Regions news.

Well, the new BBC Breakfast won't have the corate identity, so London Live might not. What will the region be called, though? BBC London?
>
>
>Do note also that the current Newsroom South East set is at Elstree.

Yeah - why was it off the air last night? Was the power cut in Elstree as well (not knowing how far Elstree is from TVC)?
> London Live will be based at Marlelybone High Street.

Was that the old Radio Times offices?

>Well, the new BBC Breakfast won't have the corate identity, so London Live might not. What will the region be called, though? BBC London?

Probably. I'm sure they'd call it London Live region if they could get away with it :)



>Yeah - why was it off the air last night? Was the power cut in Elstree as well (not knowing how far Elstree is from TVC)?

Quite far actually. I couldn't say why NSE was off air. Perhaps it was something to do with the switching facilities for BBC South East.

>> London Live will be based at Marlelybone
>> High Street.
>Was that the old Radio Times offices?

Not sure but its quite plausible. It was formerly home of GLR. London Live Radio/Online is currently at the World Service/BBC Online building, Bush House

>>>Sorry - uneduacated person here - Network North?
>>
>>I think it is/was a Tyne Tees sub-opt-out.
>
>Not really an opt out - there were two programmes - one for north (Tyne Tees Today) and one for the south (Network North). Sub region. Ran from 1993-1995 when both programmes were renamed Tyne Tees News. They were still different programmes though.
>
>apologies, i admit it was an over-simplification

What did we think of the stand-in BBC News at Nine last night, I like what they had better than the normal set, nice and purple.
A though occurs, if NSE was off air, could News at 9 have taken over their studio for the night and they couldn't use it for local news? only a thought.

In unrelated stuff - I want my name in red, I think I've been here long enough, how do I register to stop my name being taken in vain?

Why would someone take your name in vain?

>A though occurs, if NSE was off air, could News at 9 have taken over their studio for the night and they couldn't use it for local news? only a thought.

Millbank is a nearer studio than Elstree I think.

NSE were really screwed by it. Their 10:28 bulliten started very badly with Gillian Joseph sat their invision while the title music whirled in the background. Interestingly, she was sat in the small studio they use for the breakfast bullitens... And she had the whole of one report. They had a big story about ports and things (related to those 60 Chinese immigrants) and obviously wanted to show it on the night. So they did. At 10:28.

Oh well!

Charley Figgis made a rare appearance nationwide, during the bizarre setup that was Breakfast News on News 24, yesterday morning.

At the end we were treated to her sitting glumly in silence before we cut to a static Breakfast News caption. I presume that a trailer was being shown on BBC 1.

>At the end we were treated to her sitting glumly in silence before we cut to a static Breakfast News caption. I presume that a trailer was being shown on BBC 1.


Why not just show the trailer as well? Strange...

Well then I have no idea. Please someone tell me how I can get my name in red

Everyone getting their name in red devalues it. I do not intend to go red.

So there(!)

>Everyone getting their name in red devalues it. I do not intend to go red.

What if you are ashamed of something?

Yes, Elstree's much farther out than Millbank from TVC. It's not even in London, for a start. =]

On Breakfast News, it is a bit sad to flick through the regions and see that every opt-out is the same set....

I thought you were long gone Líam? (Incidentally, email me your new address for that secret video I'm copying for you...)

The regions don't have the same set for Breakfast News (although they used to, and very professional it looked too).

[email protected]


And I'll be brave....

54 Birkdale Drive
Ashton-on-Ribble
Lea
Preston
PR2 1UN


*awaits stalking *

>PR2 1UN
>*awaits stalking *

No stalking from me, but you may or may not be interested to know that you can get all 6 DTT Multiplexes from Winter Hill. I don't know if you actually have OnDigital or not...

>New ITV map:
>North Scotland: Carlton
>Central Scotland: Carlton
>Cumbria, SW Scotland, the Borders and the Isle of Man: Carlton
>Northern Ireland: Carlton
>North West England: Carlton
>North East: Carlton
>South, west and east Yorkshire and Lincolnshire: Carlton
>East Anglia: Carlton
>Midland (east, south and west): Carlton
>Wales: Carlton
>Gloucestershire, Avon, Somerset: Carlton
>South West: Carlton
>South coast, South East and Thames Valley: Carlton
>Channel Islands: Carlton
>London (weekdays): Carlton
>London (weekends): Carlton
>
>And let's rename ITV2. How about Carlton2?

New Itv Map should be more like this, surely:

Scotland: Scottish- Scottish Media...
Ireland: Granada
North West (Cumbria included) Granada
Yorkshire: Granada TV
Newcastle tttv region: Granada
Wales: Granada
Central (Wrexham, Shrops, Staffs, Hereford & Worcester, Glouc, West Mids, Warks, Leic, Lincs, Notts, Derbs, Northants, Oxon, north Wilts) Carlton
Eastern region (Cambs, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essx, Beds, Bucks, Herts) Carlton
Capital: Carlton
South-South East: Carlton
Devon and Cornwall (current Westcountry region) Carlton
Bristol and Avon, west Wilts and Somerset: Granada
Channel region: Granada

ITV 2010 consists of 2 major companies: Granada & Carlton. No region has sub-regions for news because, for example, in the Central region Leicester and Derby (in the east region) are featured every night on Birmingham Tonight- sorry Central News West- when they've run out of 'second city' stories.

Thank you!

THIS SECTION HAS BEEN FILLED. NEW MESSAGES ARE NOT NEEDED FOR 'THE BEST LOCAL TV PROGRAMMES'. FOR A RELATED SECTION GO TO CENTRAL NEWS OR MIDLANDS TODAY FOR MORE ON REGIONAL PROGRAMMING.

*Manager*? You think we're stupid or something?!

Now there's a stroke of luck! I go home for the weekend and UTV get new idents!

>Now there's a stroke of luck! I go home for the weekend and UTV get new idents!

Oh goodie - its been ages since I had some new idents to peruse on ITV - although SDN have just launched Simply Money on Channel 40something, and I'm very impressed - has anyone with DTT watched this channel? - I love it!

>*Manager*? You think we're stupid or something?!

You must be! (Think about it)

>Now there's a stroke of luck! I go home for the weekend and UTV get new idents!

They look geat on Digital - wow, UTV actually know how to do 16:9 anamorphic widescreen. And they've managed the ads okay (though all the ad breaks I saw during SM:tv live had no sound - actually they had the studio sound from SM:Tv Live. No one said any bad words - well, the worst was @Oh my God' from Ant or Dec.)

Pity Julian Simmons isn't 16:9 yet, he'd have more room to wave his hands around when introing Coronation Street!

*awaits Damian's mystery package*

And did anyone else see the itv "filler" news just before nightscreen this morning, or was that just a nasty nightmare...?

>
>And did anyone else see the itv "filler" news just before nightscreen this morning, or was that just a nasty nightmare...?

Do tell...

Can't remember now (!)

But Damian, please send any missives
to [email protected]

This is MESSAGE 300 and this strand has been going for nearly eight and a half months!

Is this some kind of record?

>This is MESSAGE 300 and this strand has been going for nearly eight and a half months!
>
>Is this some kind of record?

Dunno. So anyway, what is the best Local TV programme?

>Dunno. So anyway, what is the best Local TV programme?

It's obvious.

North West Tonight, with Gordon Burns.

Look North (Y, L, and NM). Particularly when Peter Levy stands in for Hairy Gration.

>Look North (Y, L, and NM). Particularly when Peter Levy stands in for Hairy Gration.

Newsline with Noel Thompson is good.

Oh, and according to OnComment, from Monday 2nd October 2000, all news, including some regional news will be in 16:9 widescreen.

Presumably Scotland, Wales and NI will all go 16:9 (Definately Wales as the BBC Choice Wales News is already 16:9) though don't know about English Regions. It will be interesting to see how the headlines at 6pm and the 'Coming Up' at 6.15 are handled if some regions aren't yet 16:9.

>Presumably Scotland, Wales and NI will all go 16:9 (Definately Wales as the BBC Choice Wales News is already 16:9) though don't know about English Regions. It will be interesting to see how the headlines at 6pm and the 'Coming Up' at 6.15 are handled if some regions aren't yet 16:9.

I'll be interested to see how the news sets cope with this - they really don't look designed at all to handle widescreen. Especially how close some of the presenters sit! It'll be 'spot the co-presenters elbow' methinks.

>I'll be interested to see how the news sets cope with this - they really don't look designed at all to handle widescreen. Especially how close some of the presenters sit! It'll be 'spot the co-presenters elbow' methinks.

It shouldn't be that bad - some of the height of the picture will go so that they will only be slightly wider, and even then, this will only be visible via digital.

>Oh, and according to OnComment, from Monday 2nd October 2000, all news, including some regional news will be in 16:9 widescreen.

I've just heard this too, from another source, although there was no mention of the nations and regions. I suspect Manchester and Birmingham will do. They might not bother for Newsroom South East though.

Actually, here's an interesting thought. Much has been made about the new BBC London region, but where will the new BBC South East be based? No one seems to know.

The BBC are investing huge amounts of money in a brand new centre at Tunbridge Wells for the South East, which I think will also be the new home for Radio Kent.

Tell me: are the home counties included in the London version or the South East version?

London region, unfortunately. It should be exactly the same as the Carlton/LWT region, so it's not just London, but Surrey, West Kent, South Essex, Herts, South Bucks and East Berkshire.

Tunbridge Wells will serve East Sussex, Kent and Extreme south of Essex a la Meridian Tonight Maidstone. London region will have a programme for london only ( Maybe they'll call it London Plus....after all Points West has returned!) and I believe there'll be some form of arrangement for the Thames Valey and Oxfordshire to have a version of South Today tailored to their region.

>Tunbridge Wells will serve East Sussex, Kent and Extreme south of Essex a la Meridian Tonight Maidstone. London region will have a programme for london only ( Maybe they'll call it London Plus....after all Points West has returned!)

Nope. It's due to be called London Live.

>>Maybe they'll call it London Plus....after all Points West has returned!)

>Nope. It's due to be called London Live.

I think the reason for "London Plus" anyway was that it was London, plus other bits.

On a slightly different point (just to keep thi thread going) does anyone think that TV regions have created communities because of their coverage rather than reflected existing regions?

Do Channel Islanders feel close to the South West of England because that is their BBC region? North-East and Cumbria seems a pretty bizarre region - even more so Border ITV.

Anyone?

Apparently the good people of Cumbria feel marginally closer to Newcastle than to Manchester, hence it moving back to BBC NE & C in the early nineties.

Doing research for my dissertation, I've come across the view that broadcasting helped to create modern Wales, as that nation was bitterly divided between north and south, and between Welsh and English speakers for decades. Similarly, it could be argued that radio, and especially TV, helped define a seperate Northern Irish culture, over and above the community differences.

>Similarly, it could be argued that radio, and especially TV, helped define a seperate Northern Irish culture, over and above the community differences.

I think that is the case - certainly Gerry Anderson (the Radio Ulster presenter) thinks so - in an interview in the NI version of the Radio Times some years ago, he said that there is definately a shared Northern Irish identity - not just people who say they are British or Irish.

I wonder what the effect of having UTV (and in some areas HTV Wales) has been on the people of the Irish Republic, if any.

>Apparently the good people of Cumbria feel marginally closer to Newcastle than to Manchester

That's maybe because they are.

As a Manxman, on my first visit to Carlisle, I had to pay homage to Bullough's department store.
I had my photograph taken outside.
Border Television had a lot to answer for.

>As a Manxman, on my first visit to Carlisle, I had to pay homage to Bullough's department store.
>I had my photograph taken outside.
>Border Television had a lot to answer for.

If I get a chance to spend some time in the Border region, I'll make sure I visit Colourvision in Carlisle, the Cumberland Building Society, Border Cars etc etc.

Border TV does seem very parocial, but not as much as BBC Radio Jersey - they make a point of mentioning every morning that the UK papers have arrived safely on the island!

Manchester never made an effort to include Cumbria in the news bulletins, I'm not sure how the original switch came about or for that matter why we went back to Mike Neville (NE&C). But for my licence fee Mike is/was far better than Stuart Hall and John Mundy ever were.

Everyone in Cumbria thinks Mike has retired! If only they knew!

Point taken about Bulloughs, perhaps Richard would like to visit a Chapmans sale?

The BBC reorganised the regional structure in 1986 replacing the two BBC Norths with one BBC North East (although it produced two seperate regional services). Presumably it was felt that Cumbria shouldn't be a part of the North East.

(For a brief period BBC1 North East appeared onscreen in the Leeds region, but viewers complained about the name change, and they went back to calling it BBC North).

There was another reorganisation in 1989/90 with BBC North East and North West being merged into a giant BBC North, run from Manchester. It was eventually decided that Cumbria would be better served by the Newcastle service rather than Manchester.

>It was eventually decided that Cumbria would be better served by the Newcastle service rather than Manchester.

I heard somewhere (possibly on this forum) that the IoM is still BBC NEC, except during regional output, when it switches to an inferior source for NWT. What happens to Ceefax? Does it change clumsily?

Don't worry Richard, we won't let this topic die...

>Don't worry Richard, we won't let this topic die...

Okay...

It's just that this was the first topic I posted under when I found this forum (iirc) a few months ago so I have a sort of fondness for it!

Plus the fact that it's a kick in the teeth to the comedy people(!!!!)

>I heard somewhere (possibly on this forum) that the IoM is still BBC NEC, except during regional output, when it switches to an inferior source for NWT. What happens to Ceefax? Does it change clumsily?

Yes

I notice that TTTV have abandoned the hour long NET now that Mike's off on his hols and they've gone back to two seperate programmes for the North and South of the region.....ahh the days of Network North!

Best Local TV Programme?

1970's Reporting Scotland. Emerson, Lake and Palmer theme tune, Mary Marquis presenting. A kind of charm to its dullness

>I notice that TTTV have abandoned the hour long NET now that Mike's off on his hols and they've gone back to two seperate programmes for the North and South of the region.....ahh the days of Network North!

Blimey. Pam Royale not getting a chance to be in the limelight then?

Perhaps this is a sign of things to come. Are both shows still North East Tonight perchance? Are they just 30 mins? And what's in the other 30 mins (Wheel of Fortune perchance...)

Bods sees a Tyne Tees Logo Page update coming...

>And what's in the other 30 mins (Wheel of Fortune perchance...)


Yeah - and all the granada stations seem to be following suit. So I think UTV is the only station using the full hour as news/lifestyle.

