Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

Tyne Tees Television

Tyne Tees Television Limited is the ITV television contractor for the North East of England, broadcasting from Newcastle. It went on air in 1959.

Tyne Tees Television's major regional programme is "North East Tonight". It doesn't really make a major contribution to the ITV network nowadays, apart from the recent Catherine Cookson Mysteries adaptions on ITV (the series now defunct), and the clip shows 100 Greatest.... for Channel 4. Previously, it made Face The Press and Supergran among others for ITV and The Tube for Channel 4.

In the mid-1970s, 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 Granada plc). One of Granada's first moves was to scrap the hated-in-some-quarters Channel 3 branding. The "TTTV" logo returned to screens in a new form in 1998. However dual branding with the "ITV" name was introduced not long after.

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 continues to appear after its own programmes, accompanied by a small Granada logo to identify its parent company.

External links