Northern Ireland news thread

Look who popped up on UTV Live last night...



When did Jerome leave BBC NI? And who's taken over as main anchor on The Championship? I wonder if he's going to turn up on UTV as a casual GAA pundit in future, now Logie ain't there no more.

Talking about UTV Sport, it was announced on the show yesterday Neil Brittain and his wife had their first baby...

Austin O'Callaghan has done The Championship for the last two years at least . . . not sure though exactly when Jerome Quinn left though. IIRC he still did Sunday Sportsound on the wireless until last year.

http://www.nwipp-newspapers.com/GL/free/334224450835176.php

Sarah Dobson presenting UTV Live this evening, there's a first!

If only it was her last... but maybe when it goes online I will be proved wrong and I will have my slice of humble pie.

Must be Lynda's week off. I'd have thought they'd have got Pamela or Rose in as cover myself - or even Tina Campbell, looks like she's been seconded to Seven Thirty for good.

Not only did we have Sarah on UTV Live but she was also back on continuity duty for the first time in donkeys!

YouTube - Sarah Dobson In-Vision Continuity

[quote="StevieB" pid="635823"]

Particularly odd since Julian seemed to introduce the ITV Evening News (and he got cut off mid-time check).

Thought I'd post coverage of this week's editions of UTV Live, where former UTV staff have returned to do one-off presenting and reporting stints as part of the station's ongoing 50th birthday commemorations.

Tonight, Gordon Burns took a night off from North West Tonight to present the evening news on UTV for the first time since 1973, alongside Tina Campbell.









During the programme, as Tina chatted to Gordon about his career post-UTV, they showed a clip of Gordon presenting "UTV Reports" from 1972 - and it's the same clip some of us are familiar with:





For the record, Gordon only stated his 18 year stint when talking about "The Krypton Factor" and how he had long hair and bellbottom rousers when it started!

Also returning for one night only to UTV screens was the company's former Political Correspondent from 1982 to 1994, Norman Stockton, who looked rather well I thought for a man who mentioned he now had three adult grandchildren!



As well as talking to current-day MLAs he rubbed shoulders with in his journalist days, a clip of Norman conducting a two-way with then Secretary of State, James Prior (hence, from sometime between Stockton moving from BBC NI to UTV and Prior being succeeded by Hurd - 1982 to September 1984).





Meanwhile, birthday celebrations aside, UTV staff are now wearing poppies on air, and some girls' poppies are bigger than others...



Tomorrow, it's a Kate and Paul reunion after only... three years.

Tonight's evening edition of UTV Live saw Kate Smith reunited with Paul Clark - who was undoubtedly the happiest he'd been on screen in years!





During the show, the montage shown on Kate's last edition of UTV Live in December 2006 was repeated - so, three years later, I can finally bring you screen grabs!

Kate on presenting duty in 1996:


Reporting from South Africa, I can't remember the story she covered to date it but it's post 1993 anyway:


With the Brothers Gibb, this I believe is from 1998:


Looking fed-up outside the old High Court sometime in the 1980s...


Kate reporting at the Oscars - I believe this was in 1998, the year "Dance Lexie Dance" was nominated for the award for Live Action Short Film.

This was followed by a clip of Tom Cruise (with long hair tied back), attending the Irish premeire of "Interview With The Vampire" (possibly from January 1995?) telling Kate she had the bluest eyes he'd ever seen since [Paul] Newman!

And last of all, signing off on "Six Tonight" in the late 1980s:



What I didn't notice about this clip when it was first shown was that the other presenter with Kate is Ronan Kelly, not Paul Clark as I thought when it was originally shown.

Tonight's returning reporter was Anne Hailes, who first worked behind the scenes at HavHo three weeks before they first went to air in 1959 and left UTV 15 years ago. I believe she still contributes a weekly column to "The Irish News".


(btw, the picture format fail is UTV's, not mine)

Here's tonight selection of UTV Live screengrabs with guest host David Dunseith - who looked well I thought.





In terms of archive UTV news footage, some clips which might be familiar to some people from 1973:







Which begs the question - what is the source of the first two images? It seems to be taken from a documentary about the UTV newsroom at the time, which also features clips of Dunseith in the newsroom wearing a beige cardigan, and the late Brian Baird smoking a pipe in the UTV Reports studio.

However, there was one clip I hadn't seen before with Dunseith outside Havelock House, talking about the ITV franchise for Northern Ireland - so possibly from around 1980?



No mention of Talkback or anything Dunseith's done since 1982, but I can imagine it will be discussed during UTV Live Tonight. There was also a report on Miss Helen from UTV's version of The Romper Room and her present career as a Humanist ceremonist, but I didn't bother getting captures from that.

And, in addition to the captures of Kate Smith shown last night, a bonus image from last night's UTV Live Tonight, and a rare screengrab from that January-June version of UTV Live:

The penultimate evening of UTV's "old friends" appearing on UTV Live, and at last, a bit of presenting from Jackie Fullerton, on loan from Broadcasting House for the night:





Jackie was just pure Jackie - consummate and smooth, makes me think BBC NI are crazing for sidelining him to reporting and commentary only these days.

Archive clips featured Jackie interviewing Iain Dowie, then 24 and playing at Luton Town, in 1989 on Friday evening magazine "Sports Beat":




And a noddy from an interview with Pat Jennings:


The returning report tonight was Ian Sanderson, who worked his way up from reporter in 1969 to News Editor by the time he left UTV in 1982 to emigrate to Australia:


And some archive clips of Ian's career at UTV; not sure what year the former image is from, the latter is from a report on the Sunningdale agreement in 1973:




And finally, this week's lame excuse for a Marc Mallett screengrab - he had a haircut over the weekend, not that I am stalking him or anything

I'm not liking Mr Mallet's haircut