Yorkshire Television

Yorkshire Television Limited is the ITV contractor for Yorkshire, England, and the surrounding areas. It was formed from a ‘shotgun marriage’ between two applicant groups in the 1967 franchise round, Telefusion Yorkshire Ltd and Yorkshire Independent Television, the former having large financial backing and the latter having the better plans (but less money). It went on air on 29 July 1968 from purpose-built colour studios in Leeds, the first of their kind in Europe. It also has a smaller studio in Sheffield. Before the studios in Leeds were completed early shows were produced at the ABC studios at Didsbury, Manchester.

History

Until 2002, Yorkshire Television was often known on air as YTV. Its logo, since 1968, has been a chevron, and the identification theme was based on the traditional Yorkshire song ‘On Ilkla Moor Baht’at’. YTV’s first startup tune was the striking “Yorkshire Television March”, written by Derek New and arranged by Ron Goodwin; this was changed in 1982 for the “Yorkshire Theme” written by Chris Gunning. The station nearly came to grief a few months after going on-air, when its transmitter at Emley Moor collapsed under a heavy build-up of ice, leaving the major part of the region uncovered by television broadcasts. However, a temporary mast was quickly erected and television to the West Riding of Yorkshire resumed.With the introduction of UHF broadcasting, YTV had failed to gain the Bilsdale transmitter in North Yorkshire, which was allocated instead to Tyne Tees Television due to the transmitter’s penetration into Teesside and County Durham. This seriously reduced YTV’s monopoly commercial broadcast area. Partially to address this issue, in 1974 the Independent Broadcasting Authority reallocated the Belmont Transmitter, then served by Anglia Television, to YTV. Although the area served by Belmont was largely rural, it did cover the more industrial centres of Hull, Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Lincoln and it was felt the region would be better served from Leeds than from Norwich.Major Yorkshire Television programmes include the soap opera Emmerdale (originally Emmerdale Farm) and drama Heartbeat, as well as the quiz shows 3-2-1 for ITV and Countdown for Channel 4. Local programmes include the news service Calendar. In 1975 Yorkshire produced one of ITV’s few critically-acclaimed sitcoms, Rising Damp, starring Leonard Rossiter.As a broadcaster, Yorkshire Television was the first member of the ITV Network to acquire the long-running late-night cult soap opera Prisoner Cell Block H, premiering the show on Monday 8th October 1984 at 11pm. Yorkshire Television was vocal in its disapproval of Thames Television’s surprise poaching of Dallas from the BBC, and was successful in insisting Thames adhere to the rules of fair play. In the mid 1980s Yorkshire broke from the network by refusing to screen the BAFTA Awards, claiming them to be slaps on the backs of the BBC. The movie The Sting was a replacement in 1986. As the rest of the network over-ran in the live BAFTA screening, Yorkshire had to cobble together minor programmes until other regions were able to screen the late-running ITN News.From its’ inception YTV had a turbulent relationship with the broadcasting unions (a common theme within ITV). Viewers tuning in to watch one edition of News at Ten in 1970 found themselves looking at a hand-written card which read ‘Yorkshire TV have threatened to sack us so we are going on strike. Goodnight’.In the ITV strike of 1979 the station, like the rest of the network, was off the air for over two months. However the dispute was more intense at YTV as the company’s management were seen as instrumentental in fighting the unions. In the 1980 franchise round several YTV staff submitted their own application for the Yorkshire franchise under the name of ‘Television Yorkshire’.Although Yorkshire Television claims to serve the whole of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, it has long been contended by many of the people of Sheffield that Yorkshire Television shows an unacceptable bias towards West Yorkshire in general and Leeds in particular. This alleged bias was never better illustrated than when Sheffield Wednesday won an unlikely League Cup Final in 1991 against Manchester United. Extended highlights of the game and post-match celebrations were available and individual ITV stations were left to decide whether to show them; London Weekend Television showed the additional half-hour, but Yorkshire Television opted to stay with their scheduled programme, War of the Monster Trucks – a decision which they have never subsequently been able to live down. Yorkshire Television did subsequently open a Calendar News studio in Sheffield, possibly to counter accusations of bias. The studio is clearly a very small setup however, which again has led to a perception among locals that YTV treats Sheffield as an afterthought.A similar charge of bias has been levied by viewers served by the Belmont transmitter which covers Lincolnshire and North Norfolk. Until 1970 this area received coverage from Anglia Television but was replaced by Yorkshire. It is often contended that the name of the company reflects its focus but this is an unfair accusation given that during the 1970′s and 1980′s the company invested heavily in operations in Lincoln and Grimsby and created a regional opt-out for the area on its main news programme Calendar.

