ITV Tyne Tees

Launch and the 1960s Independent television was introduced to Britain in September 1955. Initially only available in the London region, commercial television steadily became available in other regions. After a financially difficult time for the first ITV companies, the Independent Television Authority (ITA) decided to offer independent television to the rest of the country and advertised for bids. Several offers were submitted, including from the existing four companies, to the ITA. North East England was the last of the English regions without a television transmitter. Sir Richard Pease headed a local consortium that included film producer Sydney Box and News Chronicle executives George and Alfred Black. This consortium, was chosen from among eleven applicants because of its strong local links, commitment to local programming, concentrating on regional topical matters, and educational and children's programmes. The contract was awarded on 12 December 1957. Experienced television executive Anthony Jelly was appointed as managing director, although historian Andrew Spicer credits the Black brothers as the driving force and public face of Tyne Tees; George was programme director, and both brothers were prominent board members. The other major river, the Wear (which runs between the Tyne and the Tees), was represented within Tyne Tees' early signature tune "Three Rivers Fantasy". The BBC transmitted their programmes from the Pontop Pike transmitting station in County Durham. The ITA built a new transmitter nearby at Burnhope, to cover an area from Alnwick to Northallerton, and west to Middleton-in-Teesdale. Television sets required a new aerial, the Yagi array, to receive the high frequency that the transmitter was using. Tyne Tees went on air at 5 p.m. on 15 January 1959, three years after the first British independent television station, and the tenth such station to launch. The then-prime minister Harold Macmillan, who had been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the nearby Stockton-on-Tees for two decades, was interviewed live on the opening night. This was followed by a live variety show, named The Big Show, broadcast from a small studio. However, this local content was followed by an episode of the American police series Highway Patrol and an evening of entertainment programmes including I Love Lucy and Double Your Money. : 17:00 Three Rivers Fantasy – opened by the Duke of Northumberland. : 17:15 The Adventures of Robin Hood : 17:40 Popeye : 17:55 ITN News : 18:05 North-East News : 18:15 The Prime Minister greets the people in the North-East, with interviews from Adrian Cairns and hosted by Bill Lyon-Shaw : 18:25 Strange Experiences, narrated by Peter Williams : 18:30 Highway Patrol : 19:00 The Big Show, starring Dickie Henderson : 20:00 Double Your Money, starring Hugh Green : 20:30 This Week : 21:00 Wagon Train : 22:00 ITN News : 22:15 Murder Bag : 22:45 Sports Desk, introduced by George Taylor : 22:55 I Love Lucy : 23:25 Epilogue read by the Bishop of Durham, performed by the North Seaton Colliery Brass Band, and sung by several choruses In the 2006 documentary A History of Tyneside, veteran North East newsreader Mike Neville suggested that the launch of Tyne Tees enabled local people to be able to hear local accents and dialects on television, since early broadcasters, particularly those from the BBC, tended to speak in Received Pronunciation. Initially produced from an office in Forth Lane, near Newcastle station, it moved to the City Road studios when Dickens Press took over publication in 1963. The magazine became the biggest selling magazine in the region, with a circulation of 300,000 per week. New contracts issued by the ITA in 1968 stipulated that all ITV companies publish their listings in the TV Times, which became a national magazine with regional variations for the listings. the last issues of The Viewer was published in September 1968. In 1959, Tyne Tees charged advertisers £100 for 15 seconds during prime time. A committee was established in 1960 under the leadership of British industrialist Sir Harry Pilkington to consider the future of broadcasting. The 1962 Pilkington Report criticised ITV, and Tyne Tees in particular. Some companies, historian Simon Cherry notes, were scrambling "very readily for the lowest common denominator ... Tyne Tees was notorious for avoiding minority programmes and putting out cop shows or westerns instead." 1970s on the banks of the River Wear in 1982. Following his report, Pilkington prompted the government to impose a levy on ITV's revenue, the effects of which were heightened by a recession in 1970 when revenue had declined by 12 percent in real terms. Despite a reduction of the levy, Tyne Tees was one of the contractors facing collapse. To ensure Tyne Tees' survival, the ITA allowed it to affiliate with Yorkshire Television under a joint management company named 'Trident Television'. The third 'prong' of Trident was intended to be Anglia Television, but the IBA ruled out their involvement. Trident Television was formed in March 1969 as a joint venture to sell advertisements for Tyne Tees and Yorkshire. Yorkshire and Tyne Tees then came under Trident's ownership on 1 January 1974. Peter Stanley Paine, Director of the broadcaster's holding company Trident, was appointed managing director of Tyne Tees Television in 1974. For the first time, one company owned two distinct and separate ITV franchises although the new company was dominated by the larger, stronger Yorkshire whose shareholders owned 71.5 