>I notice that TTTV have abandoned the hour long NET now that Mike's off on his hols and they've gone back to two seperate programmes for the North and South of the region.....ahh the days of Network North!

Certainly on Monday it was from Newcastle with Pam, inlcuding the usual opt-out from Belasis.

On the subject of the opt-out, when we return to Newcaslte Mike normally says thank you (whoever has done the opt out). So, to do this, they musn't opt out until the vt that follows..

>On the subject of the opt-out, when we return to Newcaslte Mike normally says thank you (whoever has done the opt out). So, to do this, they musn't opt out until the vt that follows..


The way it used to work was this - for Newcastle it was all done live. For Teeside, for some reason they'd bung up the NET logo, then Mike would hand over (pre-recorded link type thing). So what happens is that Teeside is always about five seconds behind Newcastle. Newcastle ends it by showing a joint shot of both presenters then cut to Mike when Teeside joins in.

Certainly this is how it was last May...

Are those 30 mins a normal 30 mins or a BBC Look North (NE&C) half hour which the rest of us would say was about 25 minutes?

Checked again tonight and NET was from Newcastle presented by Pam, with Belasis opt-out.

Forgot to mention that on Monday the announcer said "with Mike Neville", same thing happened with Calendar not too long ago, Geoff Druett and Lesley Alexander were presenting, but the announcer said "with Christa Ackroyd and Mike Morris", suppose they just never get told if it's someone different...

It was a strange one that one, it sounded like someone was talking in her ear at the time because she clearly hesitated before saying the name.

And then got it wrong anyway. D'oh!

Special mention to BBC North who managed to get the Sian Williams/Peter Levy combination correct at 6pm tonight. Now if they would only record a Fiona Bruce/Peter Levy one they'd be covered for all circumstances!

Good news: Granada Tonight is now twice as good as it was.
Good news: Granada's intellectual output is up.
Wheel of Fortune has worked wonders, by replacing the first half.

Thats true -- G2nite is much better- I dont think it is as good as the old purple pink oval one was- see tv-ark.co.uk for that one-
WHAT HAPPENED TO HAZEL BARRETT? She was great better than lucy meacock anyway.
Anyone remember when the continuity announcer used to do the news -- LOL
The show is an improvement now it is only 30 mins= but they still manage to get the regular Horse or other cute fluffy animal feature in dont they!!
If what I saw yesterday (new granada idents on trailers) is anything to go by then G2nite should be getting a new look.

HI
What about a Nicholas Witchell/Clare Frisby combination?. These are usually done by Ian White rather than the usual annoucer.

Where do they keep getting these presenters from on Look North that appear once every 3 months?!.
This week we;ve had Dean Pepple, Charlotte Doney & Helen Cherle ?

(name removed) and (name removed) are the authors of this "interesting" web site.

At 10.30 on TTTV we got the Newcastle opt, this has happened a couple of times over the last week or so. I wonder if with holidays they're short of staff at Belasis?

"This is BBC One in the North West. Now the 6 o'clock news with Fiona Bruce and Tony Morris"

How I leaped with joy!

>"This is BBC One in the North West. Now the 6 o'clock news with Fiona Bruce and Tony Morris"
>
>How I leaped with joy!

Oh wow. He's come up in the world!

Actually does anyone think its rather odd that at one point he's presenting a late night comedy BBC 2 Chat Show, while still standing outside buildings, getting wet while reporting for NWT :)

I don't often leap for joy here in London, however I did spot former GLR presenter Jules Botefield on the NSE Breakfast Bulliten.

I guess you had to be there :)

>I guess you had to be there :)

BBC NI have had a few new presenters recently - Karen Patterson often reads the news during Breakfast News. She was recently poached from Downtown/Cool FM News by the BBC. Now no-one knows what I'm talking about!

I know who you mean, but I've never listened to Downtown...

Karen is one of the 'new young things' like Adam Smyth, and Sara Travers. Funny how Alison Comyn was fastracked straight to network programmes...

Clare Nasir Moved from Anglia ther weato London weather, and Pete Gibbs went from BBC East weather to Network & News24 forecasts. Patrick Anthony went from his Friday night cookery slot *Patricks Pantry* on About Anglia to Ready, Steady, Cook.

>>As for Best Local TV Programme, well the current run of Cover Story on Anglia has been very good.

And TOny Morris has gone from national to regional tv......and no-one's noticed.

Andrew Harvey's gone from BBC Six O'Clock News to BBC Breakfast News to BBC South Today to BBC News 24 to ITN News Channel and even the occasional appearance on ITV News bulletins.

Everywhere really.

Good news for Tyne Tees fans!

TTTV are rebranding on September 4th. New corporate logo, new idents, new-look North East Tonight...

The bad news is that they are planning on having a DOG during NET and other live programmes.

Still it's a goodbye to all those horrible chunky Keyframe graphics they've had for far too long!

The move has been in the planning stages for about nine months, and was commissioned by Tyne Tees regional promotions from YTTTV graphics. YTTTV graphics have recently invested heavily in equipment for Newcastle, and according to the head of graphics Newcastle is now better equipped than Leeds.

I wonder what this means? No more ITV hearts or just a regional-only ident ala YTV? Will YTV or Granada get new looks as well?

>Good news for Tyne Tees fans!
>
>TTTV are rebranding on September 4th. New corporate logo, new idents, new-look North East Tonight...
>
>The bad news is that they are planning on having a DOG during NET and other live programmes.
>
>Still it's a goodbye to all those horrible chunky Keyframe graphics they've had for far too long!
>
>The move has been in the planning stages for about nine months, and was commissioned by Tyne Tees regional promotions from YTTTV graphics. YTTTV graphics have recently invested heavily in equipment for Newcastle, and according to the head of graphics Newcastle is now better equipped than Leeds.
>
>I wonder what this means? No more ITV hearts or just a regional-only ident ala YTV? Will YTV or Granada get new looks as well?

Well this does sound like good news, although the bit about investing in new equipment in Newcastle is news to me, I must say. You mention the Keyframe graphics, I take it you mean the weather here -- I thought all Granada North stations were contracted to this company for these graphics?

As for Newcastle being better equipped than Leeds, lets hope this new-found equipment will be put to good use, rather than languishing and collecting dust like the expensive rendering computers YTV installed at Newcastle in 1996 which were never used due to a lack of training.

All sounds like good news anyway -- but I thought Granada Media were rebranding all the stations with similar "looks" to reinforce GMG's branding. We'll have to see, anyway. Thanks for the post Damian.

Keyframe are a Leeds based independent graphics house. They did the last YTV idents, Calendar, other YTV regional programmes, We Can Work it Out, and North East Tonight.

They seem to have a house style of chunky, 3D graphics (preferably with a chrome finish!)

Hmmmmmm, chunky. How very 80's...

Just a thought, these new graphics have been commissioned by TT regional. So this is the first rebranding actually commissioned by TT in 8 years (C3NE was commissioned by our mate Bruce, the latest TT one by Granada Media and the present ITV one by network centre). I'm looking forward to a good job on this one...

I think the hearts will die, as what's the point of bringing out a new look if it's hardly ever seen? I get the feeling TT is being used as the pilot for the Granada stations in general, which can only be a good thing. Presumably Granada's promised more regional continuity will take force then as well?

I've seen a black and white still of one of the idents. Difficult to judge, but certainly an improvement on the current one. You'll be delighted to know that the

TT
TV

formation stays, but in a new font and with the addition of circles. There seems to be a floaty background of circles, and the image I've seen had the angel of the north in it as well.

Sorry I don't have access to a scanner!

>I know who you mean, but I've never listened to Downtown...

Then you won't know that Keith Burnside of 'Crimecall' fame now reads the news for the two stations.

Also, his company, 'Burnmac' which makes 'Crimecall' is based in Kinnegar, Holywood, Co Down, beside 'The Dirty Duck' pub which is his really centre of operations, alledgedly.

Good old Keith!

He read my name out on my fifth birthday!

>I've seen a black and white still of one of the idents. Difficult to judge, but certainly an improvement on the current one. You'll be delighted to know that the
>
>TT
>TV
>
>formation stays, but in a new font and with the addition of circles. There seems to be a floaty background of circles, and the image I've seen had the angel of the north in it as well.
>
>Sorry I don't have access to a scanner!


Ahh sounds magical! Floaty circles, well they do like floaty things in their idents/title sequences. Will the new look North East Tonight get new music. I notice NET with Mike Neville were advertising for staff again in todays Guardian....with no sign of a TTTV logo just a Granada Media logo the hideous YTTTV logo. Oh and I bet YTV don't let Sept 4th go without a relaunch of Calendar News..they always revamp it at the same time as NET, they have done for the last 4 years anyway

Calendar hasn't been revamped at all in four years!

>Calendar hasn't been revamped at all in four years!

Yes, this is completely true. Testament to the superior graphical quality of Calendar, I guess. NET is beginning to look very dated now, and to be honest I always thought that it's graphics were in-house (certainly the second incarnation), they just have that strange Tyne Tees quirkiness to them (NF will know what I mean!!)

On the continuity side, I'm hoping they fix these generic announcements at the same time, having a smart new logo and having Maggie in Leeds still referring to ITV just won't do.

The current Calendar look is designed to match the old idents with the revolving 3D metallic effect chevron. (Thank you Keyframe!)

I was expecting it to be revamped to match the new YTV regional idents last year. The YTTTV graphics people are very keen to brand their output properly, (hence the TTTV new look) so I would expect a Calendar revamp in the near future.

It would be nice to think that Sept 4th will see the end of the ITV idents completely for both TT and YTV. And YTV doesn't really need a completely new set, the current regional ident is quite nice!

I'm hoping for new NET theme music aswell thats realy dated as well now. As for Calendar. I've just been thinking back to when I lived in Leeds and yes your right, it has been a while since the last revamp, though didn't they have their purple phase about 3 years ago.

I'm absolutely positive there will be more music. The staff in Billingham have seen the new logo as well (well obviously...), and as I am sure Damian will confirm the new one is a lot more subtle than the present one, and would probably better suit a more soothing jingle, so having the same bangy-crashy NET theme music wouldn't fit.

I am positive that the hearts will disappear from North-East screens at least, for the following reasons...

1) Granada Media wish to strengthen the corporate brand along with that of the stations. Having a new logo for TT and then slowly getting rid of the hearts just wouldn't be right.

2) (most importantly) The new logo is different to the old one. They have not just changed it around a bit. Therefore to keep the hearts going they would have to change all 35 or so of the idents to fit the new model. Why bother with that -- it would just end up looking a mess and detract from all the work done anyway.

I also think it's refreshing that these have been done in-house. In these times of spending millions on flash designers who often have no idea what they're doing (right there you go, one word "orange" in an orange box. That'll be 12 million pounds please!!"). Having said this I hope it's a good job -- mind you I am told it's a darned sight better than the old one (not difficult). Just wish I could get a sneaky peak now...

>It would be nice to think that Sept 4th will see the end of the ITV idents completely for both TT and YTV. And YTV doesn't really need a completely new set, the current regional ident is quite nice!

I find quite unusual that the local YTV idents don't have any writing on them, All the previous ones said "Yorkshire Television" on them. As the announcer doesn't say any company name, people might not know what the Y stands for.

I always thought that all the Granada regions would have idents like YTV's with the logo on the left and a pic on the right, after all they did at Christmas.

In relation to the Calendar purple era, this look was used during the back end of the time when the YTV logo fell into the screen and into the first bit of the Channel 3 era.

talking of calender , i hope they don't get rid of the classic theme if there is going to be a relaunch.
tou can hear the full version at:
www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/continuity/itv_start.html

I've been on hols and missed all the excitment, but a DOG on live progs? YURGH!

>talking of calender

I thought we were talking of Calendar

>>talking of calender
>
>I thought we were talking of Calendar

oh sorry spelling king!

Well, here we are, less than a week to go to the new look Tyne Tees, and the possibility of a new Calendar!

Are we all excited?! Any guess as to what we'll get?

>Well, here we are, less than a week to go to the new look Tyne Tees, and the possibility of a new Calendar!
>
>Are we all excited?! Any guess as to what we'll get?

Maybe I'm getting old, but I am not struck with any great anticipation! I'll probably have a trawl theough the net next week to see what has happened though.

We're also less than a month away from the Jeremey and Moira show that is the new look Breakfast News on the BBC.

It appears that Tanya's Business Briefing will be saved in one form or the other.....

>We're also less than a month away from the Jeremey and Moira show that is the new look Breakfast News on the BBC.
>
I thought it was happening on Oct 2 along with the other news going widescreen. What is the actual date, then?

Also, is newsnight going widescreen? And are they doing new titles (again?!) or are the existing ones widescreen?

Is it really going to take 2 weeks for Tyne Tees to sort out the new look what are they doing building a brand new studio?
Even the BBC just spent one week on the new look Look North (NE&C).

Its just typical, Tyne Tees get their first major revamp for years and years and I'm not even in the country to see it.....it realy isn't that important is it?

Some of us have been hauled over hot coals for not being sufficiently pro-Tyne Tees in the past. I am therefore taking the relaunch very seriously!

But come on people - new idents, new news graphics!! Wahey!!!

I'm not really all that excited either. I've been disappointed all too often in recent years by these "revamps". They'll find some way to cut back the service still further with the relaunch, so in a way I'm dreading it...

Yes, no doubt we will just get a load of YTV cast offs for idents, and maybe if were lucky a touch of paint on the North East Tonight set...a new seat for Mike perhaps

Oh all right then, prophets of gloom, suit yourselves.

But remember, if you don't like the new-look it's not a 'YTV cast-off', but something commissioned by Tyne Tees...

>But remember, if you don't like the new-look it's not a 'YTV cast-off', but something commissioned by Tyne Tees...


Indeed. Let us remember this.

Look at all the things screwed up in recent years: current ident, North East Tonight, err. everything. All had a YTV influence.

Now whats gone right: the Tyne Tees 40 ident, the news/sport idents. All done by Tyne Tees. Done well.

Have faith my friends, have faith!

Lets just wait until Monday night, I think by then we should have a pretty good idea whether its good or still YTV2

Meanwhile, Christa and Mike confirmed that we are definitely getting a new-look Calendar on Monday. Will it be goodbye to the theme music they've been using since 1982?

Mornin' all.

Best wishes to Tyne Tees people - hope all your dreams come true today (!)

Meanwhile, the first glimpse of the new look Calendar during GMTV has been uploaded to my site:

http://members.xoom.com/roundthe/regions.html

It appears to be purple (again).

Damian -- I tire of that flippant attitude. It's not just the bloody logo and you know it. If YTTTV think they can silence the critics with a slight change to a graphic they can think again.

