Saturday evening regional news and sports programmes in the 80s and 90s

[Robertclark125]

First of all, moderators and admins, if this should be moved to the Programmes section, please do so.

I'm curious as to the BBC and ITV regional sports news programmes, broadcast on a Saturday teatime in the 1980s and 1990s, and what they were called, regular presenters. Here in central Scotland, it was simply Reporting Scotland on BBC1, usually Bill Mcfarlane as presenter, and Scotland Today or Scottish news on STV (Scotsport Results was a separate programme, basically an opt out of the ITV results service). I know in BBC North East and Cumbria, it was Saturday Sport, and Tyne Tees had Saturday Special, whilst BBC North West had Sport North West. 

What were the others called, and did they have any special music and titles?

[Rob]

TSW had Newsport...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEuZnAaW49M

[Roger Darthwell]

TSW had Newsport...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEuZnAaW49M

This was a genius name!

[harshy]

TSW had Newsport...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEuZnAaW49M

This was a genius name!

I read that as NEWSPORT then in the Aston it becomes NEWSSPORT.

[Steve Williams]

Of course, in London, in the days when they didn't have proper regional news other than the South East bit of Nationwide, there was Today's Sport, produced by the Grandstand production team.



Despite only being shown in London, it didn't have a particularly regional focus, presumably useful for any region who couldn't opt out. In Des Lynam's book, he says that despite being only five minutes long, it was a million times more of a hassle than the five hour Grandstand they'd just done, as the presenter would have to read the script while making sure they fitted it in with the numerous graphics, captions and photos to accompany it, and it was such a frantic production when everyone was knackered at the end of Grandstand, to the extent Des asked if he could be excused from presenting it.

Even after they stopped being billed as a specific sport bulletin there was still heavy sporting content in them, I remember BBC North West in the nineties would usually have one news story and then the rest was all sport, usually including a county cricket report from Andy Peebles.

It was mentioned on another thread recently, the Saturday teatime regional bulletin used to be one of the most important of the week in terms of the football results and reports, but now ITV drop it at more or less every opportunity.

[excel99]

I can't find it right now, but I'm sure there is a video online of a 1980's Leeds programme, known as Look North Saturday. Sport presenter opened the show, handed to the continuity announcer (in-vision) to read the news headlines, then the sport.

By the mid 1990's it was a normal Look North news bulletin in format/presentation, but heavy on sport content IIRC.

[Brekkie]

Granada was one of the many regions who had Goals Extra:
https://youtu.be/IroUkQ6vpHw

As did Central, still going in the 2000/01 season:
https://youtu.be/t0UWhCPhOOg

I think HTV Wales just included goals in the news on the Saturday,  with highlights then in Soccer Sunday.   From what I recall of the "regional variations" other regions not airing some kind of Goals Extra would air some kind of filler in their place.

[Steve]

I can't find it right now, but I'm sure there is a video online of a 1980's Leeds programme, known as Look North Saturday. Sport presenter opened the show, handed to the continuity announcer (in-vision) to read the news headlines, then the sport.

By the mid 1990's it was a normal Look North news bulletin in format/presentation, but heavy on sport content IIRC.

Yes, here in Yorkshire you had appearances from the likes of John Boyd who was usually only ever heard on BBC Radio Leeds sport on Saturdays.

[Markymark]

Of course, in London, in the days when they didn't have proper regional news other than the South East bit of Nationwide, there was Today's Sport, produced by the Grandstand production team.

 
The video is full of gems. Michael Sullivan who was usually a reporter, presenting the national news. A report from a young Nicholas Witchell, Anne Purves (un captioned) with the weather, and David Icke doing the London+SE Sport.  A mention that that night's ESC (from Harrogate with Jan Leeming) would finish at around 22:15

Icke later in the 80s became a co presenter, and chief sports reporter on South Today

Back on topic late 70s/early 80s South Today Saturday Teatime was a basic affair of a two headed show. Paul Harris or Peter McCann with the news, and John Hughes with the sport. Just slides, no moving footage of anything. One week someone had clearly got Programme and Preview on the vision mixer transposed, because whenever one presenter was talking, we saw the other. Exciting times, the 1970s

[Tom]

From 0:00 to 4:07, some footage of YTV's Saturday programme Scoreline from 1997 with goals from some games involving teams in the YTV region.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InyR_BJADLM

[Andrew]

From 0:00 to 4:07, some footage of YTV's Saturday programme Scoreline from 1997 with goals from some games involving teams in the YTV region.

The Smooth Bitter sponsorship is notable as well

[Steve Williams]

Back on topic late 70s/early 80s South Today Saturday Teatime was a basic affair of a two headed show. Paul Harris or Peter McCann with the news, and John Hughes with the sport. Just slides, no moving footage of anything. One week someone had clearly got Programme and Preview on the vision mixer transposed, because whenever one presenter was talking, we saw the other. Exciting times, the 1970s

It's interesting to think about what a brute those programmes would have been to make in the seventies and early eighties, even though there were no moving pictures it would have been incredibly frantic to put together, sorting out all the images and the captions. I love the ones with the racing results on a revolving drum. I think it's in Bob Wilson's book where he says in his training they told him that when they were writing to still images like that, their name had to be the very first thing you said to give the viewer time to process who it was.

There was a similarly frantic radio programme on Radio 4 at 6.30 when it used to have regional variations in the seventies. In London it was again done by the network team who had just done five hours of Sport on 2 and went under the name of Sports Session. Des talks in his book about listening to Christopher Martin-Jenkins present it one night while he was in the office, and they were all absolutely baffled when with ten minutes to go, CMJ said "That's the end of Sports Session, goodnight." And then there was about a minute of shuffling papers before CMJ said "I'm afraid that wasn't the end of Sports Session. And now the rugby."

---

The other regular Saturday sporting staple right up until the end of the nineties was the news bulletin on BBC2 around seven o'clock. There used to be a couple of news bulletins on BBC2 up until the mid-eighties, but they were all dropped apart from this one which ran for another decade or more. Seemingly it stayed there because it included an extended sports bulletin in it.

[Steve in Pudsey]

I'm sure there was an anecdote at the blue place from a BBC Wales continuity announcer/Director about how their version was the junction from hell, being directed from Pres with a presenter who was usually just turning up with a few minutes to go as they had been on Radio Wales all afternoon.

[Brekkie]

BBC Wales of course had Wales on Saturday until a few years ago (probably a decade now actually given how long Jason has been on Final Score). Sportscene survives in Scotland and I think NI had their own version of Final Score.

[Humphrey Hacker]

I can't find it right now, but I'm sure there is a video online of a 1980's Leeds programme, known as Look North Saturday. Sport presenter opened the show, handed to the continuity announcer (in-vision) to read the news headlines, then the sport.

By the mid 1990's it was a normal Look North news bulletin in format/presentation, but heavy on sport content IIRC.

Can’t find that either but I have found this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj_ZYSZmigY