percent of the new company. Trident had sales offices in London, where most agencies are located and where most advertising is bought and sold. A major factor in the merger was that when UHF transmission was introduced in 1969 to accommodate colour television it was found that the key Bilsdale transmitting station in North Yorkshire so dominated the territories of both companies that its allotment to either individual company would have seriously prejudiced the coverage and sales revenue of the other. The ITA agreed that Tyne Tees and Yorkshire could be considered as one company for the purposes of selling airtime, while expressing their individual identities in their programming output. A political scandal caused problems during one of Tyne Tees' franchise renewals. Producer Tony Sandford recalls that Lord Pilkington was sent by the ITA to question the station's executives. One-time leader of Newcastle City Council T. Dan Smith had been convicted for accepting bribes concerning the redevelopment of Newcastle city centre. Pointing out that Smith became a director of the station, Pilkington asked why Tyne Tees failed to produce a documentary about a Newcastle politician, instead leaving it to Manchester-based Granada's current affairs programme World in Action. 1980s Yorkshire and Tyne Tees applied separately for renewal of the franchises in 1980, and each won. However, the two companies were required to demerge from January 1982 as a condition of the renewal of their ITV franchises. The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the successor to the ITA, recognised the criticism, reported The Economist, "that Trident was London-dominated, overly diversified, and out of touch with the grass roots. It instructed Trident to set up both companies as independents and to retain only a minority shareholding in each." When the new licences started in January 1982, Trident sold all but 30 percent of Yorkshire, and 25 percent of Tyne Tees. In the same year, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher initiated a blind auction system, through the Broadcasting Act 1990, through which companies had to bid for the regional franchises. This system was to be used in the 1991 franchise round, which caused large changes to the network. Granada Television, the franchise holder for North West England, had long thought that the North of England should consolidate to "counter the potential dominance of the south east". Together, the now-merged companies were committed to paying about £60 million a year to the government for the right to broadcast, a substantial amount compared to the £2,000 bid by Central, ITV's largest station. The merger allowed the companies to avoid collapse following their high franchise bids. This was the first step to ITV becoming one company in England and Wales. YTT's two largest shareholders became Pearson and LWT. Broadcasting standards The annual cost of the franchise began to take its toll on the company. At the end of 1993, the company revealed that it was heading for a pre-tax loss in the 1992–93 fiscal year instead of the expected profit. Chairman and chief executive Clive Leach was sacked as a consequence. According to Variety, YTT "oversold its airtime to advertisers and failed to meet its ratings targets, resulting in a huge revenue shortfall estimated by analysts at over $20 million." Yorkshire-Tyne Tees were repeatedly warned over worsening standards at the Newcastle-based station and at one point the Independent Television Commission (the then-governing body of ITV) threatened to revoke the Tyne Tees licence if the situation did not improve. In 1993 the MP Ann Clwyd described Tyne Tees as having been "stripped of any meaningful identity since its take over by Yorkshire TV" and Ian Ritchie, Managing Director at Tyne Tees, left the company over a widely publicised disagreement with the Yorkshire-Tyne Tees board over what he saw as an unacceptable drive to centralise the company, including the complete closure of all non-news operations at Newcastle and a proposal to close the City Road studios. In October 1993, Yorkshire TV's founder Ward Thomas was brought in to stabilise the situation at the company and quickly returned the company to profitability. Bruce Gyngell appointed chair . (Transmission for the station had already been handled by Yorkshire since 1993). To halting "a slide in viewing figures and reflecting confidence in the region", The takeover concentrated ownership of the ITV network into three large groups: Granada, Carlton and United News & Media. The new guidelines, published by the ITC in 1998, about the Channel 3 licence renewals signalled substantial cuts in the companies' payments to the Treasury. Licences awarded in 1991 were due to expire in January 2001. However, companies, including Tyne Tees, which had bid high in 1991 were allowed to apply early to try to win financial relief. The new 10-year contract began in January 1999. 