Jase, I tire of constantly being harangued.

I meant my comment above in a nice way. It was a reference to how 'sad' we are for being excited about things like idents. It came from a man who got up early, taped GMTV, uploaded it to his website and all before the phone rates got expensive at 8am.

Alright, you don't care about the graphics, so leave me alone. Stop looking for people to blame because you're unhappy about how Tyne Tees is run. It has nothing to do with me whatsoever.

I'm from UTV land. I'm all in favour of strong regions on both the BBC and ITV. I've never made any derogatory comments about Tyne Tees on this forum or anywhere else.

Things haven't gone too well so far.

We got the usual lines-forming ident on TTTV and 9.25. On the news summary just gone, the sound wasn't on for Belasis, after about 30 seconds, we switched to Newcastle.

The set is basically pastel blue with circles in differing shades there. There's also an on-screen dog throughout.

Then we went to colour bars and tone, before switching to a new look weather with Bob.

No sign of the new ident yet! And the GMTV summaries this morning were using the old set and graphics.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I gather from a friend that Tyne Tees used their version of the ITV hearts at 9.25 this morning. This suggests that the new look will be regional only (like Yorkshire's).

There doesn't seem to have been any changes on the Tyne Tees site either, but that doesn't surprise me...

It may be that they are waiting until NET at 5.30 before anything happens. I await with (genuine, well-meaning) interest.

Aha, I've just read the message before mine. Not quite a smooth start then. I wonder what will happen at lunchtime!

>I gather from a friend that Tyne Tees used their version of the ITV hearts at 9.25 this morning. This suggests that the new look will be regional only (like Yorkshire's).

Well they seem to have deliberately refrained from using any continuity since 9.25, no hearts idents, just a 10-second trailer then straight into the programme. Which suggests they might just be dropping the hearts after all. Who knows...

>It may be that they are waiting until NET at 5.30 before anything happens. I await with (genuine, well-meaning) interest.

Sorry Damian. I go off like that sometimes. I misread your comment as a piss-take. It's just that every person from Leeds I've spoken to so far (including 3 or 4 who were visiting TT buildings) have been very off-hand, making nasty comments about TT staff sitting on their arses all day and so forth. When you have known these "lazy staff" for some time it gets very aggravating. But I acknowledge that you are not one of them.

So it looks so far to be one big disapointment

Well I have noticed the uncanny similarity between Calendar's new look and North East News. Impressive that, seeing as they were commissioned seperately...

TT`s G Wizz site still has the old logo and along with the other ones is still poor. Doesn`t look like its been updated in weeks. Try comparing it to UTV and Channels sites, you will really see how poor they are then

No probs, Jase!

Anyway, the plot thickens...

As I've said elsewhere, branding is not a strong point with Granada Media, and none of the g-wizz regional sites are any good!

As for the similarities between Calendar and North East news, I'm intrigued. Apparently, North East news/ NET has been redesigned to match the new TT idents.

Based on GMTV, Calendar looks nothing like the YTV regional ident. Perhaps having come up with a new look NET, Calendar have decided to copy it!

Woohoo!! Tyne Tees is now officially a station with 2 logos!!! They are continuing with the old one on the hearts idents, and the new one for regional programmes. What other ITV station can boast this dubious accolade?

What a crock. Still, they haven't disappointed us with their ability to cock things up. And I've noticed as well that YTV's main news studio is a sort of strange hybrid between the old and new looks. Nothing like doing things by halves, eh??

>What a crock. Still, they haven't disappointed us with their ability to cock things up. And I've noticed as well that YTV's main news studio is a sort of strange hybrid between the old and new looks. Nothing like doing things by halves, eh??

Let's not forget that it took YTV two weeks to half change their main set.

The Bellasis window has been covered to match the new set, I miss being able to see the gallery behind the presenter.

What does the new logo look like is it still based on the classic one or different?

Well the jingle to go with YTV`s local ident has changed slightly but it is still based on Ilkley Moor. There was no regional announcement before Calendar and the hearts were there at 1230

>What does the new logo look like is it still based on the classic one or different?

It's very similar, but looks much more 'right' on the screen, and has a load of small circles around it, the largest being that pointing north-east. As soon as I work out where I'm going to get some cable from to hook my VCR up to the PC I'll grab it.

Sounds queerly like combinations of the two latest [4] and (4) logos

>As soon as I work out where I'm going to get some cable from to hook my VCR up to the PC I'll grab it.

OK I've done this now, and the fruits of my labour (and it was labour, believe me -- had to get the soldering iron out to make a lead from the video to the DC10...) are held at....

<drum rolls>

http://jasejames.tripod.com/ttnew.html

Enjoy!! (sorry about the poor html)

><drum rolls>

Hey, that's a nice ident. Nice jingle. In fact that's the bext Tyne Tees ident they've had in years.

I will have to get writing about that for the TTLP...

That doesn't look too bad at all.

I just wanted to make it 400...



sorry

well no change at Granada...much...as you can see from the tyne tees ident the stations are going very blue, Granada is following suit or so it would appear, Granada Tonight virtually only uses the areas of the set with a blue background now, and they slipped in a new graphic, normally when they show telephone numbers related to a news report (Crimestoppers in this case) they use the ugly purple and blue red pond ripple thing...anyone notice today they were using a new blue liquid effect version, notice how Lucy paused when she saw it...not expecting that??
So Granada Tonight looks like it might be following suit with this new blue theme, now if this doesnt happen then I can be accused of starting a rumour that didnt come true...also, am I the only one who thinks the old north east news was better than the new one....
Finally, got an e-mail from ITV ... regarding thier idents and generic presentation...here it is,
-___________________________________-
We are not changing our ifents but we are changing our promotion end frames from
today.
________________-
Someone tell me what an ifent is :)

Ok, more from the new purple Calendar on my site (address further on up).

Fans of the 1982 theme music will be delighted to know that it stays, but it has been rearranged yet again!

Hmm - new TTTV - still not sure - the circles are a good idea, but...I don't know. Maybe if it wasn't so blue (The Angel shouldn't be blue) and if I saw it in real life, not on the screen capture...Well it's modern.

Update -- I have updated the site with a production endcap and pics of North East Tonight. No more updates though cos I'm off to Wilmslow tomorrow until Friday. I'll be visiting here, though...

http://jasejames.tripod.com/ttnew.html

I quite like it. Those circles remind me of the BBC Schools and Colleges countdown used in the 70s and 80s though.

Sorry but I don`t really like it. Those circles remind me of the dots on the old BT logo

I've just looked at Update 2 on Jase's pages. The North East Tonight set looks very small and simple. No backdrop really bar some dots. Interesting way to go - more minimalist. Do they still have a seating area (with blue too?)

I think it looks rather 'retro' in look, with the credits scrolling upward and all. Its far better than the hearts though

>I've just looked at Update 2 on Jase's pages. The North East Tonight set looks very small and simple. No backdrop really bar some dots. Interesting way to go - more minimalist. Do they still have a seating area (with blue too?)

No they don't -- and you are right the set is extremely minimalist, more so than it was in the early 80's. God knows what they've done with the rest of the space -- the Teesside studio looks better than Newcastle now. And the studio used for the small bulletins just looks like the old continuity "box". I can't think they're using the space for other studio-based programmes -- they hardly make any (almost all outside broadcasts), and you can't see it in that shot but the carpet in the far corner looks dirty and worn -- what have they done :(

>No they don't -- and you are right the set is extremely minimalist, more so than it was in the early 80's. God knows what they've done with the rest of the space -- the Teesside studio looks better than Newcastle now. And the studio used for the small bulletins just looks like the old continuity "box". I can't think they're using the space for other studio-based programmes -- they hardly make any (almost all outside broadcasts), and you can't see it in that shot but the carpet in the far corner looks dirty and worn -- what have they done :(

Not cleaned the carpet I would have thought!

I know what you mean about the 80s desk too - one wall, one desk and one great big studio. Bizairre.

It's hard to tell from that shot and because I haven't seen it properly, but they could do with a seating area, and a couple of plasma screens over the shoulder so that Mike could turn a bit and have it behind him.

On the whole I DO like the look of it - it just looks slightly empty. And I'm not totally convinced about that desk!

Perhaps the space that is currently unused, will be used in the future...

BTW can someone tell me if Teeside has a new desk too, or are they still muddling along as before?

'Scuse the Q's - I have a web page to write :)

Hmmm....

Whoever suggested that NET and Calendar were looking similar was wrong! I have to admit that I'm not keen on that TT typeface, but the ident itself does look very nice.

By similar I meant those circles in the background (there is a pattern on the intro, which is the same on both -- you just have to look harder to see it on the TT one), and this idea of putting a big sign to the right of the newsreader with a picture and a caption -- although it is done differently on both (TT uses gfx, YTV uses a screen).

The TT set just looks half-built. And the wallpaper at the back has a line where the two bits haven't joined together properly!!!

All in all, a nice new look, but it seems a bit of a rushed job (strange seeing as it's taken them 9 months). The Teesside set does have a new desk, and seems much more polished (bizarre seeing as they had only a weekend). I'm not entirely convinced by this making everything look like the ident except for the wording either -- seems like a rather naive attempt at branding.

And where's all this fancy new equipment? They both are using the same captioning equipment as before, and there does not seem to be anything new as such.

>The Teesside set does have a new desk, and seems much more polished (bizarre seeing as they had only a weekend

I read somewhere they had the gallery shot back on the first day (did you say that Jase?)

Has the backdrop returned?

I didn't say that, but I did notice it on the late news on Monday. Not being in the NE I cannot say whether or not it is back, although with it being light blue, perhaps they take it away late night because the blue backdrop is too bright for an 11.30 bulletin.

I dunno I go away for a week and NET and Calendar both catch a bad dose of measels.

All in all I like the new look, the set actualy I think has hit the right note. Minimalist is the way to go after all the dogs dinner ITN has made on sets for ITV and C4 news recently makes the news look messy. The desk, well, I give you that one...it reminds me of a coffin which is perhaps not wise given the ages of Mike Neville and Bob Johnson. The music is just yet another rehash of the Network North theme music by MacGregor Cook who does all of Tyne Tees's music with hi little Yamaha keyboard but the title sequence and 'symphonia' of a weather intro are quite entertaining.

The regional ident is perhaps he best they've since the yellow sand/blue water ident in the 80's ...its got a nice new tune.

YTV have of course ruined the whole thing my keeping the old generic hearts without changing the TTTV logo, 2 logos for one station, come on YTV please try!

Onto Calendar, why have they gone for the spots as well? Though it is much better than the previous might morphin' effort

>YTV have of course ruined the whole thing my keeping the old generic hearts without changing the TTTV logo, 2 logos for one station, come on YTV please try!

Go on - explain to me why it would have anything to do with Yorkshire Television?

>>YTV have of course ruined the whole thing my keeping the old generic hearts without changing the TTTV logo, 2 logos for one station, come on YTV please try!

I doubt there is any reason to change the corporate hearts idents, because the TTTV is so small on them, nobody will notice, afterall the YTV chevron is probably slightly different!

>I doubt there is any reason to change the corporate hearts idents, because the TTTV is so small on them, nobody will notice, afterall the YTV chevron is probably slightly different!

No matter how small, there should be consistent branding.

No matter how small, there should be consistent branding. It's like one minute BBC ONE having a baloon the next them having the ident from 1985 with the /B/B/C/ logo.

Bods, you are 100% right.
It is irritatingly annoying, isn't it?
It just shows that no real thought has gone into it, which means no real money has gone into it.
Promos for small companies are often better thought-through than idents for ITV companies.

>No matter how small, there should be consistent branding. It's like one minute BBC ONE having a baloon the next them having the ident from 1985 with the /B/B/C/ logo.

To be pedantic, the ident from 1985 didn't use the /B/B/C/ logo on screen, but I know what you mean.

Also, branding is awkward on ITV anyway due to the clash between national and regional identities.

Note though, how Five Live and Radio 2 have departed from the common BBC Radio look and brought back actual logos.

I fail to believe it is that difficult a task to go through the generic idents and superimpose the new logo, its just laziness

On the subject of North East Tonight...they do have a seating area...it appeared on tonights show

There must have been a basic "master copy" of the generic ident that the regional logos were put on in the first place, there should be no problem at all.

And what does ITV plan to do with its corporate look once one or other of the franchises changes if it can't be done? Eh?

Of course there's a master copy, but YTV, sorry Damian, ...Granada Media presentation department cant be arsed to re-do them for such a piddling station like Tyne Tees.

>Of course there's a master copy, but YTV, sorry Damian, ...Granada Media presentation department cant be arsed to re-do them for such a piddling station like Tyne Tees.

Actually the versions were created by English and Pocket and then supplied to Granada. Only E&P have the facilities to re-edit them.

>Actually the versions were created by English and Pocket and then supplied to Granada. Only E&P have the facilities to re-edit them.

This is untrue. The HTV idents were altered soon after the hearts first came out to include their website address. This was done, quite professionally I may add, by HTV themselves and not E&P.

>To be pedantic, the ident from 1985 didn't use the /B/B/C/ logo on screen, but I know what you mean.

Well putting the /B/B/C/ on that would be even more stupid ;)

>Note though, how Five Live and Radio 2 have departed from the common BBC Radio look and brought back actual logos.

Logically there is little reason that I can think of why radio stations shouldn't have had decent logos - only R1 seemed to have one that looked good.

>Of course there's a master copy... Granada Media presentation department cant be arsed to re-do them for such a piddling station like Tyne Tees.

Or alternatively TT gave no thought to the national ident when they rebranded regionally...

>>Of course there's a master copy... Granada Media presentation department cant be arsed to re-do them for such a piddling station like Tyne Tees.
>
>Or alternatively TT gave no thought to the national ident when they rebranded regionally...
>

I can never work out if you're just playing devil's advocate Damian... The truth of the matter is that Tyne Tees advised colleagues at GMG that the branding was changing, got the go-ahead, but no message got to ITV Centre about any new ITV ident being needed. Who is to blame is unclear, but it would seem to be a toss-up between GMG and ITV Network Centre. My contact has passed a message on from me about this, and they are "looking into it".

Anyone noticed Midlands Today has slightly redesigned the set, & on screen captions.

They now have a 'proper' window, & brought in Christina Shanks from Crapton's Central News at Six to do the sport. (Did anyone notice Steve Lee moved some time back from Pebble Mill to Central Court?)

I do wish the set could be lot bigger though.
I was on holiday in Wales recently & saw their news. I prefered BBC to HTV, plus the set was bigger than Pebble Mill's as well, with a proper video wall too.

