Tyne Tees Television is the ITV television contractor for North East England. The company is registered as Tyne Tees Television Limited and is part of ITV Plc. It launched in January 1959 from its main studios in City Road, Newcastle upon Tyne. The station has contributed several shows to the ITV network and Channel 4, as well as its regional output. Its current regional news programme is North East Tonight.
1959 - 1971
The 'anchor' ident was used from the launch of Tyne Tees in 1959, and was used until about 1971.
1970 - 1979
The first Tyne Tees colour ident, circa 1969-1979. The ident saw the debut appearance of the familiar joined TTTV logo. Although it was a nice animation for the time period, to say the soundtrack was overly pompous is an understatement.
1979 - 1988
The technicians strike of 1979 ground the ITV Network to a halt but when Tyne Tees eventually returned they did so in a blaze of glory. Their most famous ident launched in October 1979 and introduced programmes for nine years before finally giving way to computer animation.
1988 - 1989
The 'flowing rivers' ident introduced in 1988 was a marvel to watch. Sadly, it didn't last very long on screens, which is a shame.
1989
The 1989 Generic era gave us this ident from Tyne Tees. TTTV were one of the few companies to use the '89 ident for a significant amount of time and were even known to play it backwards prior to regional programming so the TTTV logo was formed (a superior idea, in my opinion). As the majority of franchises discovered, the triangular space designated for a regional logo was very restricting. Tyne Tees was no exception, with only the very top half of the 'flowing rivers' ident visible. I suspect that viewers who did not take an interest in TV presentation had no clue as to what it was supposed to represent.
1991 - 1992
The generic look could not last forever and with the majority of ITV companies refusing to use it (including most of the 'Big 5'), its demise was inevitable. In its place Tyne Tees produced my personal favourite TTTV ident. Retaining the David Dundas theme, the 'glass pillar' ident featured images from around the region, viewed from inside the pillar of the top right 'T'. All three variants (all three variants is shown here) were identical to each other, save for the endboard which improved with each revision. Alas, this was to be the final ident to feature the classic TTTV logo as daddy Yorkshire began to take a stranglehold on the company. Apologies for the poor quality of these images.
1992
So this is what was introduced circa 1993. The familiar logo we knew and loved had gone. In it's place this rather different ident.
The Broadcasting Act of 1990 and the 1993 Franchise Round
Things start to go a bit pear-shaped...
The Broadcasting Act of 1990 changed the workings of the ITV Network. For the first time companies could now own more than one franchise and were free to merge and consolidate with other companies. This would eventually lead to the ITV Network we have today, where one company (ITV plc) owns all the Channel 3 licenses in England & Wales. As part of the Act, the stringent Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was abolished and replaced by the 'light-touch' Independent Television Commission (ITC). In a desperate attempt to hang onto their franchise, Tyne Tees Television massively overbid. Their only rival bidder, North East Television (backed by Granada Television) bid 5 million pounds, 10 million less than Tyne Tees. However, TTTV was very nearly disqualified on quality grounds. Due to the huge amount of money Tyne Tees had agreed to part with, the ITC was concerned that quality would suffer. After consultation, the franchise was awarded to the incumbent holder.
Unfortunately this was not the end of Tyne Tees' troubles. The cash-strapped company had agreed to back the North West Television bid, also backed by old friend Yorkshire Television. Effectively, we were extremely close to seeing Granada and Tyne Tees swap franchises. However, NWT failed, Granada grew stronger and Tyne Tees grew weaker. So weak in fact that the station was left with no choice other than to merge with the also financially troubled Yorkshire Television. The two companies had previously came together in an arrangement known as Trident Television in the 1970s. However, this new arrangement was a very different affair to Trident. The very name Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television left little doubt as to who was 'wearing the trousers'. Yorkshire had a much greater say in the new company as YTV shareholders owned 75% of the business, with neglected Tyne Tees owning an almost insignificant 25%. Sadly, this was where it all started going downhill for the beleaguered North East station. YTV began using TTTV as a guinea pig for their ridiculous money-saving schemes, with no regard for the loyal North East viewers.
fast forward to 1996 and take a look...
Behind the Giant 3
'This is Tyne Tees Television, broadcasting to the North East on Channel 3' Reduced to nothing more than a tiny strap line, Tyne Tees Television was as good as gone. In its place was a tacky, gigantic golden 3 placed over an even tackier pale blue background. When the C3NE brand was introduced in 1996, an identity crisis hit the North East station. For contractual reasons, the ident still had to refer to Tyne Tees, so a tiny strap line reading 'Tyne Tees Television' was added along the bottom. In reality, TTTV was now known as Channel 3 North East although, strangely, the ident referred to it as 'North East 3'. The continuity announcers were clearly equally confused with statements such as 'This is Channel 3 North East Tyne Tees Television' regularly heard. So how had it come to this? Down at Yorkshire Television the accountants had moved in and proposed renaming Tyne Tees to C3NE and Yorkshire to C3Yorkshire. This may seem pointless but the sinister element behind this rebranding exercise will be revealed later in this article. The Yorkshire bosses were not too keen on renaming their station but agreed to once again use poor TTTV as a guinea pig. A campaign fronted by North East broadcasting legend Mike Neville, then newly poached from Look North, soon began. A rather nice video showing North East people and objects in groups of three took to the airwaves. In fact, if Yorkshire had put even the slightest bit of effort into the presentational aspect of the rebranding, then there was every chance C3NE would have succeeded. But they didn't. So it failed. North East viewers reacted furiously to the sudden change. Of course, many had grown up with the iconic Tyne Tees name and were not too pleased by its sudden abandonment. But YTV stuck by C3NE despite its unpopularity for a very good reason, from an accountant's perspective. Their long term plan was to run a generic service between the two regions, with the same announcements, the same idents and the same name. However, in 1997 the troubled YTTTV group was bought out by the Granada Media Group who proclaimed that Tyne Tees required a strong visual identity. Many thought GMG had saved Tyne Tees and that the good times were back. In reality, TTTV was in big trouble. on to 1998 and... Tyne Tees celebrated their 40th anniversary in 1999 and used a special ident for this event. The last truly regional idents from Tyne Tees. Tyne Tees Television was rebranded as ITV1 Tyne Tees on 28 October 2002. The name "Tyne Tees" only appears before regional programmes; the rest of the time, only the "ITV1" name is shown. The Tyne Tees logo continued to appear after its own programmes.The Granada Return
1999
1999-2002
1999-2002 Hearts Idents
2002-2004
2004-2006
2006
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