ITV News ''Lookaround'' is a British television news service produced by

ITV Tyne Tees & Border ITV Tyne Tees & Border is the producer of regional programming for the ITV Tyne Tees and ITV Border franchises. Between 2009 and 2013, the two regions were merged into a single region (although still with two franchises). Since 2013, each region r ...

and broadcasting to the “

Border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

” region.

Overview

The news service is produced and broadcast from studios at The Watermark, Gateshead with reporters also based at offices in Carlisle and

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

. Both regional services (I.e ‘’

ITV News Tyne Tees ''ITV News Tyne Tees'' is a British television news service produced by ITV Tyne Tees & Border and broadcasting to the “ Tyne Tees” region. Overview The news service is produced and broadcast from studios at The Watermark, Gateshead wit ...

’’ and ‘’Lookaround’’) utilise exactly the same presenter(s) and studio/set, therefore one of the two programmes - depending on the day's news - is pre-recorded 'as live' shortly before broadcast. The “Lookaround” news service transmits to a vast area – central and northern

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...

, Dumfries and Galloway, parts of South Ayrshire, the Scottish Borders and overlap areas of

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land ...

. The

Isle of Man ) , anthem = "O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europe ...

was also served by ITV Border until 2009.

History

ITV Border

ITV Border's regional news service began on 1 September 1961 from studios at Harraby, Carlisle. Initially producing short evening bulletins and a topical magazine programme called ''Focus'', ''Lookaround'' would become the station's flagship daily programme later on in the decade. Shorter bulletins were known as ''Border News''. Meanwhile, the ITV Tyne Tees region had its own wholly separate news services. ''Lookaround'' is also known locally in

Cumbrian dialect The Cumberland dialect is a local Northern English dialect in decline, spoken in Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands, not to be confused with the area's extinct Celtic language, Cumbric. Some parts of Cumbria have a ...

as "Border Crack an' Deekabout" In 1989, Border began providing a sub-regional news service for viewers served by the Selkirk transmitter, consisting of a short opt-out during ''Lookaround'' each weeknight. In April 1999, the opt-out was extended to cover Dumfries and Galloway and a dedicated Scottish news bulletin was introduced on weekday lunchtimes. Border also opened an Edinburgh bureau to provide coverage of the Scottish Parliament.

ITV Tyne Tees & Border

Proposed merger

In September 2007,

ITV plc ITV plc is a British media company that holds 13 of the 15 regional television licences that make up the ITV network (Channel 3), the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom. ITV plc is listed on the ...

announced that ITV Border news operations would be merged with ITV Tyne Tees, subject to the approval from the regulator Ofcom. On 24 April 2008, a campaign to save the ITV Border news operation arrived in London with a petition of 9000 signed by viewers. This was ahead of MPs meeting with industry regulator Ofcom.

Ofcom authorises ITV's plans

On 26 September 2008, Ofcom authorised ITV's plans to save £40m a year by making regional programming cutbacks. These include axing mid-morning bulletins on weekdays and lunchtime bulletins at weekends, plus merging a number of regions and halving the number of non-news regional programmes. On 30 September 2008, it was announced the number of ITV Border employees would be slashed from 64 to 13. Following a survey of

viewers in autumn 2008, coverage of the Isle of Man was transferred from ITV Border to ITV Granada in July 2009.

''Lookaround'' begins transmitting from Gateshead

''Lookaround'' retains an office in Carlisle where the news editor, planning and online teams are based along with correspondents, but as of February 2009, the programme is transmitted from ITV Tyne Tees' studios at The Watermark, Gateshead. The lead presenters were announced as the then ''North East Tonight'' South edition presenters Ian Payne and

Pam Royle Pamela “Pam” June Royle (born 30 June 1958) is a British television journalist and presenter. Biography Royle was born in Leicester, Leicestershire and was brought up mostly in North Yorkshire, but also in South Africa and Devon. After gra ...

.Tyne Tees news presenters axed in cost cuts
, ChronicleLive, 3 December 2008 Then ''Lookaround'' presenters Tim Backshall and

Helen Carnell Helen Carnell (née Pearson) (born 8 February 1981) is an English presenter and journalist employed by ITV Tyne Tees & Border. Background Carnell is originally from Cornwall and has resided in Carlisle, Newcastle upon Tyne and Streatham at h ...

were redeployed as a news reporter and early presenter respectively.Full Border TV Lookaround line-up revealed
, News & Star, 17 January 2009ITV Border: Meet the team
itv.com, 12 December 2013 As part of the merger, six district reporters were appointed – working from home unless based in Carlisle or

. The district reporters announced were Victoria Hoe in Kendal, Hannah Lomas in Carlisle, Lee Madan in Selkirk, Stuart Pollitt in

Whitehaven Whitehaven is a town and port on the English north west coast and near to the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it lies by road south-west of Carlisle and to the north of Barrow-in-Furness. It i ...

