| North Tonight | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Regional News |
| Created by | Grampian Television |
| Country of origin | Scotland |
| Production | |
| Running time | Main bulletin: 30 minutes Short bulletins: Durations vary |
| Production companies | Grampian Television (STV News) |
| Original release | |
| Network | Grampian Television (now branded STV) |
| Release | 7 January 1980 – 22 March 2009 |
| Related | |
North Tonight was a Scottish nightly regional news programme covering the North of Scotland, produced by STV North (formerly Grampian Television).
During the late 1960s and 1970s, Grampian's regional news service consisted of daily 10-minute evening bulletins. By 1978, the bulletins had developed into a magazine programme entitled Grampian Today, initially broadcast from Wednesday - Friday before expanding to every weeknight.
The programme was relaunched as North Tonight on Monday 7 January 1980 in an effort to reflect the Northern Scotland region as a whole - its first presenters were John Duncanson and Selina Scott.
The launch of North Tonight coincided with the opening of a new remote-controlled studio at Albany House in Dundee (an event broadcast live on the first programme) and an expansion into Grampian's use of Electronic News Gathering (ENG) cameras. Grampian Today had pioneered the use of such cameras in 1978, [1] [2] [3] allowing the company to extend its flagship news programme to five nights a week. By 1983, a third studio at Inverness (modelled on the Dundee studio) was opened, allowing greater coverage of the Highlands and Islands area.
The early years of North Tonight also coincided with the launch of regular news bulletins at lunchtime (North News) and before station closedown (North Headlines) on weekdays, read by Grampian's team of continuity announcers. Regional news at weekends would not be introduced until 1988, when the bulletins were renamed Grampian Headlines.
Up until the early 1990s, North Tonight was taken off air during the summer months and replaced by a nightly magazine show entitled Summer at Six (later North Tonight: Summer Edition), which also included a short news bulletin.
Significant points in the history of the programme included extensive coverage of the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 and the resignation of Grampian Police chief constable Dr. Ian Oliver in 1998. North Tonight also covered the murder of Aberdeen schoolboy Scott Simpson in the mid-1990s and the bird flu incident in Cellardyke, Fife in April 2006.
Its predecessor, Grampian Today, had the first live broadcast from an oil platform in the North Sea, as well as the first live broadcast from the summit of Cairn Gorm. During the mid 1990s, North Tonight twice won the BAFTA Scotland award for Best News Programme. [4]
North Tonight live aired from Grampian's main studios at Queens Cross in Aberdeen until the station moved to new, smaller studios in the West Tullos area of the city in 2003. News studios were retained in Dundee and Inverness with political correspondents based at bureaux in Edinburgh and Millbank, Westminster. There was a studio in Stornoway but this closed in 2001.
Contracted freelance correspondents and cameramen provided news coverage from the outer regions of Shetland, Orkney, Caithness and Sutherland. The programme also had the distinction of reporting from the largest geographical region in the ITV network, covering an area the size of Belgium.
On 8 January 2007, viewers of North Tonight began to receive two different programmes - those in the Dundee, Angus, Perthshire and north-east Fife area received a dedicated bulletin within the main North Tonight programme featuring the day's news from the sub-region, presented & produced from STV's studios in Dundee and directed from a technical gallery in Aberdeen.
Originally, the Tayside bulletins were produced from Harbour Chambers in City Quay. As of 28 April 2008, STV News's Tayside operation is now based at upgraded, larger studios at Seabraes. Whilst the Tayside bulletin was broadcast, viewers further north saw more news from the north-east, Highlands and Islands areas, broadcast from the headquarters of STV North in Aberdeen.
On 7 April 2007, it was announced that GMTV had replaced STV as the supplier of early morning regional news bulletins in Scotland. The contract was awarded to the Belfast-based Macmillan Media, which has offices in London and Glasgow. GMTV Scotland (Grampian) began on 3 December 2007. [5] STV, and its northern predecessor Grampian Television had supplied GMTV with its news since the breakfast channel took over from TV-am in 1993. The newsroom produced three bulletins of about three minutes each at 06.35, 07.05 and 08.05. The decision also affected North Today's sister programme, Scotland Today. [6] The contract to provide regional ITV Breakfast in North of Scotland (as well as the STV Central region) returned to STV in 2013.
On 19 June 2007, STV North began producing Northern Exposure, a supplementary video blog, presented and produced by the North Tonight team for the station's website, stv.tv. The blogs, which spawned a spin-off series entitled Ask Kirstin, continued to be produced on a regular basis until June 2009.