They also did about half of tonight's show from Kingsbury refinery as well.

Did any other local news shows go live to local refineries too?

To be highly irritating not even the network centre knew about the TTTV ident change, as they told me the day before that the graphics dept. had no clue as to which stations were changing, so ....

>The truth of the matter is that Tyne Tees advised colleagues at GMG that the branding was changing, got the go-ahead, but no message got to ITV Centre about any new ITV ident being needed. Who is to blame is unclear, but it would seem to be a toss-up between GMG and ITV Network Centre. My contact has passed a message on from me about this, and they are "looking into it".
>

And did your contact work for TT, GMG or ITV?!

Seriously though when you're dealing with three different groups things are bound to go wrong. And nice as they are, in branding terms it makes little sense for YTV and TT to have separate regional idents at all.

Bearing in mind that the TT rebranding was covered in detail in the staff magazine, and involved some Leeds based staff, I would imagine that GMG presentation were reasonably aware of what was going on. As for ITV, you need only look at Nightscreen to see how out of date some of the logos are.

>And did your contact work for TT, GMG or ITV?!

Why, all 3 of course ;) As I have stated several times before I know, or have known several TT members of staff, and I keep in touch with some. I'm not going into details as that would not be fair.

>Seriously though when you're dealing with three different groups things are bound to go wrong.

True, but it seems that things didn't just 'go wrong', not changing the [itv] ident looks to have been deliberate somewhere along the line. And in any case, it should be 2 groups at best, TT regional is still GMG even though it is run semi-independently.

>And nice as they are, in branding terms it makes little sense for YTV and TT to have separate regional idents at all.

Well that is true, but seeing as they do, they really should do better than be sloppy about it. It definitely looks to me like either a breakdown of communication between GMG and ITV or a deliberate act by one or the other to not bother changing things. It's basically the fault of GMG for effectively having a company within a company within a company. Stupid way to run an ITV franchise, if you ask me.

>I would imagine that GMG presentation were reasonably aware of what was going on.

I'd put money on it!! TT had to clear the move with GMG, not just let them know.

>As for ITV, you need only look at Nightscreen to see how out of date some of the logos are.

Yeah but Nightscreen is a joke really to be honest. As I've always said they should just string together all the late regional bulletins and shove 'em on at this point, would cost them less and serve a useful public service.

>Yeah but Nightscreen is a joke really to be honest. As I've always said they should just string together all the late regional bulletins and shove 'em on at this point, would cost them less and serve a useful public service.

They should show the ITN News Channel

Why don't they just show any ordinary programme?
Is there some reason for Nightscreen? Surely repeating Sons and Daughters would be
1: Cheaper
2: More popular
3: Better

Two reasons why Nightscreen is shown:

1. If ITV is running late (extended ITV Nightly News, live events) then it's easier to continue to run late through the night so that Nightscreen can be easily cut off at the last minute to get the network back on time for ITV Morning News.

2. It contributes hugely to the ITC Other Information quota. Sons & Daughters, infinitely better though it is, cannot be chopped as easily at the last minute as Nightscreen and is, supposedly, Drama.

To return to the TTTV generic ident cock-up I will admit Tyne Tees should of made more effort to re-inforce with the bods at ITV Network Centre but they could of made them up and YTV (sorry Granada Media) would probably forgot to use them anyway.

By the way TTTV has new weather titles after a week, they're now sponsored by Northern Electric so have new one that look quite nice...shame the grand symphony ones only lasted a week

>.... YTV (sorry Granada Media) would probably forgot to use them anyway...

Thanks for the correction. It does annoy me that YTV gets blamed for all ills in the presentation world. Does anyone really think that presentation staff in Leeds working for GM are secretly working to favour Yorkshire Television and discriminate against Tyne Tees, Granada and Border? Does anyone really think that they care that much or that if they did they would be allowed to by the suits in London and Manchester?!

YTV (sorry Granada Media) would probably forgot to use them anyway.

It does seem amazing the amount of times this happens. The prime candiate is normally Newsweek, at Sunday lunchtime.

Though recent Thursday afternoon showings of The Dales Diary across YTV and TTTV couldn't make their mind up of network or local ident.

Well, the sport ident was just shown before the local news. Mistakes are fine, but this many?

Mind you, did you see the farce that was the start of YTV's coverage of the Leeds match tonight? Cut off the announcer half way through, then got two blokes having a private conversation over a constantly changing camera angle, no intro, then they finally put the [itv] logo on for 2 minutes, before finally going into the presenter having an interview (half-way through), then an interview with a manager which was also cut off. Quite what was going on for the presentation to collapse so catastrophically is beyond me...

>Well, the sport ident was just shown before the local news. Mistakes are fine, but this many?
>
>Mind you, did you see the farce that was the start of YTV's coverage of the Leeds match tonight?

Did they take the ITV2 coverage or use their own.

And this raises another point - those with ITV2 presumably had the Leeds match on both ITV and ITV2. Why can't they regionalise ITV2. Or show the United match on Yorkshire Digital if this is possible as Digital viewers have the ITV2 option for the Leeds match.

>And this raises another point - those with ITV2 presumably had the Leeds match on both ITV and ITV2. Why can't they regionalise ITV2. Or show the United match on Yorkshire Digital if this is possible as Digital viewers have the ITV2 option for the Leeds match.

That's being a bit optimistic for a company whose transmission people can't even get the right ident up half the time.

<Granada logo appears>
You're watching ITV. Now your regional news
<Andy Kluz appears in the Teeside studio>
Andy: Hello and welcome to viewers in Yorkshire who are here cos someone screwed up big style.

That's not actually much of an exaggeration, which makes it all the more hilarious. I remember a few years ago a trailer for Strange but True which was shown on TT at least 10 times which had the YTV logo in the corner, at the start it said "Tuesday on Tyne Tees..." then at the end, "Strange but True, Wednesday at nine on Yorkshire", then the announcer would have to apologise for the mess. This is not just someone getting their fingers in a tizz, it's rank incompetence. Please, someone explain to me why it isn't...

Something un-comprehensible happened for a period in the TV page of the Belfast Telegraph. They used to have a "Choice" box where the had a picture and a bit more info on a certain programme. Any time it was an ITV programme they used to put something like "9pm, Tyne Tees". Now as far as I know, none of the Belfast Telegraph readership live in the Tyne Tees region. The ITV listings were given under UTV alright, just the Choice box. Strange...

Roy Shepherd would never have stood for it!

>Roy Shepherd would never have stood for it!

Did he ever do anything apart from peer out of the picture of a TV. My memories are very vague - did he write TV reviews or something?

ANyway, I've been annoyed with the BelTel since they got rid of Border TV variations. Well, not that annoyed, really...

I have seen the Granada hearts ident several times and Granada news titles while watching YTV. They have also announced regional programs as ones actually being shown on TT

>I have seen the Granada hearts ident several times and Granada news titles while watching YTV. They have also announced regional programs as ones actually being shown on TT

I've heard (possibly of this forum, possibly elsewhere) of announcers saying 'This is Angl... sorry, er, Meridian...'

On Tyne Tees you can hear them go 'This is.....' muffled talking 'Tyne Tees'

> I've heard (possibly of this forum, possibly elsewhere) of announcers saying 'This is Angl... sorry, er, Meridian...'

That's nothing. When Anglia and Meridian used to do airwatches, one evening after the late news the two regions got mixed and showed each other's by mistake.

The funny thing, though, was that nobody complained. Probably as nobody ever watched them anyway.

>Roy Shepherd would never have stood for it!

There was a Roy Shepherd who did Breakfast Time opt-outs for the South East in the late eighties. He was then promoted to the OBs on Open Air.

It's unlikely (but not impossible) that it's the same man who wrote TV reviews for the Belfast Telegraph in the seventies and eighties.

I`ve just heard it again:Here on ITV Bruce`s Price is Right. WHY oh WHY oh WHY not the stations proper name?

>I`ve just heard it again:Here on ITV Bruce`s Price is Right. WHY oh WHY oh WHY not the stations proper name?

It surely can`t be that hard can it

>>I`ve just heard it again:Here on ITV Bruce`s Price is Right. WHY oh WHY oh WHY not the stations proper name?
>
>It surely can`t be that hard can it
> Even if it`s recorded everytime

That would require GMG pres to have the equipment to record seperate announcements. My sources say that they aren't able to do this at the moment (although they were able to until quite recently).

So it has to be ITV, and in branding terms this isn't necessarily a problem because the idents say ITV as do the promos.

What I find strange is that only one of the announcers actually uses the name ITV, the others presumably agreeing with me that it just sounds naff.

I have noticed that the number of foul-ups has been high recently. Traditionally this has meant something is about to change or be introduced. Time will tell.

Oh, and I agree that GMG presentation is not biased towards YTV (at least it isn't now that they are covering 4 stations rather than 2, although it is patent fact that they did favour getting YTV right and bollocks to Tyne Tees up until a couple of years ago).

No, they are just equally crap and incompetent on all the stations. (Or short-staffed, which I am inclined to believe more -- although if they are short-staffed this in itself exposes the incompetence of GMG presentation's management).

So the question is are they going to fix and or upgrade this technology to allow for these extra stations or just continue calling it ITV. Another point about why only one announcer calls it ITV while the rest don`t call it anything, surely they are instructed on what to call it so why does only one do it. I think as much as some people including myself don`t like it we`d better get used to it as I can`t see it changing

Perhaps they should bring back in-vision if you want the ultimate personal touch?

>Perhaps they should bring back in-vision if you want the ultimate personal touch?

I don't see why this wouldn't be possible -
CSO would allow 4 different backgrounds for the one announcer , so I wish they WOULD!

>I've heard (possibly of this forum, possibly elsewhere) of announcers saying 'This is Angl... sorry, er, Meridian...'
>
This is not really possible. As you may know, announcements for Meridian, Anglia and HTV come from one site. There's a rigid routine which the announcers adhere to which means this sort of mistake is almost an impossibility.

>>I've heard (possibly of this forum, possibly elsewhere) of announcers saying 'This is Angl... sorry, er, Meridian...'
>>
>This is not really possible. As you may know, announcements for Meridian, Anglia and HTV come from one site. There's a rigid routine which the announcers adhere to which means this sort of mistake is almost an impossibility.

But as you say.... "almost an impossibility"

>>> I've heard (possibly of this forum, possibly elsewhere) of announcers saying 'This is Angl... sorry, er, Meridian...'

>> This is not really possible. As you may know, announcements for Meridian, Anglia and HTV come from one site. There's a rigid routine which the announcers adhere to which means this sort of mistake is almost an impossibility.

> But as you say.... "almost an impossibility"

Absolutely. Mistakes are definitely made (continuity announcers are human like you and me, after all), but perhaps on not quite the scale of 'Granada Media Presentation' in Leeds.

Not yet, anyway.

I liked it when they still had the announcers in Newcastle, a few times Kathy Secker completely lost her rag, and after she was faded out and nothing happened she quite deliberately slammed her mike back on and said things like "Hello, Yorkshire, we've lost transmission" as if to let the whole world know that it was YTV's balls-up (no way in the world was that just her letting Leeds know!). Wish we could have more of that. Made the cock-ups entertaining...

Did anyone see Breakfast 24 this morning? A definate stop-gap if ever I saw one! And it seemed very strange when they said 'You're watching BBC News 24 - and now the news where you are'

What happened on News 24 itself? Did they get UK Today along with BBC TWO digital?

Didn't see Breakfast 24 on BBC2 this morning. I'll watch it tomorrow and see what News 24 goes to during the regional bullies.

I seem to remember when TC lost power and Breakfast 24 was replaced by Breakfast News from BBC1, Newsroom SouthEast was shown on N24 for the regional news.

The breakfast News 24 was the same as on the digital channel News 24 until it finished on BBC1 at about 830 and the Olympics started. If you were watching on BBC1 then you saw your own regions bullitin during the opt outs. If you were watching on News 24 then instead you saw UK Today. This is a seperate opt out like the regional ones but coveres regional stories from all around the UK. This is normally only shown on BBC1 and BBC2 on Sky Digital and I suppose probably ON digital too. For example if your watching BBC1 on digital instead of the normal terrestrial at 925 in the evening you would see A UK Today bullitin instead of your local news (Look North etc).

I think this is what happened anyway as I was not really watching.

>This is normally only shown on BBC1 and BBC2 on Sky Digital and I suppose probably ON digital too.

Despite what digital Teletext tries to claim, UK Today isn't actually on the DTT version of BBC ONE and TWO. Both services on DTT are fully regional.

Anyone ever seen UK Today? Does it cover the whole of the UK (considering that it is primarily for BSkyB customers and they have a digital version of BBC ONE Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) or is it primarily English?

Bods - determined not to let this thread die :)

Don't worry, this thread isn't about to die anytime soon! Although we may have to talk about BBC Breakfast in it (particuarly if the rumours I've heard are true...)

As a BBC type, Andrew, have you read anything interesting in Ariel recently?

Meanwhile, anytime I've watched UK Today it has occasionally included stories from NI, Scotland and Wales. This was necessary when the programme was also on News 24, and also now that it is the sustaining feed for the whole network.

With a good chunk of Sky Digital viewers still able to watch analogue, and DTT and DCable viewers getting regional programmes, I don't think non-English stories on UK Today could annoy anyone.

And finally, as anyone who has watched the programme will know, it is so dull that I'm sure no one cares where the content came from!

>Anyone ever seen UK Today? Does it cover the whole of the UK or is it primarily English?

It is primarily English though it does contain some stories from elsewhere in the UK. I think the bias is due to the fact that there are more English regional stories in total. Bear in mind that my experience was from watching UK Today when it was also on News 24 and it had to be more UK-based - it may well have changed since then.

I think that UK Today on BBC TWO is more UK-based as well, but I haven't seen it in ages.

>Don't worry, this thread isn't about to die anytime soon! Although we may have to talk about BBC Breakfast in it (particuarly if the rumours I've heard are true...)

Ru-ru-rumours? Could you please divulge your knowledge on this topic?

25 to go!

And indeed I've got confirmation from a source at BBC Leeds! Expect a new approach to regional news during BBC Breakfast and changes lunchtime as well...

>And indeed I've got confirmation from a source at BBC Leeds! Expect a new approach to regional news during BBC Breakfast and changes lunchtime as well...

Indeed. This is mentioned in Ariel this week - the new bullitens are going to be longer in breakfast - 4 and a half minutes I believe. Also look out for joint regional/national headlines at the News At One.