2000s and Carlton Communications merged, creating a single company for all ITV franchises in England and Wales. Tyne Tees became part of ITV plc, the largest television production company in the world, which now owned 90 percent of ITV. On 9 February 2005, Ofcom issued a proposed timetable for ending analogue terrestrial television transmissions as part of the switchover to digital television. Tyne Tees was the penultimate region to cease broadcasting in analogue, which occurred during September 2012. Tyne Tees took over the relay transmitter at Berwick-upon-Tweed in December 2006 from Border Television in order to extend the deadline of the town's upgrade to digital TV by four years, since Border was the first to switch off its analogue signal in 2008. In September 2007, Executive Chairman of ITV plc Michael Grade announced that as part of ITV's five-year business strategy, Tyne Tees' newsroom would merge with Border Television. Politicians have expressed concern, however, that the merger would affect the quality of news for southern Scotland, in particular, would fail if it lost its customised bulletins. The changes would mean that aside from the merged Border-Tyne Tees regional news and political programmes, the station could broadcast only 25 minutes of dedicated North East news every weekday. In October 2008, the National Union of Journalists threatened industrial action if ITV tried to force any of the changes without discussion. Between December 2008 and February 2009, around 50 staff at the station were made redundant or accepted voluntary redundancy, including presenters, journalists and production staff. The new merged ITV Tyne Tees & Border service launched on 25 February 2009. Following this incident, ITV adopted an anti-bullying programme. An ITV spokesman advised that the total cost of the five bullying investigations was £1 million. ==Studios==

Tyne Tees's original studios were located on City Road, Newcastle upon Tyne and were converted from two furniture warehouses purchased by the company. These new studios formed the basis of Tyne Tees operations and featured the company offices. The location was deliberately chosen because of its proximity to the telephone exchange in Carliol Square. Television signals were relayed by land-line from the studios to the switching centre; a distance between the studios and the exchange greater than would have significantly increased the cost of receiving the networked programmes from the other ITV stations. The complex initially contained four studios, with a fifth built in 1981 to accommodate productions for Channel 4. Two nearby pubs, The Egypt Cottage and Rose & Crown, became affectionately known as Studio 5 because of the amount of time that the station's staff spent in them. Scottish and Newcastle Breweries offered to sell the adjacent The Egypt Cottage to the station when it was established, but Tyne Tees declined. However, the upstairs room was used as rehearsal space, and the pub would regularly feature in the '80s music show The Tube. , since July 2005.The complex continued until 2004 following the merger of Granada and Carlton to form ITV plc. As a result of the merger, ITV plc had (according to the company) an over-capacity of studio facilities and production units around the country, which had previously been rivals, but were now all part of the same group. In order to save money, several large regional headquarters, studio sites and programme departments closed and merged. The decision was taken to close the City Road studios and relocate to a smaller purpose-built complex housing a newsroom and studio, resulting in the loss of up to 30 jobs. A documentary about the move to new premises, The Big Move, reflected that over the years the staff numbers had dropped by about 800, and around 170 people would be moving to the new site. Tyne Tees moved to Television House at The Watermark, a new business park adjacent to the MetroCentre in Gateshead, in 2005. The first broadcast from their new base took place on 2 July 2005. Along with the move, news reporters had to learn a range of new skills, such as editing their own reports. The new practices contrasted with early reporting, which had an average crew of five. The new equipment required only a camera operator, who could also operate sound equipment, and a reporter. In 2010, the studios at City Road along with the neighbouring pub, the Egypt Cottage, were demolished with plans for a residential development on the site. Tyne Tees also has smaller studios and offices in Billingham, York, London and within the Media Centre at the University of Sunderland. ==Sub-regions==

Tyne Tees operated two sub-regional news programmes from around 1983 until 2009, having been a commitment in the 1980 contract round. An opt-out was used from the main Northern Life bulletin was launched to provide localised news from each area. These two sub-opts were: • Tyne Tees North – Broadcasting from the Pontop Pike and Chatton transmitters to viewers in Northumberland and Tyne and Wear. Bulletin presented by normal team from Newcastle Studio. ==Station identification==

The station identification, or idents for short, of Tyne Tees varied over time; however, most were based the letters TTTV arranged in a box format. The launch ident featured a white anchor which then gradually turned into three letter T's alongside each other. This ident was accompanied by a shortened version of the station's signature tune "Three Rivers Fantasy", a specially commissioned work by composer and arranger Arthur Wilkinson. The musical overture merged several regional folk tunes, such as "Water of Tyne", ending in The "Blaydon Races". Part of the medley was based upon "The Sailor's Hornpipe". The ident also introduced the blue and yellow colour scheme that would remain in use for many years. The dark blue was popular amongst ITV contractors because it closely approximated to black on a black and white television set. The version of the logo included the word 'COLOUR', boasting the new technology. However this bold new look was not to last, as Tyne Tees adopted the 1989 ITV generic look on 1 September. The look consisted