BBC North West Tonight - History

History

BBC television news from Manchester began on 30 September 1957 with a nightly bulletin entitled News from the North, broadcast to the whole of Northern England (incorporating the current BBC North West, Yorkshire & North Midlands, East Yorkshire & Lincolnshire and North East & Cumbria regions). The rival ITV station Granada Television had already begun providing regional news coverage when it first went on air in May 1956, at first covering the North West only before extending to Yorkshire six months later.

The BBC's service was refocused to cover the North West and Yorkshire areas when separate bulletins for the North East and Cumbria were introduced in 1959. By 1962, the nightly bulletins had been extended to 20 minutes and evolved into the magazine programme North at Six, later renamed Look North.

On 25 March 1968, the Manchester edition of Look North was again re-focused to cover the North West area only following the launch of a third Look North programme from Leeds. The programme was renamed in 1980 as Look North West with News North West introduced for shorter bulletins. On 18 May 1981, Look North West moved from small studios at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester to New Broadcasting House on Oxford Road in the city.

North West Tonight was introduced on 3 September 1984 to coincide with the launch of the BBC Six O'Clock News. Between 1986 and 1989, the programme also covered parts of Cumbria previously served by the Newcastle edition of Look North and provided a news opt-out for the area at lunchtime. Following viewer complaints, Cumbrian news coverage was switched back to Newcastle's Look North.

The last edition of the programme from Studio B at New Broadcasting House on Oxford Road aired on Sunday 27 November 2011, also the last broadcast from the studios after 36 years of operation. The programme's first broadcast from the BBC's Salford Quays studios took place on Monday 28 November 2011 during the BBC Breakfast programme.

Read more about this topic:  BBC North West Tonight

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

    Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.
    Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)

    The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more
    John Adams (1735–1826)