And regional fans rejoice for when the BBC News At Ten (if that is what it will be called) comes on line the late regional news is set to be doubled to 7 minutes. All in all this is a good commitment for the nations and regions I'd say.

Definitely -- it's just a pity ITV are going in the other direction, because as we all know BBC local in the NE is about as much use as tits on a fish...

Now there's a quaint saying....

Oh hi Líam.

Just as a matter of interest are you completely evil and deranged or not? The issue came up recently. Or is this another 'Líam is dead' situation?

You have the worst luck with forums and message boards, don't you?

;-)

>Definitely -- it's just a pity ITV are going in the other direction, because as we all know BBC local in the NE is about as much use as tits on a fish...

Will the proposed sub-opts make a difference do you think?

The NW opt outs of Brekkie news looked so crap anyway its a wonder as to how anyone can bear to watch the bloody things, no window, but Wales Today has to be the most boring, NRSE has the window for opt outs doesnt it?

I was watching the GMTV Opt-out for the first time in ages and after the GMTV sting there was a god-awful 'Belfast' one (since Reuters do the local news for GMTV in NI, not UTV). What happens elsewhere?

P.S. It's good to have this forum back!

>I was watching the GMTV Opt-out for the first time in ages and after the GMTV sting there was a god-awful 'Belfast' one (since Reuters do the local news for GMTV in NI, not UTV). What happens elsewhere?
>
>P.S. It's good to have this forum back!

As far as I'm aware Anglia do their own news bulletins for the GMTV opt-outs.

Going back to original topic of this thread, I'd nominate *Cover Story* on Anglia, and *London At War* on Carlton/London.

...and yes, it is good to have this forum back! :)

>As far as I'm aware Anglia do their own news bulletins for the GMTV opt-outs.

I know, but is there anything after the GMTV sting like there is in NI, or does it go straight to the local newsreader.

On friday's GMTV, during a promo for a 007 movie in the Central news south region the presenters chair appeared on screen for about 30 seconds.

So what changes were there during Breakfast in your region? BBC North had a new set (CSO of Leeds instead of the mustard background), and we had a new live weather girl. They have clearly been working on the banter, but the 'sexual chemistry' is a little bit sickening when one half is Peter Levy! Interestingly, but entirely in character, the longer bulletin contained less news than normal and more Levyisms. Brightened up the morning no end!

Newsroom South East now has a weather woman (one of the normal London based presenters), a travel presenter (complete with bucket loads of London Live posters in the background - sure that will be popular in Kent) and Tim Donovan who is sat in the old studio.

BTW I believe BBC North West has a new chroma key studio with a sort of video wall behind the presenter. Sounds better than the beige wall...

BBC NE&C have gone mad, with what appears to be bulletins from the main studio, with 2 different camera shots, one of them features the window. They also have a live weather person.

>BBC NE&C have gone mad, with what appears to be bulletins from the main studio, with 2 different camera shots, one of them features the window. They also have a live weather person.

BBC NI are in the main studio with a lovely view of the River Lagan in the morning. Though I think their astons are too high up. The look as if they are the same height above the bottom of the screen as they would be on a 4:3 screen instead of the way News 24 and BBC Brekkie do.

The same 'breakfast' regional weather girl is used across newsroom southeast and south today land. is she used across all regions?

No, Leeds has its own who unbelievably seemed to be chatting up Peter Levy!

I'm intrigued as to a "live weather person". Presumably previously they were using a corpse?

Have all the BBC regional news' gone widescreen then?

> Have all the BBC regional news' gone widescreen then?

Yes, but I expect the majority, certainly Newsroom SE, are cheating, ie chopping off the top and bottom of the picture and showing on digital in 16:9 with black bands down the sides, in News 24 stylee.

Tonight on NSE they announced the start of the break-up of the South East region as the Oxfordshire opt-out starts in two weeks time when the late regional bulletins double in length and move to 10.30 . Of course when London Live starts Oxfordshire will be opting out of South Today instead.

> Yes, but I expect the majority, certainly Newsroom SE, are cheating, ie chopping off the top and bottom of the picture and showing on digital in 16:9 with black bands down the sides, in News 24 stylee.

N24 is full 16:9

>N24 is full 16:9

Yes but almost all filmed input is shown as 14:9 within the 16:9 frame.

>>N24 is full 16:9
>
>Yes but almost all filmed input is shown as 14:9 within the 16:9 frame.

So what is happening in the reg news studios? Are they not 16:9?

Leeds isn't, and it's very irritating watching the 14:9 pictures. One or the other please!

>Leeds isn't, and it's very irritating watching the 14:9 pictures. One or the other please!

I thing NI is - some live outside links appeared to be 16:9 but I can't say as I wa watching on analogue. I'll be able to report the status at the weekend.

Does Leeds use the 4:3 version of the titles cropped to 14:9, or the 16:9 version cropped to 14:9?

Newsroom SE is 100% 14:9 - studio, reports, graphics, titles and idents. I suppose we'll have to wait till London Live till we get 16:9 studio shots at least.

>Newsroom SE is 100% 14:9 - studio, reports, graphics, titles and idents. I suppose we'll have to wait till London Live till we get 16:9 studio shots at least.

What is annoying is the way they haven't done anything for the graphics - they're still 4:3 graphics but chopped to 14:9. Effing mess is tge word.

Leeds is 4:3 cropped to 14:9. Absolutely infuriating, but it is the price to pay for the amazing delight of waking up to my favourite network newsreader, and Peter and Sarah's banter...

The opts out in Brekkie all do have the same weather person ,

On the first day I think It was Carol (Scottish) Kirkwood, at least she was presenting North West, Midlands, Look North and Wales Today bulletin...

Why do Midlands Today have BREAKFAST NEWS written on the plasma screens thou??
Thought all that had gone 4 good.

Nigel Jay still "thunks" the keyboard - but now he says "im Nigel Jay" -- why??
Pleased to see that they have put the window in during the opt outs

>On the first day I think It was Carol (Scottish) Kirkwood, at least she was presenting North West, Midlands, Look North and Wales Today bulletin...

In the North we get Sarah Banham

>Nigel Jay still "thunks" the keyboard - but now he says "im Nigel Jay" -- why??
>Pleased to see that they have put the window in during the opt outs

On Look North, the presenters now introduce themselves rather than a name caption coming up.

Andrew

>They have clearly been working on the banter, but the 'sexual chemistry' is a little bit sickening when one half is Peter Levy! Interestingly, but entirely in character, the longer bulletin contained less news than normal and more Levyisms. Brightened up the morning no end!

Levyisms? are they things like "BBC Radio Leeds - on the air....right now" etc

Andrew

>>On the first day I think It was Carol (Scottish) Kirkwood, at least she was presenting North West, Midlands, Look North and Wales Today bulletin...
>
>In the North we get Sarah Banham

In Northern Ireland we get no map, but a caption whilst the newsreader, usually Sarah Travers or some woman who used to be on Cool FM reads the weather.

>On Look North, the presenters now introduce themselves rather than a name caption coming up

As do those in Belfast. I thought on the first day that the Aston Machine was broken!

At least we get proper 16:9 for titles and studio, though.

>Levyisms? are they things like "BBC Radio Leeds - on the air....right now" etc

"And if you're in West Yorkshire, why not join me on Radio Leeds from 10?!"

>
>>Levyisms? are they things like "BBC Radio Leeds - on the air....right now" etc
>
>"And if you're in West Yorkshire, why not join me on Radio Leeds from 10?!"

Doesnt thingummyjig....forgotten her name now...but her ,who presents Calendar write for the Daily Mail? - Im sure I saw her column in the Mail the other day...she presents with Mike Morris...but I cant remember her name......
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>On the first day I think It was Carol (Scottish) Kirkwood, at least she was presenting North West, Midlands, Look North and Wales Today bulletin...
>
>In the North we get Sarah Banham

I think it varies depending on the day, all I know was that on the first day, Carol Kirkwood was doing NWT Wales Today and Midlands Today, my reception for look north is crap so I couldnt really make out who it was on the first day.
But rest assured, the weather is recorded earlier that day....if you look at news24 at the changeover (6am),the person presenting the weather on that is the person who does the regional weather.

Yeah, Christa Ackroyd from Calendar has that column in the Express.

And no, while the other regions use the News 24 presenter, BBC North has its own weather presenter live in Leeds who chats merrily to Peter Levy.

Just to add the West to the list of forcasts made by the national presenter during Breakfast. It seems that they do a lot of them - they must have to push it a bit to get them done in time to go out in all these regions, especially when you think of the legion of regional weathermen needed to do them for 6:30 in the evening.

Oh, and the "I'm (name)" bit happens in the West as well, so it must be a generic thing.

Just to inform: the last ever Newsroom Southeast goes out Tomorrow.
Living in Henley-on-Thames our relay gives out LONDON not oxford so we will get london Live which will be a worse service than newsroom southeast! noooooooooooo!!!!
But as i have a massive aerial i can get the oxford service anyway.

> Just to inform: the last ever Newsroom Southeast goes out Tomorrow.

Well actually Newsroom South East continues, albeit with a smaller coverage area, until the Kent/East Sussex region starts next year. Bet they won't change the NSE titles on Monday though.

I wish Granada would get a decent weather presenter, they just dont care do they??

Im glad look North has a live person, they seem to like to do things differently there.

But, alas, the launch of Breakfast in wales was a disaster, anyone notice that in the first opt out of Wales Today, Sian somethings microphone wasnt working :)

LOL

>I wish Granada would get a decent weather presenter, they just dont care do they??

What, Yorkshire's dull and boring weather presenters not good enough for you in Granadaland ;)

Don't forget, they do occasionally have Fred Talbot doing the weather when This Morning is on air.

Saw the new look South Today with 'Oxford' and 'Banbury' in its titles. Well, no change in presentation but the weather did include Oxfordshire in the map too. No evidence of an Oxford opt out at the beginning - if there was, it was very sleek and no mention was made by Sally Taylor or Roger Finn.

So people in Banbury now have news about the Isle of Wight too! Well, beats news of Dover I guess!

The Oxford opt-out is probably hidden from the rest of the (now HUGE - how big is that map area?) South Today area. What happens is we got Sally and Roger reading the (2) headlines for the Oxford area before saying "Now over to X for today's main news", handing over to some girl whose name I missed. She then did about 10 minutes of news from the north of the region, before handing back to Roger and Sally. For those watching in the South, we came back just before the "Still to come" segment. Interestingly enough, we get our own South Today titles for that part of the programme, just a very small area with the Oxford/Swindon etc names on. It worked fairly well, although we did need to hover on the title for a bit in the handover. They also need to be careful at the end of the programme, as Sally said that Roger would be back with the headlines at 10:25, whereas our girl had already said that she would be doing it.

Other than that, Oxford has just had South Today (general service) for the rest fo the day - we did not get the promised independent bulletin at lunchtime which is disappointing. The studio appears in the bulletin to just be blue-screened in (with a picture of Oxford in the Window), althoguh in a "pre-recorded" interview the presenter was in an actual studio. Anyone know where it comes from? My bet is on Southampton with the rest of it.

> Saw the new look South Today with 'Oxford' and 'Banbury' in its titles.

Yes, having seen those titles BBC South must now win the prize for the most bizarrely shaped region of all.

And of course Newsroom South East have not changed their titles, so they still say Oxford on them, although it has disappeared off the weather map.

> They also need to be careful at the end of the programme, as Sally said that Roger would be back with the headlines at 10:25, whereas our girl had already said that she would be doing it.

I noticed that Fiona Bruce said at the end of the Six that she'd be back before 7 with the headlines - which is only the case in England. Or has this changed? I didn't see what happened at 6.55 on BBC ONE NI.

AFAICR Oxford has only a small studio - so expect chroma key from now on.

>I noticed that Fiona Bruce said at the end of the Six that she'd be back before 7 with the headlines - which is only the case in England.

Yes, Huw is usually more careful saying just that there will be a summary of the headlines before 7. There is a big difference between the 2 minute bulletin shown in England and the quickfire closing headlines (mostly NI only)on Newsline!

>There is a big difference between the 2 minute bulletin shown in England and the quickfire closing headlines (mostly NI only)on Newsline!

BBC Scotland has included National and World headlines at the end of Reporting Scotland for years. I also noticed BBC North doing the same a few years ago. Newsline in NI didn't do this until the new Six last year.

Most of the 6.30 programmes on the mainland had national as well as regional headlines from the late eighties onwards. (This was early-Birtism affecting the regional programmes). Inside Ulster never did this, of course, and Newsline 6.30 didn't take up the idea.

If any regions were still recapping the national headlines in 1999, they stopped after the new look was introduced. NI, Scotland and Wales are supposed to cover the national headlines as well at 6.55. They all do to different extents, and Newsline always seems a little bit cursory compared to what English viewers are getting from Huw.

>Newsline always seems a little bit cursory compared to what English viewers are getting from Huw.

I can sometimes flick (weather permitting)between Newsline, Reporting Scotland, Northwest Tonight and Look North (NE&C) when I'm up home so it is interesting to compare two 'national' regions to two English ones.

Back to Oxford briefly, this is how it works (I've done my research!)

There are no opt outs during the day. The ten minute opt out during South Today and the sixe and a half minyte bulltien at 10:25 are done from the Beeb's Southampton buildings, from the upgraded Gallery B.

The presenter is Heather McCarthy and there are a five journalists working full time on the service at the Oxford news centre.

It's also the most local BBC news service, serving just 800,000 people...

>It's also the most local BBC news service, serving just 800,000 people...

Surely the Channel Islands would have fewer than that, though their service is much more limited?

Now - questions - is the Clock at Ten BBC South or BBC Oxford?

And talking of the Channel Islands - do they have a longer local news at 10.25? What about their clock and the start of the news at 10pm?

>Now - questions - is the Clock at Ten BBC South or BBC Oxford?

BBC South. The programme is still South Today (no sub-branding like Look East Close Up).

Tonight they used the main opening titles showing the whole region, not just the smaller one.

Pitty about the daytime bulletins, though. In the South East Review (I've checked!) it was said that the Oxford service would have its own lunchtime bulletin, as well as all bulletins at weekends.

>Pitty about the daytime bulletins, though. In the South East Review (I've checked!) it was said that the Oxford service would have its own lunchtime bulletin, as well as all bulletins at weekends.

Looks like they changed their mind. I'd say though that this is only the start and the service, if a success, will probably grow in the future.

By the way, the details about most regional service come from BBC staff paper, Ariel.

Anyone got the new BBC Oxford service on video, perchance?

Meridian News:

Got this from Meridian today, go hearts go!

