Tyne Tees Television
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Tyne Tees Television Limited is the ITV television contractor for North East England.
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The Station
It primarily broadcasts from converted warehouses on City Road in Newcastle upon Tyne, which also houses SignPost, "Britain's biggest supplier of British Sign Language (BSL) services for television, video, CD-ROM, DVD, film and the Internet." [1] (http://www.signpostbsl.com/aboutus1a.htm). Tyne Tees also has smaller studios and offices in Billingham, York, London and within the Media Centre at the University of Sunderland.
Opening and Programming
It went on air at 5pm on 15 January 1959. The then prime minister Harold Macmillan was interviewed live on the opening night.
The station is named after two of the region's three primary rivers. The other major river, the Wear (which runs between the Tyne and the Tees), was represented within the company's early Three Rivers Fantasy signature tune.
Tube,_Tyne_Tees,_City_Road.jpg
Tyne Tees Television's flagship regional programme is "North East Tonight", a local news programme broadcast at 6pm, primarily hosted by Mike Neville. Although it is not a prolific contributor to ITV's network programming, it has produced a range of popular shows, such as adaptations of Catherine Cookson novels and the 100 Greatest... series of clip shows for Channel 4. Previously, it made Face The Press, Crosswits and Supergran, among others for ITV.
The architecture of the public entrance to the City Road complex gave music show The Tube its title.
Mergers and Branding
On 1 January 1974, Tyne Tees Television merged with its neighbour Yorkshire Television to form Trident Television Limited. The two stations remained separately run and were required to demerge in 1981 as a condition of the re-award of their ITV contracts. However following rule changes in 1993, the two stations resumed their alliance under the name Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television plc.
In 1996, Yorkshire Tyne Tees Television made the controversial move of dual branding its stations as "Channel 3". (Channel 3 was for a time the "official" name for ITV, but was not used by other stations.) At this stage, the continuity studios in Newcastle were closed and continuity in both the Yorkshire and Tyne Tees regions was centralised in Leeds. Tyne Tees Television was forced to use the rather long winded name "Channel 3 North East - Tyne Tees Television". The famous "TTTV" logo was dropped in favour of a large "3". The name "Tyne Tees Television" was only seen in small letters at the bottom of the screen. Its neighbour Yorkshire Television was allowed to keep its own logo alongside the "3", but Tyne Tees was not.
In 1997 Yorkshire Tyne Tees Television plc was acquired by Granada Group plc (now ITV plc). One of Granada's first moves was to scrap the often derided Channel 3 branding. The "TTTV" logo returned to screens in a new form on 9 March 1998. However dual branding with the "ITV" name was introduced a year later.
On 28 October 2002, Tyne Tees Television was rebranded as ITV1 Tyne Tees. The "Tyne Tees" name only appears before regional programmes, the rest of the time only the name "ITV1" is shown. The Tyne Tees logo continued to appear after its own programmes, accompanied by a small Granada logo to identify its parent company. However, on 1 November 2004 this was replaced with a new Granada endcap with the words "A Granada Tyne Tees Production"
On 9 February 2005, OFCOM issued a proposed timetable for ending analogue terrestrial television transmissions as part of the switchover to digital television. 2011 is the target year for Tyne Tees.
Names used
Company names:
- Tyne Tees Television Limited (1959-present)
- Trident Television Limited (1970s-31 December 1981) - parent company
- Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television plc (1995-present) - parent company
On-air names:
Initials used:
- TTT (1959-1970)
- TTTV (1970-2002, although still used inconsistently 2002-present)
Nicknames used:
- Tees (1959-present, still used by viewers and (rarely) used on air until about 1996)
Notable Tyne Tees Television Productions
- 100 Greatest... (for Channel 4)
- Various Catherine Cookson dramas, including The Fifteen Streets and The Black Velvet Gown (the latter won an International Emmy)
- Chain Letters
- Crosswits
- The Famous Five
- Ghost Train
- Gimme 5
- Madabout
- The Roxy
- Supergran
- The Tube
External links
- Official website (http://www.tynetees.tv/)
- Tyne Tees Logo Page (unofficial history site) (http://www.ttlp.org.uk/)
- SignPost (BSL translation provider, part of Tyne Tees) (http://www.signpostbsl.com/)
- Animated Tyne Tees ident (http://www.625.uk.com/tv_logos/flash/ttt8.asp), 1959, from 625.uk.com (Requires Macromedia Flash version 4 or later).
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