On 18 March 2009, it was announced that the North Tonight branding would be phased out as part of a major station revamp. On Monday 23 March 2009, the nightly news programme was relaunched and renamed as STV News at Six . The name is also used in the STV Central region as a replacement for Scotland Today . [7] The last main edition of North Tonight was aired on Friday 20 March 2009.
|
|
ITV, legally known as Channel 3, is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It is branded as ITV1 in most of the UK except for central and northern Scotland, where it is branded as STV. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition and reduce the current monopoly to the then BBC Television. ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time: BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4.
Grampian Television was the original name of the Channel 3 service for the north of Scotland founded in 1961 and now named STV. The northern region's coverage area includes the Northern Isles, Western Isles, Highlands, Grampian, Tayside, and parts of north Fife.
Television in Scotland mostly consists of UK-wide broadcasts, with regional variations at different times which are specific to Scotland. The BBC and ITV networks both began broadcasting in the country during the 1950s. There were further expansions in the early 1960s with the arrival of Grampian, Border and BBC2 television.
Anne Erica Isobel Mackenzie is a former BBC political and current affairs presenter. Mackenzie worked as a newscaster between 1981 and 1997. She started her career with Grampian TV, in Aberdeen, before joining BBC Scotland in 1995. She became a political and current affairs presenter in 1998, anchoring several BBC network programmes. Mackenzie was also part of the Newsnight Scotland team, with BBC Scotland, from its launch in October 1999 to July 2007. She could also be heard fronting factual programmes for BBC Radio 4 in London.
Scotland Today was a Scottish regional news programme covering Central Scotland, produced by STV Central. Despite its name suggesting a national remit, the programme was actually limited to stories around STV's Central Belt franchise. North Tonight covered STV's North Scotland region, until both programmes were renamed STV News at Six in March 2009.
Politics Now is a Scottish political programme produced and broadcast by STV in northern and central Scotland, between 2004 and 2011. The programme, broadcast for 40 weeks of the year, on a Thursday evenings after the late STV News bulletin, covered all of the big Political developments in Westminster, Brussels and Holyrood in detail.
Kirstin Gove is a Scottish PR & media consultant, who previously worked as a broadcast journalist and presenter for STV North.
STV is a free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the STV Group. It is made up of the Central Scotland and Northern Scotland ITV public broadcaster licences, formerly known as Scottish Television and Grampian Television respectively.
Media in Dundee has been an integral part of the city's history, particularly print media. Dundee has long been known for its Jute, Jam & Journalism, with the latter the only remaining industry of the three still present in the city. The city and surrounding area's main newspaper The Courier has been a fixture of Dundee life, still printed in the city, since 1801.
Daybreak Scotland was the regional news broadcaster for the two ITV regions in northern and central Scotland, provided for the ITV breakfast station ITV Breakfast. The bulletins were produced for Daybreak by Macmillan Media, and were broadcast from studios in Glasgow.
John Duncanson was a Scottish television presenter and journalist, best known as a main anchor of Grampian Television's nightly regional news programme, North Tonight.
Frank Gilfeather is a Scottish journalist and broadcaster. Gilfeather, a former Scottish amateur boxing champion from Dundee, moved to Aberdeen in April 1969 and began work on the Press & Journal and the Evening Express as a general news reporter. Later, when personnel was allocated to each paper, he was a news reporter on the P&J for some years before moving to the evening newspaper's sports desk as chief sportswriter and deputy sports editor. His broadcasting career began in 1980 with the launch of the Grampian Television regional news programme, North Tonight. Gilfeather joined the programme as a sports correspondent although he would later also work on news coverage. As well as reporting for North Tonight, Gilfeather fronted the North Tonight spin-off Summer at Six and popular local quiz show Top Club which ran for nine years. He also worked on general election coverage for ITN and has been featured in out-takes on LWT's It'll be Alright on the Night.
Andrew Anderson is a Scottish broadcast journalist.
STV News is a Scottish news division produced by STV. The news department produces two regional services covering STV's Channel 3 franchise areas of Northern and Central Scotland.
This is a list of events in Scottish television from 1993.
This is a list of events in Scottish television from 2007.
This is a timeline of the history of the British broadcaster Scottish Television. It provides the ITV network service for Central Scotland.
This is a timeline of the history of the British broadcaster Grampian Television. It provides the ITV network service for the north of Scotland.
This is a timeline of television in Scotland.
This is a timeline of the history of regional news on the British television network ITV.
ITV News (ITV nations & regions) | |
|---|---|
| |
| Television |
|  | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Production | ||||||||
| See also | ||||||||