of the top left corner of the logo being inserted into the 'V' segment of the ITV logo, with the station name placed underneath the Tyne Tees ITV logo. However, not every ITV station embraced the new logo, and Tyne Tees abandoned it on 24 February 1991. On 25 February 1991, the generic ident were replaced with ones produced by Tyne Tees, featuring a large reflective block which the viewpoint rotated around, before panning up to reveal it is the Tyne Tees logo. The music from the previous generic look was retained. Three variations were used, one with a black background, one with a multi coloured background and one with a grey background, with each version taking over from its predecessor after only a few months of use. On 5 October 1992, Tyne Tees dropped their famous logo which they had previously been using since 1970 and opted instead for four separate letters stacked atop each other like previously accomplished spelling TTTV. The form up was over a grey background with a line moving across the screen, forming the letters as they went. On-screen announcements said, "This is Tyne Tees Television, broadcasting on Channel 3 in the North-East." ==Programming==

The station's founding executives George and Alfred Black used their theatrical background to produce a lot of light entertainment programming on Tyne Tees in the early years. One of the best known was ''The One O'Clock Show, a 40-minute variety show broadcast on weekdays. After 1,098 editions and more than five years on air, the final show was broadcast in March 1964. Some editions of The One O'Clock Show were produced by David Croft, who would go on to co-write many BBC situation comedies. For Tyne Tees, Croft also directed and produced the Ned's Shed and Mary Goes to Market admags, as well as producing his first sitcom, Under New Management'', set in a derelict pub in the North of England. The bulk of Tyne Tees' output has been its regional programming, consisting of news, current affairs and local interest. Its longest running news programme was Northern Life, which ran from 1976 to 1992. The main news show has been rebranded several times; the current version is ITV News Tyne Tees. Tyne Tees contributed game shows to the network, including Crosswits (1985–98) and Chain Letters (1987–97). Tyne Tees became a prolific producer of children's entertainment for the ITV network in the 1970s and 1980s. From the late 1970s, it produced series such as The Paper Lads, Quest of Eagles, Barriers and Andy Robson. This continued into the 1980s with Madabout, How Dare You!, ''Gilbert's Fridge and weekday pop-music show Razzamatazz, a pop programme that attracted many major recording artists to appear in a 17:15 slot. Tyne Tees also managed the production of Get Fresh, a Saturday morning show hosted in various weeks by different ITV regions. Super Gran'', based on a series of books about a grandmother with superhuman powers, was also successful in the mid-1980s. Additionally they also dubbed the South African children's series Oscar the Rabbit in Rubbidge which featured narration by Lance Percival. With independent production company Festival Films and Television, Tyne Tees produced several adaptations of books by local novelist Catherine Cookson. The second dramatisation, The Black Velvet Gown, was the number one drama of 1991, winning an Emmy Award for best TV drama. Long-running soap opera Coronation Street was briefly produced at Tyne Tees' City Road studios in 1963 while all of the studios at the show's home, Granada Television in Manchester, were occupied by a production of the opera Orpheus in the Underworld. However, not all of the station's output has been successful. The 1997 soap opera Quayside was axed after 17 episodes after competing with the BBC's EastEnders. Tyne Tees has also produced a wide range of music programming. One of the first attempts at reaching the teenage audience was Young at Heart, hosted by Jimmy Savile and Valerie Masters in 1960. In 1979, Tyne Tees launched two national series, Alright Now and Check it Out, the latter a mix of rock music and segments on youth-oriented social issues; among performances by established acts, the two shows offered early exposure to bands linked to the North East, notably Dire Straits and The Police. The most famous music show from the station, though, derived its name from the studios themselves. Produced for Channel 4, and first broadcast three days after the new station's launch in November 1982, The Tube acquired its name from the architecture of the public entrance to Studio 5, from where the show was broadcast, at the City Road complex. Under the direction of Gavin Taylor, The Tube filmed rock band Queen's 1986 Wembley concert for later broadcast and video and DVD release. Cameras bearing the Tyne Tees logo can be seen throughout the concert. The Tube was dropped in 1987 as a result of falling audience figures and an incident involving Jools Holland, who cursed during a live trailer. A couple of months later, Tyne Tees launched another music show, this time for the ITV network. Whereas The Tube featured rock and punk bands and emerging musicians, Tyne Tees' The Roxy, concentrated on the mainstream UK singles chart. The show suffered, however, from not having a regular slot on the ITV network. Also, unlike The Tube, which had gained a loyal fanbase and respect from artists, mainstream acts were reluctant to travel to Newcastle for a three-minute performance when they could appear on the BBC's more established Top of the Pops in the more accessible London. ==References==