This afternoon, I have put a VHS in the post to you with the Meridian Idents
since 1993.

Sorry for the delay but it took a while to dig the older ones out.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You will notice that a big change took place last year when the branding was
consolidated across ITV and the heart shape appeared. We are not entirely
happy with these as we feel we lost too much of the Meridian identity.
However, this may change again as we are now part of Granada and Granada is
all in favour of regionality. Watch this space!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hopefully this has some meaning, anyone know for certain whether or not the hearts are going?
This has to be a pretty strong lead though

Oh and, nothing it good enough in GranadaLAND - and why is a GMG continuity person doing the ads for Curry's she isnt leaving is she, god no! - or are the thinks at Leeds not paying her enough, eh ;)

>or are the thinks at Leeds not paying her enough, eh ;)

Payroll for GMG North is in Manchester not Leeds...

!

Sorry, my mistake, I was too busy looking for "How to make a bomb to blow up the Granada Tonight studio" on the internet.
No luck yet

Whilst on the subject of opt-outs, I must admit that BBC Look East, West region (from Cambridge) is better as a longer slot in the 10 o'clock news, than as a local spot in the main 6.30p.m. programme. If anyone at the BBC is reading this, PLEASE let us have our own service without Stuart White, or William Hague yakking about pig farmers (on the day of the Hatfield train accident). The folks in Cambridge are improving, and I'd like to see them go their own. Sure, keep it *Look East*, but just do what Anglia did years ago, and permanetely split the news.

WHY DOES OXFORDSHIRE HAVE ITS OWN SERVICE THEN?????

WHAT HAS CHANGED THAT I DON'T KNOW ABOUT??

OXFORD AND BANBURY ON THE SOUTH TODAY TITLES?? SINCE WHEN??

I LIVED IN A SMALL VILLAGE OUTSIDE BANBURY UNTIL MARCH AND I DO KNOW THAT IT IS/WAS AN OVERLAP AREA OF NEWSROOM SOUTH EAST AND MIDLANDS TODAY.

The idea of BBC showing the names of places in teh titles is not working down here.

So South Today has Oxford and Bournemouth, Cowes and Poole? Why? Oxford was better off when it was with Dover!

Midlands Today have swapped some of their places already. Crewe has been added and some smaller places. People are angry with East Midlands Today because they only put Coventry in smaller letters when Derby and Leicester are big. Overlaps must be accounted for! Midlands Today and Points West both have Cheltenham, Gloucester, Cirencester, Stroud etc in the titles.

Whatever has happened to the BBC?

>People are angry with East Midlands Today because they only put Coventry in smaller letters when Derby and Leicester are big.

So what? It is big on Midlands Today.

I can't get over Ballymena getting on the Six titles!

Personally, I thought it would have been a better idea to have the names of the regional news programmes appearing in the Six titles. If the new look Six had lived up to its billing, this would have been a very nice touch.

>I can't get over Ballymena getting on the Six titles!

I think someone was so intimidated by that scary roundabout on the way in that they included it. You know the one - "City of Seven Towers" or whatever you call it.

I was looking at the titles on Newyddion that I downloaded off some website and I noticed that they had Belfast marked - but I couldn't make out whether it was in English or Welsh - the Welsh being (as everybody knows) Belffast. I notice There are places like Awstralia and Myngolia!

So, Pebble Mill is going to be sold, and BBC Midlands is decamping to the city centre. Meanwhile BBC Leeds is moving in the next year or so to new premises, and there will be new BBC regional bases in London and Tunbridge Wells. It's all change in the BBC regions...

I don't watch much local TV because my parents won't let me. (I'm revising for my mocks.) Gotta go now, I think my poptarts are burning.

Back in half an hour.

I'm 15

Im so bloody annoyed at the BBC, when will they understand CHESHIRE is NOT in the MIDLANDS???????????
Central seems to have lost the plot too.
They dared to try and re-locate me to Wales Today a few years ago, but then changed me back to NWT.
So im on the border of the Midlands, Wales and the North West (no really I am) so who do I turn to for news?
Granada have a dedicated Chester studio, which is never used, apart from a rare GMTV opt-out and day time news programmes, when Manchester has a problem.
Midlands today claims that South Cheshire belongs to it, and has put Crewe on the map (Grrrrrrrr...)
and then Central weather covers my area too.
But then again so does HTV and Granada.
Basically, I get every news service in my area, Midlands, Wales, NW.
So who am I supposed to go to.
If they even try to suggest I am living in the "Midlands" I shall be utterly disgusted, no-one from the Midlands about is there :(
I am happy living in the North West, or more commoly reffered to by the BBC as "the Manchester area".
GOD IM CONFUSED

I think its more a case of transmitters rather than the BBC believing that Cheshire is in the Midlands. Anyway, be grateful that you get to sample different news programmes!!

>So, Pebble Mill is going to be sold, and BBC Midlands is decamping to the city centre. Meanwhile BBC Leeds is moving in the next year or so to new premises, and there will be new BBC regional bases in London and Tunbridge Wells. It's all change in the BBC regions...

When was this mentioned ?
I presume they will be moving to the city's broadcasting heart aka the Broad Street area like everybody else (Crapton & various local comercial radio stations) !

Grateful!
I suppose im lucky in the fact I get to watch 3 times more shite that you yes :)

Ahem, some regional programmes are rather good, actually!

I refer the honourable reader to Leeds Look North or Newsline...

Well I do like LN yeah, but dont get it - LOL
Peter (it is Peter isnt it?) Levy has to be the best regional presenter, for the BBC at least/
On ITV I would say Fred Dineage...probably.
Certainly none of the G.Tonight presneters would get my vote, although Lucy can be quite funny...sometimes

I got to see BBC South East's new Political Programme, Metropoll yesterday.

Yes it is a crap name. Indeed the only differences between MetroPoll and it's predecessor, Around Westminster is that Shaun Ley now doesn't wear a jacket or tie, and the news studio's window now seems to have blinds over it. Radical.

BTW the blinds are in fact computer generated, as was proven 27minutes in when the backdrop started breaking up ;)

Not sure why they bothered just yet considering that the region splits in two soon (I assume the new South East region will get a new programme too, as Metropoll is very London Centric.)

>Ahem, some regional programmes are rather good, actually!
>
>I refer the honourable reader to Leeds Look North or Newsline...

talking of Leeds Look North - whilst walking, pissed, through the streets of Leeds on Saturday night I noticed that they haven't replaced the old /B/B/C/ NORTH sign.

seems a bit silly, really.

in case anyone is wonering, i'm currently in a magic photo booth at birmingham airport waiting to get a flight to Dublin.

WNAY ARTE YOU ALL TALING ABOUT IDENTS?
STIOP IT!


YOU OBEY M,E NOW!

>talking of Leeds Look North - whilst walking, pissed, through the streets of Leeds on Saturday night I noticed that they haven't replaced the old /B/B/C/ NORTH sign.

They're moving premises so perhaps they decided not to bother.

Anyway, it was a 5 year plan to phase out the old logo ;)

On BBC Oxford Road, Manchester, you can still see the dirt marks for the wiggly worms NW logo AND the /B/B/C/ North logo behind the new BBC logo.

They could have cleaned the building up a bit.

As mentioned above Leeds is moving in the next year, so presumably they decided not to go to the expense of changing the logo on the Woodhouse Lane property. As it is, BBC Leeds is the last haven for fans of the /B/B/C/ logo and the three-in-one BBC North glass 'N'.

Where abouts in Leeds is it moving too? Will the view of the city still be present during the news?

Somewhere near Quarry House, if you know Leeds city centre...

Don't know if the video wall picture would change, the camera isn't on BBC Leeds at the moment anyway.

>Somewhere near Quarry House, if you know Leeds city centre...
>
>Don't know if the video wall picture would change, the camera isn't on BBC Leeds at the moment anyway.

The video camera now points at your face

Maybe this should be on Worst Local TV Programmes (which this thread covers anyway):

According to the Manchester Evening News, there are rumours of big changes on Granada Tonight. Most dramatically it would be cut to half an hour. Granada has officially denied it, of course.

Good old MEN -
Manchester Evening News I mean, of course.
the thing is, whenever Granada goes "30 minutes" the Iq of the presenters seems to radically increase...
they have changed the background AGAIN!!!!!!!
I MEAN Firstly, it tells us about the show [CURRENT AFFAIRS] (i.e. Lucy Meacock and Jeff Turner - widescreen was introduced specially),,,,
Then they change the background so it tells us what is on the programme, hence the background had nothing on it at all - much like the show.
Then they change it to the Granada /|\ logo -
If they do change the show it could have something to do with the 100+ emails I sent to granada using a variation of mail account over the past few weeks, but it seems to have worked....hmm
What exactly does the MEN say? - I mean, their webs(h)ite is well shite so there is no good looking on their,.
Granada have to be the worst regional programmer about dont they?

>WNAY ARTE YOU ALL TALING ABOUT IDENTS?
>STIOP IT!
>
>
>YOU OBEY M,E NOW!

No no no -
You have it all wrong,
Its only the CLOWN and GAS BOTTLE who spell things wrong,
NELE - have you recovered from you recent soiling? - trousers are dry I trust?

Dare you challenge me mortal?

mm, let me think about that one.

Yes.

Im going to ring the clown and bottle now

>Somewhere near Quarry House, if you know Leeds city centre...

Bloody Quarry House. Bloody DSS building. I've had to work in that bloody hell-hole for Sema in the past. DSS staff are all EVIL. They must DIE. Why did you have to bring Quarry House up?

Sorry, had to get that off me chest.

What, do you mean it really is a DSS building? How disappointing! We all hoped it was a secret police headquarters...

Some top news about Granada Tonight:

You probably heard that Mark Owen left after a meeting with the editor. Just upped and went, left his £60,000-a-year presenting job, without working his notice, and telling the press something about wanting to spend more time with his family.

Did you also notice that the very week he left was the week the Bosses Can Snoop on Your Emails Now Act came into force.

I'll say no more.

>Some top news about Granada Tonight:
>
>You probably heard that Mark Owen left after a meeting with the editor. Just upped and went, left his £60,000-a-year presenting job, without working his notice, and telling the press something about wanting to spend more time with his family.
>
>Did you also notice that the very week he left was the week the Bosses Can Snoop on Your Emails Now Act came into force.

MM, the mind wanders, wanders into the Granada Newsroom and kicks James Cooper, Mark's stand in, up the arse..ahem.

He got 60 grand a year for that pile of crap well it says it all about Granada, pay em big keep em shit. (It doesnt rhyme just incase anyone tries to get a rhyme out of that)
But if Tonight is going to be cut to half an hour (MEN) then hopefully we might see a few large changes.

On another subject, what the hell happened to Sky News International!!
That was the worst disaster Sky have ever come up with.
So they replace World News with a pile of cheap trash, that would look at home in Quay Street - Manchester.
Then, a few days later - probably because the new show was so awful, Sky changed it back to World News but with a sort of Nine O'clock News look to it....
How odd
>
>I'll say no more.

Anybody notice Midlands Today on Thursday ?
They stuck poor Sue Beardsmore in the river at Worcester.

It was pissing down, but the only person who had an umbrella was one of the interviewees.

He could've offered her his brolly after surely !

And it was Nick Owen's birthday aparantly on Wednesday too, so to celabrate they stuck him in the river at Bewdley.

They really know how to treat their top presenters at Pebble Mill don't they !

I saw that as well, whilst that other presenter was stuck in those lovely warm looking studios Sue was out getting soaked!! - LOL
It meant though that they had the keep their rather large [LIVE] DOG up throughout the entire show, which was annoying.
A pretty poor show it was too

>I saw that as well, whilst that other presenter was stuck in those lovely warm looking studios Sue was out getting soaked!! - LOL
>It meant though that they had the keep their rather large [LIVE] DOG up throughout the entire show, which was annoying.
>A pretty poor show it was too

The other presenter, Cath Mackie, was, I forgot to add, out at Bewdley on Monday or Tuesday !

Anybody aware it's Radio WM's 30th birthday on the 7/11 !

Apprantley, according to www.waddo.org (Tony Wadsworth's site), there is a show at Syphomy Hall in Brum Saturday night, with a tape of the show being broadcast on the 9/11.
(knowing WM, probably replacing the 1st hour of the late show with the transmisson, like they do with the football)

>Anybody aware it's Radio WM's 30th birthday on the 7/11 !
>
WM have such nice studios as well.
Warm and cosy :( - Its raining outside :(

I saw NWT's Dianne Oxberry in the flesh the other day.
Boy is she haggard in real life.

>
>>Anybody aware it's Radio WM's 30th birthday on the 7/11 !
>>
>WM have such nice studios as well.
>Warm and cosy :( - Its raining outside :(

In tonight's Birmingham Evening Mail, there's a couple of pages about WM, with some dodgy old photos of the presenters, & a brief interview with the new managing director, Keith Beech (ex BBC Suffolk), where there are rumours that BBC Birmingham may move to Birmingham's new Mailbox development. He says he is not party to the decisions, but whatever happens, WM will stay in Birmingham.

I am auditioner for Calendar the Movie. Parts still available yahhh. See my shabbish thread, YTV people.

I know this is slightly off topic, but did anyone in the BBC Radio WM / BBC Cov & Warks area, catch Carl Chinn's show today ?

They were interviewing old presenters/reporters etc, that have worked for BBC Local Radio in the West Mids over the past 30 years.

Included was Central / Carlton / Crapton's, whatever you want to call them, Bob Warman, who apparantly worked for them in the early 70's.

Amazing who admits to working for certain radio stations eh ?

Even Brmb's Les Ross also worked for them as well!

This thread will celebrate its first anniversary on December 13. We should arrange some sort of party and come dressed as our favourite local news presenter.

Bagsy me John Mundy.

>This thread will celebrate its first anniversary on December 13.

Since I wasn't about when it started, could Líam or someone else explain his opening comments "Better start this again......!!

NWT: Good!
Granada Tonight: Bad! "

I am just curious - did this follow on from a previous thread?

The Forum had a major revamp and all the old threads disappeared.

A similar thread had been running on for a long time in the old format, with lots of anti-YTV rants, so it had to begin again.

I remember!

The topics were displayed down the left column

And YTV had taken over TTTV!

And we hated them didn't we!

It was better in them days!

Among the highlights of the old thread were our attempts to sing a long to regional news themes...

Dah-da-da-dah
Dah-da-da-la-daahhh!

(mid-nineties Inside Ulster closing sting)

And, of course, we sang along to idents too.
Them was the days.

