''On the Aire'' is a local television news and current affairs programme, serving

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

and surrounding areas. Produced by

Made in Leeds Local TV Leeds (typeset as LOCAL TV Leeds and formerly known by the names of Leeds TV and Made in Leeds) is a local television station serving Leeds and West Yorkshire. The station is owned and operated by Local Television Limited and forms part ...

, the programme was produced and broadcast from studios at the Leeds Media Centre in the Chapeltown area of the city.

Overview

First broadcast on the opening night of local TV station

, ''On the Aire'' focused exclusively on local news stories from

and the surrounding areas, as opposed to the broader regional news services provided by

BBC Yorkshire BBC Yorkshire is one of the English regions of the BBC. It was formed from the division of the former BBC North region into BBC Yorkshire and BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, based in Kingston upon Hull. Serving West, North and South Yorkshire a ...

and

ITV Yorkshire ITV Yorkshire, previously known as Yorkshire Television and commonly referred to as just YTV, is the British television service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network. Until 1974, this was prima ...

. The programme was first presented by Jason Thornton, and later, Mark Kielesz-Levine. Reporters and video journalists included Peter McNerney, Matt Millington, Joe Robinson, Andy Seddon and Kristian Johnson. ''On The Aire'' was one of the first local news programmes to mount live outside broadcast specials, including coverage of the murder of Batley and Spen MP

Jo Cox Helen Joanne Cox ( Leadbeater; 22 June 1974 – 16 June 2016) was a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Batley and Spen from May 2015 until her murder in June 2016. She was a member of the Labour Party. Born in B ...

, the Leeds 2016 Olympic and Paralympic parade and from Manchester after the

Manchester Arena bombing On 22 May 2017, an Islamist extremist suicide bomber detonated a shrapnel-laden homemade bomb as people were leaving the Manchester Arena following a concert by American pop singer Ariana Grande. Twenty-three people were killed, including ...

. In November 2017, following a restructuring of the Made Television network's operations, ''On the Aire'' was axed and news production for all of Made's local stations was centralised at the Leeds studios. The station produced ''Made TV News'', combining local and national news stories but the programme was axed in February 2018. Made in Leeds now airs ''Yorkshire Live'', a rolling block of pre-recorded news, sport and features produced by local videojournalists.

Awards

In June 2016, ''On the Aire'' won Best News Report at the Royal Television Society's Yorkshire Awards for its coverage of Christmas flooding in Leeds. The programme was also nominated for News Programme of the Year, while reporters Mark Kielesz-Levine and Matt Millington were nominated for Reporter of the Year. In June 2017, ''On The Aire'' was again nominated at the Royal Television Society's Yorkshire Awards for Best News or Current Affairs Story on its coverage of the murder of Jo Cox MP, whilst Mark Kielesz-Levine and Joe Robinson were nominated in the category of Best News or Current Affairs Reporter. Kielesz-Levine won the Reporter of the Year award the following month.
North Leeds Life, July 13, 2017

References

External links

Made in Leeds
{{DEFAULTSORT:On the Aire) 2014 British television series debuts 2017 British television series endings Mass media in Yorkshire