The YTV and BBC faces that made 50 years of Yorkshire news

Local news had come as a shock in 1968, especially for viewers in Manchester, who were suddenly beamed bulletins from the BBC’s newly-established Yorkshire region unless they re-tuned their TVs.

It was the creation of Yorkshire TV that had redrawn the broadcast map, and on those early programmes, Austin Mitchell, Richard Whiteley and – briefly – the future MP Jonathan Aitken squared off against the corporation’s dapper Barry Chambers and the more sombre John Burns.

Among those who followed were Liz Fox, Marylyn Webb, Richard Madeley, Geoff Druett, Alan Hardwick and Mike Morris on Calendar, and Ken Cooper, Khalid Aziz, Judith Stamper, John Thirlwell, Jeremy Thompson and Harry Gration on Look North. There were specialists, too, like YTV’s weatherman Bob Rust and the BBC’s rugby league commentator Eddie Waring, who broadcast from Leeds at weekends.

But only one presenter, Christa Ackroyd – now a Saturday columnist for The Yorkshire Post – managed to successfully switch sides.

While Calendar always enjoyed the facilities of a network studio centre, Look North was initially transmitted from a converted church in Woodhouse, Leeds – where it was said that the scout troop marching on the next floor could sometimes be heard on air.

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James Mitchinson, Editor