Mergers and branding

Tyne Tees

In 1970, Yorkshire Television was effectively merged with its neighbour Tyne Tees Television, when the two were brought under the control of Trident Television Limited, a company formed to deal with the problem of effective ownership of the Bilsdale transmitter. The other point of the trident was intended to be another neighbour, Anglia Television, but in the event, Anglia was prevented from joining by the Independent Broadcasting Authority. 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. Various programmes which had previously been shown at a regional pace were suddenly jolted forward to the furthest ahead point among Yorkshire and Tyne Tees. Yorkshire had to lose over 200 episodes of The Young Doctors to reach the Tyne Tees stage of the serial. Similarly Tyne Tees had to lose over 100 Blockbusters and a number of Prisoner cell Block H episodes. Other programmes were also affected.In 1996, Yorkshire Tyne Tees Television made the controversial move of dual branding its stations as “Channel 3″. Yorkshire Television had a scaled back version of this branding, and became known as Channel 3 Yorkshire, but its neighbour Tyne Tees Television was forced to use Channel 3 North East with Tyne Tees Television existing only in small letters underneath. To make matters worse, the announcers often informed viewers they were watching ‘Tyne Tees Television, broadcasting on Channel 3 in the North East’.

Granada

In 1997 Yorkshire Tyne Tees Television plc was acquired by Granada Group plc (now ITV plc). Granada’s first move was to scrap the hated-in-some-quarters Channel 3 branding, starting from 9 March 1998. However, dual branding with the “ITV” name was introduced a year later.Yorkshire Television was placed in charge of transmission control and presentation for all of Granada’s stations in the North of England, with the creation of the Northern Transmission Centre. The continuity department closed down in 2002 after a unified presentation department for ITV1 in England was set up by LNN in London.On 28 October 2002, Yorkshire Television was rebranded as ITV1 Yorkshire. The “Yorkshire” name only appears before regional programmes; the rest of the time, only the name “ITV1″ is shown. The famous chevron continued to appear after programmes made by Yorkshire Television, until 31 October 2004. However, from 1 November 2004, the Granada logo appears at the end of Yorkshire programmes, accompanied by the words ‘A Granada Yorkshire Production’. Further, in January 2006, this was replaced with an anonymous ‘ITV Productions’ credit. The only reference to Yorkshire Television is at the very end of the credits as in Emmerdale where the ITV website link changes to Copyright Yorkshire Television Limited 2006. A large model of the chevron, for many years a prominent feature of the exterior of the Yorkshire Television studio building in Leeds, mysteriously ‘fell off’ the wall in early 2005 and was never replaced. A smaller chevron remains on the outside of the Sheffield studio.

Calendar

Calendar — with Duncan Wood and Christine Talbot. Formerly hosted by the late Richard Whiteley (until 1995) and Mike Morris.

Notable productions

• 3-2-1
• A Bit of a Do
• A Pattern of Roses
• A Touch of Frost
• Animal Kwackers
• Book Tower
• Conspiracy of Silence Banned in the USA
• Countdown — a game show produced for Channel 4
• Darling Buds of May
• Dominic
• Duty Free
• Emmerdale
• Enterprise
• Farmhouse Kitchen
• First Tuesday
• Flambards
• Follyfoot Farm
• Forget-Me-Not Farm
• Get Up and Go
• Harry’s Game
• Heartbeat
• Hello, Cheeky!
• Home to Roost
• How We Used To Live
• In Loving Memory
• It’s A Vet’s Life
• Knock Three Times
• Little Blue
• Local Heroes
• Miriam Stoppard Health & Beauty Show
• Mooncat & Co
• My Husband and I
• Only When I Laugh
• Pieces of Parkin
• Pop Quest
• Puddle Lane
• Ragdolly Anna
• Rising Damp
• Scrumdown
• Jimmy’s
• Stepping Stones
• That’s My Boy
• The Ark Stories
• The New Statesman
• The Raggy Dolls
• Tickle on the Tum
• Toucan Tecs
• Tumbledown Farm
• Where There’s Life
• Winner Takes All
• Zoo Vet at Large

Conspiracy of SilenceConspiracy of Silence is a 56-minute documentary film detailing an alleged child sex scandal that involved banker Lawrence ‘Larry’ King, many children from the Nebraska institution, Boys Town, and members of the Reagan and Bush White House during the 1980s. King was allegedly the ringleader of the sex ring which had links to other fellow political conservatives in Washington D.C., including Republican lobbyist Craig Spence, the staff of Sen. Elizabeth Dole, and members of the financial elite of Nebraska.The documentary was produced over the course of ten months by Yorkshire Television for broadcast in the US on 3 May 1994 on the Discovery Channel. However, concerns over liability for defamation resulted in the documentary never being aired. Most copies of the finished product were destroyed, but a mostly completed work print of the documentary was sent anonymously to attorney and former Nebraska State Senator John DeCamp a year after all copies were supposedly destroyed.

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