Is this the ident equivalent to "it was better on the radio"?


Paaaaaah-Paaaaaaah-Paaaaah
Bing Bang Bong
Paaah-Pah-Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Oh, so we're on to reminiscing about earlier incarnations of this thread, then, are we?

Another thing I feel I should mention - UTV are now saying before Trev does his plug at 6.15:

"And at 6.30 there'll be more news here on ITV with Trevor McDonald"

It is the only time when UTV use the phrase "here on ITV" in local programming. I thought it was a slip the first time I heard it! UTV, paying lip service to a national idenity. Wow!

I do Written Jingles (http://www.planetbods.org/tv/written/).

I was going to do Written News Themes. So here we go, guess this one:

Pe-pe-pe-peh, ba-ba-ba-baaaarrrrhhh (bluurruummm) farala-larala-laaaar
(lila-lila-larr) farala-larala-laaar (lila-lila-larr)
Farala-Larala-Larala-Larala (lar lar) be-be-be-beh, Pa Pa Paah THE ---BLEEPED--
O'CLOCK NEWS, FROM THE BBC, WITH MICHEAL BURK, pa-pa-pa-pah,
pe-pe-pe-peh Pa-Pa-Pa-Paarrhh

Go on if you think you're hard enough ;)

>I do Written Jingles (http://www.planetbods.org/tv/written/).
>
>I was going to do Written News Themes. So here we go, guess this one:
>
>Pe-pe-pe-peh, ba-ba-ba-baaaarrrrhhh (bluurruummm) farala-larala-laaaar
>(lila-lila-larr) farala-larala-laaar (lila-lila-larr)
>Farala-Larala-Larala-Larala (lar lar) be-be-be-beh, Pa Pa Paah THE ---BLEEPED--
>O'CLOCK NEWS, FROM THE BBC, WITH MICHEAL BURK, pa-pa-pa-pah,
>pe-pe-pe-peh Pa-Pa-Pa-Paarrhh
>
>Go on if you think you're hard enough ;)

ONE O'CLOCK NEWS circa 1986?

I had to think about that one!

The One O'Clock News 86-93, with the gorgeous and subtle white clock titles. The idea that the 'BBC' would only be a falling shadow was so attractive and stylish...

Okay, easy one:

Waaaaaaaaaahhh!
Bah bah bah
wubba-wubba-wubba
Bah bah bah
"The XXXXX from ITN with Michael Nicholson."

I think it helps if you add lyrics (which you have to write yourself)

Channel Four News really works with "Channel Four, Channel Four, Channel Four, Channel Four, Channel Four."

The original ITN music is:
"IT, IT, IT, IT, IT, IT, IT, IT, IT, IT, IT, IT N,
IT, IT, IT, IT, IT, ITN . . ."
etc

Cha chah!
Wibble Beep....
Beep beep (bang) beep beep beep beep)
Wibble

Anyone see Midlands Today on Thursday with the dodgy pics of Nick Owen circa mid 70's when he was sports editor at BBC Radio Birmingham ?

Did anyone catch BBC WM/Cov & Warks straight after with the 'highlights' of their party last Saturday?

HI
How about these:

This is a news programme:

dum boom ba-ba-bing bum-baba bing-bing ba ba baba bing bing

These 2 are idents:

du-dum beep-bu dar da-da daa darrrrrr

Diddle a ding-da-ding, diddle a ding-da-ding, diddle a deeee did-de da deee...

Im thinking of going this party as Lucy Meacock, or perhaps someone from Sky, the equally attractive Bob Friend - lol

Is this the record for the most people ever to speak on a forum, let's try and find out!

And if not, we can always break the record

This thread is 11 months old today.

I really can't think of anything more to say, so I won't.

"I really can't think of anything more to say, so I won't."

If everyone took that attitude, do you think the strand would have lasted so long?

BTW I didn't write the 'Jon' one above. Use someone else's name, if you have to steal one. Try "Anonymous".

Look North NE&C are using the main studio for the Breakfast opt-outs. They have a couple of different camera angles, too.

Do any other BBC English regions use the main studio for these bulletins?

>Do any other BBC English regions use the main studio for these bulletins?
I think they all do. BBC NI do as well, but only one camera angle afaik.

>
>>Do any other BBC English regions use the main studio for these bulletins?
>I think they all do. BBC NI do as well, but only one camera angle afaik.
>
>
BBC North and North West still use the presentation studio for these bulletins.

Although they both tarted up their presentation sets recently.

Just a note which interest some of you that I don't think has been mentioned before - BBC Radio Ulster News has recently dropped the Newsline (1996-9) rip-off sig tune tune and replaced it with a beepy one. It is sort-of generic, the first time I have heard this used on a BBC Radio station as opposed to TV.
I have not heard whether their news magazine "Evening Extra" or BBC Radio Foyle's news programmes have followed suit.

Radio Leeds, and the combined news for all BBC North stations in the evenings use the Look North theme music.

Meanwhile, it was about time that Radio Ulster changed their music. Is that the last gasp of guy Michelmore's control of BBc regional themes?!

BBC North News on BBC North FM (Radios Leeds, Sheffield, Humberside and York - on the air right now) after 7pm join together and use the Look North music hourly from 7pm. Look North presenter Ian White used to present these radio bulitins

Hey on Leeds Look North when it`s dark look at the cit in the background and you`ll see the twin towers of the Civic Hall all lit up by Christmas lights, looks spectacular

>all lit up by Christmas lights, looks spectacular

....but but but it's MID NOVEMBER!!! Can't people wait!!!

The BBC English regions don't seem to have any set down rules for what is designed to be a corporate image.

NE&C Look North never use over-shoulder graphics.

YLNM use over shoulder graphics at lunchtime and 6.30, but generic ones for other bulletins, with a sport variant.

NW use over shoulder graphics at 10.30 too, relevant to the story, not just generic ones, which is quite impressive.

Also of those regions that do use the O/S graphics, some have the BBC NEWS logo on, some don't.

>The BBC English regions don't seem to have any set down rules for what is designed to be a corporate image.

I think this is fine. It is good to have diversity - they shouldn't all be entirely the same.

>Meanwhile, it was about time that Radio Ulster changed their music. Is that the last gasp of guy Michelmore's control of BBc regional themes?!

Depends who wrote "Evening Extra" - I'm listening to it on the internet now (At last, a Radio Ulster feed!) and it's still that awful tune they've always had.

Based entirely on me guessing, I think that the Talkback theme is by the same composer as the original Inside Ulster music (they have certain similarities).

Newsline 6.30 was definitely a Guy Michelmore piece (along with NSE, Reporting Scotland, Spotlight SW and Look East at the same time!). The Radio Ulster news theme was obviously from the same suite of music. I haven't seen an edition of BBC NI Spotlight for years, but the music used in a trailer last time I was home sounded similar to the old Newsline music.

From 7pm, on weekdays.

The BBC West Midlands radio stations (WM, C&W, Shropshire, Stoke, H&W) all use a version of the old Radio WM news jingle, the East Midlands stations (Derby, Notts, Leicester & Lincs) use a different news jingle. All stations use a version of the current Radio WM / Cov & Warks travel jingle.
Generally the regional shows (certainly on the West Mids stations) use modified Radio WM jingles.

Does anyone know why when the WM / C&W news & travel jingles were updated earlier this year, the regional service only changed the travel jingle. Surely some smart a*** at Pebble Mill could have done a version for the regional service!
The only drawback I could see with doing a jingle would be that the current version allows the individual station to fade in nearly at the last minute if needed, or play the whole version if wanted.
I suspect the jingle is played from Pebble Mill, so the station can opt in.

>Hey on Leeds Look North when it`s dark look at the cit in the background and you`ll see the twin towers of the Civic Hall all lit up by Christmas lights, looks spectacular


Yeah, I've noticed this, is just a pity you can't actually see strings of coloured lights draped across the Headrow/East Parade.

>Yeah, I've noticed this, is just a pity you can't actually see strings of coloured lights draped across the Headrow/East Parade.

I must check out BBC NI's Newsline to see if I can see any Christmas lights there. The camera looks over the River Lagan so there might be some lights round there.

>I must check out BBC NI's Newsline to see if I can see any Christmas lights there. The camera looks over the River Lagan so there might be some lights round there.

No christmas lights on Newsroom South East.

Okay, the view is of the Thames which looks _thrilling_ on a dark night :)

I heard something about a BBC Radio Ulster stream...anyone got addresses for these feeds, please?

Hey, here's a great idea - why don't SOTCAA parody THIS thread?

Children in need thread now started elsewhere on this forum!!

>I heard something about a BBC Radio Ulster stream...anyone got addresses for these feeds, please?

don't know exactly, but http://www.bbc.co.uk/ni is a good place to start THe quality is a bit poor and it is in mono, but it is better than nothing. And it is also on SkyDigital if you have that.

try out www.lyngsat.com - they have lots of stream from lots of places, very useful

It's Free-To-Air at 28E digital. I take it that's what you were after...

.... you'll see that this topic has been brought back too! Se, Bean, they aren't gone for good!

>.... you'll see that this topic has been brought back too! Se, Bean, they aren't gone for good!

You just did that to spite me!

So basically what we've done is make this thread just like all the others - filled with spite, in-jokes, witticisms and nothing whatsoever connected to the original topic.

Am I close?

>So basically what we've done is make this thread just like all the others - filled with spite, in-jokes, witticisms and nothing whatsoever connected to the original topic.
>
>Am I close?

Spot on I'd say, Stuart O.

>>So basically what we've done is make this thread just like all the others - filled with spite, in-jokes, witticisms and nothing whatsoever connected to the original topic.
>>
>>Am I close?
>
>Spot on I'd say, Stuart O.

Best Local TV Programme, anyone?

>Best Local TV Programme, anyone?

North West Tonight.
HTH.

Look North (Leeds)

Gone South (for the elderly).

Well my vote goes to Granada Tonight - with that cheeky coi accent they say it in as though they are proud to entertain us, and the music they play - it had not only increased suicide rates in the North West - BUT! - has actually led to an increase in the people going into mental asylum, meaning the NHS is being stretched to the limits catering for the extra patients leading to a reduction in life expectancy in the UK...
That is the devastating effect that Granada Tonight has had on ALL or lives people - its sad, but its true, thankyou and goodnight

its works better if you read the middle bit fast...

Coast To Coast.

>Coast To Coast.
East to West
Nothing's too far away
For Long Distance Clara

best tv well they are all prettymuch of a nothing, if you ask me. Well the best oso far, but not by a long shot, is UK living. Yes I know that it is not a loacl TV station but it is better then the others.

The standard has dropped in all. ITV is aok

Well if ITV is going Sky then you will be able to pick and choose what you like, providing you can get your hands on one of these cards which will descramble it...
I actually managed to get BBC Scotland though, just reset the didibox about ten times and it got the channels mixed bout - left it on for about 3 months until I re-ran the channel scan and got Wales Today instead, lots of Scots invading my home for 3 months :(

>I actually managed to get BBC Scotland though, just reset the didibox about ten times and it got the channels mixed bout - left it on for about 3 months until I re-ran the channel scan and got Wales Today instead

Really?!! I think people should be able to get another region if they want, as long as they pay extra for it. And the BBC could make a lot of extra money if it offered its chanels for subscription outside the UK at a monthly fee equivelent to the licence fee. But the rights issue should be overhauled otherwise this could be difficult to achieve.

Yep, read in a newsgroup if you reset the box which apparently according to Sky "isnt a good idea" ..mmm, then if you reset it enough times, I cant remember exactly how many times I did it, and then also unplug the actual cable going to the satellite dish and reset it etc..
Then the box gets a wee bit confused and it cant work out where you are, and I managed to get BBC One Scotland, but not BBC Two Scotland, which I thought was strange, unless 2 isnt regional on Sky? -
According to DigiNews Sky and the ITC and ITV are in a deal, because...
When OnD or I think It is BDB or whatever the abbveviation is for it Carlton and Sky were going to go in together, however, Sky didnt for some reason as the relationship with Granada would have been changed somewhat, Granada were of course, then, shareholders in Sky along with Pearson - Vivendi and Chargeurs.
So Sky told Granada of what Carlton were planning, remember OnD was the brainchild of someone at Carlton and they worked on it for ages, Granada did nothing except buy it and negotiate a few contracts.
Granada came in and Sky were out of the deal, but this kept good relations with Granada, who were actually already planning to get rid of the Sky shares, which they did earlier this year.
So that is about how Granada and Carlton got into OnD together, and why they have a strong case for getting ITV, because of what Granada did and how they were originally working with Carlton - so basically they have pretty good relations with Granada but not with Carlton, who still wont put their channels on Sky - and then Sky will get ITV and 5 million people will be happy..
probably

oh and does anyone else find the new Granada Weather theme tune really....evil is the only word I can think of?

Ummm - nearly, c@t.

British Digital Broadcasting (BDB) was a joint venture between Granada, Carlton and BSkyB to run the pay TV part of Digital Terrestrial. When they submitted their bid the ITC decided it was not happy about Sky having major shares in both of the main systems (Satellite and terrestrial) which are supposed to be competing, as this would give Sky an effective monopoly, what with it controling premium sports and movies and stuff as well as a load of other channels (it is no coincidence that History Channel, National Geographic etc are not coming to ONdigital - they are both 50% Sky-owned)

So the ITC awarded the license to BDB, but only on the condition that Sky sold its shares. So BDB became 50:50 Carlton and Granada enterprise - and adopted the trading name ONdigital

And the rest, as they say, is history

ummm, no thats wrong as well, im sure some of what I said was wrong but what you said was wrong as well, it was a very complex process, but I have a book which said exactly what happened, which I shall dig out and post what REALLY happened.
But simply Granada did not know about what Carlton were planning, I know that for sure and they were caught on the hop, i will find the rest out later as it is annoying me now..

ive found out, it was that Carlton and BskyB were going into the bid together, however,
Gerry Robinson, chairman of Granada was "astonsished" about this.
Chisholm, who was director or something equally well paid who was working at Sky at the time suggested to Carlton, who had been working on the DTT system since 1996, even before the bid for the premiership footie rights were awarded to Sky and not Carlton, that they should go into it 50/50 )Carlton and Sky(.
Gerry Robinson, who was chairman of Granada AND BSkyB phoned Chisholm to ask if it was true or not, Chisholm then said yes,.
Robinson rushed back from NZ where he was on holiday at the time and immediately asked for a share for Granada.
Sky went to M. Green at Carlton and said to him Granada must have a share of "Sky will pull out", Green was not happy, as this would mean that Carlton had gone from being the driving force behind DTT to being a third party in it.
Sky and Carlton meanwhile had been working on channels, the movie channels would be provided as well as the 3 sports channels and a chopped off version of Sky News.
Carlton would offer its currently Cable channels, Select etc..
And Granada would offer , Plus, Breeze and Home Shopping.
Months later after the ITC had thought about all of the DTT bids, the FT reported that the ITC asked BDB (or DTT, it was the Carlton. Granada. Sky group) - to think again about the structure of the group.
It was reported that Murdoch had leaked the story to Ray Snoddy, media ed. of The Times, who now does Media Monthly on Sky News,
It was reported that the ITC had writted to the BDB consort, saying that unless BSkyB was removed from the group the bid was finished,
However, although it was Carlton who had been working on DTT since 1996, it was Sky who provided all of the business management and the finances and most of the know how, including the EPG and the programming, as well as the a lot of the contacts that Carlton used to sort out the tec. side of things and the programming, including the Disco. Channel, which has better DTT relations that it does with Sky.
So basically, Sky helped to set up its main rival, strange

>as this would give Sky an effective monopoly, what with it controling premium sports and movies and stuff as well as a load of other channels

Not true either, because it was only that Sky was going to gain more profit from the bid, 70% of all profit compared to the others, and only 33 equity, not to do with how many channels they control

Either way, IMHO it would have been better for BDB to have had some link with Sky, that way you could have had two platforms working together rather than competing which is what we have now.

