John Duncanson (14 April 1940 – 25 October 2020) was a Scottish television presenter and journalist, best known as a main anchor of
Grampian Television's nightly regional news programme, ''
North Tonight''.
Biography
Born in
Prestwick and raised in
Selkirk, Duncanson started his career in the theatre, initially in stage management before he became an actor.
Duncanson switched to television in 1964 when he joined
Border Television in
Carlisle
Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern England, Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers River Eden, Cumbria, Eden, River C ...
as a continuity announcer. The following year, he moved to
Ulster Television, before going onto work at
ABC Weekend TV in
Manchester and
Birmingham - where his colleagues included
David Hamilton and John Benson.
He went onto work at several ITV stations, including
Anglia,
Harlech Television
ITV Wales and West, previously known as Harlech Television (HTV), was an ITV (TV network), ITV franchise area in the United Kingdom until 31 December 2013, licensed to a broadcaster by the regulator Ofcom.
There is no channel, past or present, ...
(HTV) and
Tyne Tees.
In December 1974, he joined
BBC Scotland
BBC Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: ''BBC Alba'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland.
It is one of the four BBC national regions, together with the BBC English Regions, BBC Cymru Wales and BBC Northern Ireland. I ...
to co-anchor ''
Reporting Scotland'', initially from
Glasgow, and later,
Edinburgh. After two years, he switched to BBC radio, presenting programmes for the opt-out service 'Radio Highland'.
In 1979, Duncanson joined
Grampian Television (now STV North) as a news reporter and presenter for the regional news programme ''Grampian Today''. The following year, the programme was relaunched as ''North Tonight'' - with Duncanson anchoring initially alongside
Selina Scott
Selina Mary Scott (born 13 May 1951) is an English television presenter who co-hosted the first dedicated breakfast television programme in the UK before crossing the Atlantic to join '' West 57th'', a prime-time current-affairs show broadcast f ...
, followed by the likes of
Anna Soubry,
Anne MacKenzie and his eventual successor,
Norman Macleod.
He continued to anchor the programme for eighteen years and signed off each edition by saying 'Oidhche Mhath' (Scots Gaelic for ''good night'') to acknowledge Gaelic-speaking viewers, who originally did not have their own news programme.
Also during that time, he worked on a number of regional programmes - including North Tonight's summer spin-off ''Summer at Six'' - and contributed to Grampian's local and networked coverage of the
ITV Telethon
The ITV Telethons were three charity telethons organised and televised in the United Kingdom by the ITV network. They took place in 1988, 1990 and 1992. Each lasted for 27 hours and all were hosted by Michael Aspel. The final telethon in July 1 ...
s, Duncanson also covered irregular shifts as a relief continuity announcer at Grampian TV (often in-vision) on occasions of holidays, illness or other staff absences - where he would often read the lunchtime and evening Grampian news bulletins, announce the daytime and evening programmes as billed and close the station at around midnight with, of course, the friendly and reassuring closedown sequence when “we hoped you enjoyed our programmes today and you will join us again in the morning at 9.30am”.
He left Grampian in 1999, shortly after stepping down from ''North Tonight'', but returned in 2001 to co-present a special to commemorate the programme's 21st anniversary, alongside
Kirstin Gove, and again in 2011 to report on the station's 50th anniversary.
After retiring from broadcasting, Duncanson moved to Inverness, but he remained active in speech training and political campaigning.
On 25 October 2020, it was reported Duncanson had died at the age of 80, following a short illness.
Tributes paid to former Grampian TV news anchor John Duncanson
Press and Journal, 25 October 2020
References
1939 births
2020 deaths
Radio and television announcers
STV News newsreaders and journalists
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