Tyne Tees Television - Definition and Overview

Tyne Tees Television Limited is the ITV television contractor for the North East of England.

The Station

It primarily broadcasts from converted warehouses on City Road in Newcastle. It also has smaller studios and offices in Billingham, York, London and within the Media Centre at the University of Sunderland. It 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).

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, was represented within the company's early Three Rivers Fantasy signature tune.

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 major 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, a production for Channel 4, 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.) 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 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"

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:

• Tyne Tees (1959-1996, 1998-2002, although still used inconsistently 1996-1998 and 2002-present)

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

• Tyne Tees Logo Page (unofficial history site) (http://www.ttlp.org.uk/)
• SignPost (BSL translation provider, part of Tyne Tees) (http://www.signpostbsl.com/)