, Olivia Richwald in Dumfries and Kathryn Samson in

was formed on 25 February 2009, with ''Lookaround'' and '' North East Tonight'' titles retained for the 6pm programme and late bulletin each weekday, whilst shorter bulletins were known simply as ''Tyne Tees & Border News''. The then remaining sub-regional elements were: *The opening 15 minutes of the main 6pm programme. *Full late night bulletins on weeknights, following ''

ITV News at Ten ''ITV News at Ten'' (or more commonly ''News at Ten'') is the flagship evening news programme on British television network ITV, produced by ITN and founded by news editor Geoffrey Cox in July 1967. The bulletin was the first permanent 30-mi ...

''. *Localised weather forecasts. On 14 January 2013, the news service was relaunched and rebranded as ''ITV News Lookaround''.

Southern Scotland coverage reviewed

On 23 May 2012, ITV announced proposals for further changes on its regional news programming, with "some content replaced with aggregate of news from several regions" and an expansion in sub-regional coverage. In November, upon the renewal of ITV's licences for a further ten years, Culture Secretary Maria Millar asked Ofcom to look into proposals for the Border region which would leave Southern Scotland viewers without "the same level of Scottish programming as viewers elsewhere in the country", covered by STV. In a consultation document, Ofcom set out two potential options, with any changes coming into effect in 2015 at the latest. ITV proposed re-introducing a full news service exclusively for the Border region, including the return of half-hour editions of ''Lookaround'' and short news bulletins, as well as introducing a weekly current affairs programme for the region. The second option was to enforce ITV Border to broadcast 90 minutes a week of non-news programming, including programming from STV. Press reports indicated a political split in opinion on the issue. In April, the Borders Chamber and members of the local authority at Newton and the Scottish Borders Chamber of Commerce publicly supported the second option – with the Chamber calling for a national ITV service for the whole of Scotland. Two members of the UK Government – Scottish Secretary of State Michael Moore and deputy

David Mundell David Gordon Mundell, (born 27 May 1962) is a Scottish politician and solicitor who served as Secretary of State for Scotland from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Scottish Conservative Party, he has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Du ...

(both MPs in the Border region) – backed ITV's proposal for a Border current affairs programme while the Scottish Government called for STV programming (including ''

Scotland Tonight ''Scotland Tonight'' is a Scottish news and current affairs programme, covering the two STV franchise areas of Northern and Central Scotland, produced by STV News. The programme is presented by ''STV News at Six'' Central anchor John MacKay on ...

'') to be simulcast. On 16 May 2013, the first televised Scottish independence debate was broadcast on STV's ''

'' across northern and central Scotland, however viewers in the south of the country were unable to see it as ITV Border took the decision not to broadcast it, leading to further criticism from politicians in the region. Michael Jermey, ITV Director of News and Current Affairs, pledged some programming from STV would air on ITV Border. On 23 July 2013, OFCOM announced it had approved the second option of Scottish non-news programming. The regulator also ordered ITV to reopen the former Border Scotland service previously utilized for split news bulletins and simulcasts of select STV programming. The opt-out service was launched on Freeview in January 2014 and consists of a thrice-weekly political programme, ''

Representing Border ''Representing Border'' is a regional television current affairs programme, produced by ITV Tyne Tees & Border, covering political issues from Holyrood, Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of W ...

'', and a weekly feature series, ''

Border Life ''Border Life'' is an ITV magazine programme serving the south of Scotland. Overview Typically broadcast most weeks on ITV Border Scotland on Fridays at 19:00, it opts out of the national ''ITV Evening News''. The programme features topical ...

''. The bespoke local programming is not seen in Cumbria, where network programming continues to air.

''Lookaround'' fully restored

On 14 June 2013, it was reported ''Lookaround'' would be restored to a full 30-minute programme along with ITV recruiting journalists for an Autumn launch. A month later, Ofcom approved ITV's plans to restore Border's news service. All short bulletins – including daytime and weekend updates – are now exclusive to the Border region, however with the minutage decreased. The changes came into effect on 16 September 2013.

2020 - present

From March 2020, due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

services were impacted. Running times of all short bulletins were reduced. The main 6pm programme was now fronted by a single presenter instead of two. On 23 November 2020, it was announced the main 6pm programme would return to two presenters from that night, with a slightly modified studio to allow for social distancing. On 28 March 2021, ITV Tyne Tees & Border announced that Amy Lea would be the new co-presenter of the main weekday news programme alongside Ian Payne as of 29 March 2021, taking over from Pam Royle who left ITV on 26 March 2021.

References

External links

*
ITV Border
on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

ITV Border
on Instagram
ITV Border
on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...