The rather bizairre SDN setup also rather odd...

Basically I think it was because of the odd setup with required carriage - Channel 5 (hardly a big prestige thing to carry) 2xS4C in Wales, TeleG in Scotland, etc, so it is hard to market channels to the whole of the UK as some airspace is not available in places - hence the promised Channel Earth, Nursery Channel etc never happened

Channel Earth was also a silly idea anyhow but that's by the by

Going back to regional TV now, anyone think that the Sky News 95-98 ident just put on tv-ark.co.uk sounds exactly the same as the Tyne Tees one??
Only the very last bit thou, where he says "Live at Five"....
here is a link to it, similarities?

http://www.tv-ark.co.uk/satellitenews.html
Then its the nice pretty blue one saying 1996 and LAF

>Going back to regional TV now, anyone think that the Sky News 95-98 ident just put on tv-ark.co.uk sounds exactly the same as the "Live at Five"
>

Dead right. I remember thinking that at the time.

BBC North have officially announced there plans for a sub-opt from next year. There will be separate services from the Emley Moor and Belmont transmitters for part of the main programme and a separate 10.25 bulletin.

>>Going back to regional TV now, anyone think that the Sky News 95-98 ident just put on tv-ark.co.uk sounds exactly the same as the "Live at Five"
>Dead right. I remember thinking that at the time.

It's virtually identical if you ask me.

Its just like the Channel 3 North East theme. Mind you, on holiday in Finland, they had the same music as Central News South used to!

They do sound exactly the same, although the Sky one looks a bit nicer.

According to a frustratingly vague report in today's Press Gazette, STV (it doesn't say SMG) is closing "live digital channel" S2.

It doesn't say whether it'll be replaced by anything (eg ITV2).

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. IT'S BACK!

>According to a frustratingly vague report in today's Press Gazette, STV (it doesn't say SMG) is closing "live digital channel" S2.
>
>It doesn't say whether it'll be replaced by anything (eg ITV2).

I hope they axe UTV's TV-YOU. IT is terrible - the only saving grace being that it carries most ITV2 shows.

Accoring to Broadcast, the BBC is to increase production from Scotland, Wales and NI and give them more network slots. The BBC Choice opts are to go and be replaced by new 'zones' on BBC 2 digital.

The investment in the English regions is to continue with the BBC North sub-opts and more city websites.

>The BBC Choice opts are to go and be replaced by new 'zones' on BBC 2 digital.

I heard this - I can't really believe that they would make these BBC TWO Digital only. Strange.

Something I learned while abroad.

BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service) broadcasts BBC South for the regional bits of the news.

It's not very popular, apparently. Yes, Aldershot is in the south, but, er, that's about it.

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT COULDNT GET ANY WORSE GRANADA DECIDES TO PUT A DOG ON GRANADA TONIGHT - FOSEITJHPROD8TGUDR
WHY!!!!!!!!???????
IT IS HORRIBLE AND FLICKERS OEIJOEIFJOSEIFJSODF
argggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

AND BY A DOG I DO NOT MEAN LUCY MEACOCK, EVEN THOUGH SHE IS ONE I MEAN THE SMALL GRAPHIC IN THE CORNER FOR PEOPLE WHO DONT KNOW, JUST HAVE A LOOK AT NEWS24 FOR A FREE DEMONSTRATION

>JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT COULDNT GET ANY WORSE GRANADA DECIDES TO PUT A DOG ON GRANADA TONIGHT

Obviously the United influence. HTV have had a huge dog for a year or so now, and I think Meridian and Anglia also have one during their news.

Although I think that the HTV one is just there to remind you that you could be watching far better news (on the most popular local news programme in the country) on Points West later.

Is it me or has this forum been evacuated for the past few days, no-one seems to have posted, well, anything...

I'm still here. Does this mean then that all the GMG stations apart from YTV have DOG's in the corner on the local news? ie YTV are the only ones with any sense...

I notice btw that Granada have finally seen sense and stopped showing Yorkshire Jobfinder on Tyne Tees late-night. Well it's only taken 8 years but it seems someone has finally seen sense, although they are still showing the Asian movie, which is fair enough I suppose but it still grates me that there is still a relic of the bad old days on-screen on TT.

Yep, still get the unwanted Anglia News DOG in the corner of our screens. Now we also have an Anglia Sport DOG (the same, but *news* is repalced with the word *sport*).

This appears on-screen, even when BBC Look East are showing clips from League football matches, and show the usual *Pictures: Anglia Television* Caption. It's a DOG too far, and it could confuse some viewers! ! !

Today's Media Guardian has a piece in it about continuity and trailers.

Craig Austin is named as ITV network presentation manager. Is he the same man who used to do IVAs on Border?

Anyway, it looks like there will be even more homogenous ITV presentation.

>Craig Austin is named as ITV network presentation manager. Is he the same man who used to do IVAs on Border?

>Quite likely

>Anyway, it looks like there will be even more homogenous ITV presentation.

>how do you mean?

Austin talks about "co-ordinating continuity, presentation and promotion".

Changes cited include the split screens after Coronation Street and Emmerdale, which are to be extended to other programmes.
Also the new "countdown promos" in the ad breaks.
One of the innovations was Bill Roache's IVAs last Friday.

All this leads to fewer old-style continuity announcements during the credits and more and more control taken over presentation by ITV Network Centre.

How long before there will be just one continuity announcer for the network? It fits in with the philosophy and the appointment of an ITV Presentation Manager.

PS This thread is one year old tomorrow.

>All this leads to fewer old-style continuity announcements during the credits and more and more control taken over presentation by ITV Network Centre.


I bet this really annoys UTV and SMG. And I have sympathy with them. It is stupid the way that the Network Centre are taking oiver everything

Let me be the first to wish this thread a happy birthday.

Er, happy birthday thread.

>Let me be the first to wish this thread a happy birthday.
>
>Er, happy birthday thread.

Bugger, I meant to do the same on the exact time it started. Ah well. Happy Birthday, thread.

Despite Vauxhall stopping production at Luton, Anglia still chose to broadcast their usual 5.30 pm pap. Meanwhile, the BBC were claiming victory, for breaking the news, and are following it up with a *Matter of Fact special* tomorrow at 7.30 pm on BBC2. Anglia are strangely quiet, apart from their news reporting.

A very happy birthday thread, long will you remain in my cache

So that this thread isn't like Shakesphere*, I'll keep it going.

Does anyone think it is strange that whilst all these sub opt-outs are happening in England, Scotland doesn't have any? Though I suppose they are putting their money into more regional programmes.

* work it out!!

Sorry Richard, I'm thick. What's that reference mean? The thread's gone round and round in circles for a full year now it's being shaken off at regular intervals to say the same things over and over? (j/k) Sorry, I don't know what you iz talking aboot Willis.

>Does anyone think it is strange that whilst all these sub opt-outs are happening in England, Scotland doesn't have any? Though I suppose they are putting their money into more regional programmes.

I've always thought that's odd. No doubt Scotland could do them if they wanted to.

On the other hand they have a situation where they are the only news programme for the whole of Scotland.

Obviously an hour long Scottish Six would have had space for opt outs in it...

>Sorry Richard, I'm thick. What's that reference mean?

Okay, it was a bit obscure. I didn't want this thread to be like Shakesphere because he died on his birthday. And the previous thread to mine was on the Thread's first birthday. So if no-body replied it would have died.

I'm going mad by the way!

As for the Scottish Six - would it be that techically awkward to send all the reports to the 'national' regions, if not the English ones as well and do a full hour? Actually what would be ideal is if for the first half-hour, some regions could opt out for a report if there is one which is more relevent to the region or run some segements delayed.

A Scottish Six would have been possible with pre-recorded national (sorry, I mean UK) and international reports sent direct from London.

It would work pretty much as local radio does, using pre-packaged stuff, and they could be sent up throughout the programme.

Where there would have been a lot of problems would have been breaking news and live reports.

It would be very difficult to have Q and A sessions for non-Scottish news, so Scottish viewers would miss out on them altogether.

Meanwhile, if something big happened during the news programme, Scotland would either miss a report from the reporter live on the scene (often done as a Q and A session) or have to join England, reinforcing the impression that Scotland was getting a second-rate service.

Nevertheless, I am sure it could have been made to work if the will had been there. After all, Scotland has one of the highest newspaper-reading populations in the world, and English papers have to "tartanise" their editions to any hope of building a decent circulation there.

>and English papers have to "tartanise" their editions to any hope of building a decent circulation there.

Well they are really UK papers, rather than English. The tabloids seem to have 5 versions - England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Rep Ireland.

The broadsheets seem to be less 'regional', the "Conservative" Daily Telegraph has "Scottish Edition" plastered across it. The version available in Ireland (both parts) seems to be a mixture of the Scottish and UK versions, with occasional exclusive bits, especially in the sports section, but always with the Scottish TV listings (though with variations given).

Believe me the Scottish versions are a lot different to the others.

For example, The Scottish Sun is almost all done from Glasgow now. The Irish edition is subbed in Wapping.

The Welsh Mirror is just a slip edition of the English with some Welsh stuff on one or two pages.

Similarly, the Scottish Daily Mail and the Scottish Mirror have upped their staffs in Scotland big time.

They all have to compete with the Daily Record, and that's given them the impetus.
The Sun especially has been spectacularly successful in that.

The only Irish edition that seems radically different is the Star. But it's been a while since I've been to Ireland (North or Republic) and things might have changed.

Interestingly, 15 or so years after abandoning the North, the Daily Mail and The Guardian both do editions from Manchester now. They've both had reporters here all that time, but they are actually editionalising again.

Maybe that's good news from a regional telly perspective.

>Believe me the Scottish versions are a lot different to the others.

I was only speaking about the Daily Telegraph. I know the tabloids are a lot different. Strange that an Irish edition of the Mirror (or whatever you said) is not actually subbed in Ireland.

So Natasha Kaplinsky didn't last very long at London Tonight. She was on Sky News Sunrise this morning. They seem to go through female presenters very quickly - after Fiona Foster we had Mary Nightingale, Katy Haswell, Natasha and now have one brought in from Anglia called Lucy Alexander. Can't be anything to do with Alistait Stewart being an annoying twat can it?

>>Believe me the Scottish versions are a lot different to the others.
>
>I was only speaking about the Daily Telegraph. I know the tabloids are a lot different. Strange that an Irish edition of the Mirror (or whatever you said) is not actually subbed in Ireland.

That's just down to money. It's cheaper to have an extra desk or two in London than a whole office in Dublin.

>So Natasha Kaplinsky didn't last very long at London Tonight. She was on Sky News Sunrise this morning.

Sky announced this about 3 months ago and she has been presenting since about late October.
She is better than that Kate Garraway who seems to have found her natural home on GMTV - ugh..

If you think about it Sunrise must be the longest running breakfast show in the Uk at the moment.
It started in 1989 - GMTV only started in 93 and Breakfast just this year.
The BB started in aobut 93/4 didn't it?
Somehow Breakfast never actually seems to get through anything, its always over to the news update then sport then business interupts something, it just never seems to go anywhere...
Having 3 main anchors is a bad idea, perhaps the BBC didn't think why no-one had done it before?!?!

(poik)

I cannot believe I waited 10 minutes for my PC to download all 679 messages, just to read ONE new one reading "poik"

PS - any idea when the new London news starts on BBC - unless it already has during the 5 days I've been away, that would piss me off in a major league way - anyway - better go and watch Leonardo DiCaprio drown - soooo satisfying!

(laughing at Ben) good one subbes ;)

>PS - any idea when the new London news starts on BBC

April I think.

Incidently I was very impressed with the regional commitment shown at Granada this Christmas.

Last bulliten from Granada News - Saturday evening. No buliten until Wednesday. Hmm....

The poor people at the BBC newsrooms had one whole day off...

>
>>PS - any idea when the new London news starts on BBC
>
>April I think.
>
>Incidently I was very impressed with the regional commitment shown at Granada this Christmas.
>
>Last bulliten from Granada News - Saturday evening. No buliten until Wednesday. Hmm....
>
>The poor people at the BBC newsrooms had one whole day off...
>

Where was the early evening news from BBC, both local & national tonight ?

We had to watch Crapton Central News at 5.15, even though their titles still proclaimed ' Central news at six', followed by ITN !

BTW did Joanne Malin from Central News ever present the 'Sex Show' when she was at L!ve TV, or was it all Helen Gibson for that show?

Malin still has those shitty clothes, I know someone who used to work at Central who is now at CNN - as I am a regular of his chatroom for the show :)
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Now are you sure It will be called London LIVE this new news programme, cos there is a file on Napster called Newsroom London Ident, now that confused me, so I am confused.

Perhaps it is to be called Newsroom London, anyone know or not or yes.?

I couldnt download the file b4 ill try again though...`

>Now are you sure It will be called London LIVE this new news programme, cos there is a file on Napster called Newsroom London Ident, now that confused me, so I am confused.
>Perhaps it is to be called Newsroom London, anyone know or not or yes.?

If you get it let me know. Could be an american programme...

It's supposed to be London Live - the whole idea is that there is supposed to be a tri-media brand across the platforms. If it turns into something else, it's an enormous turn around.