South West England & CI Thread

At last I've worked out how to get stuff off my sky+ box and upload onto You Tube.

My first upload is this gem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0J2AydexUs

Jed Pitman is presenting a Sunday lunchtime bulletin of The West Today when his mobile phone rings - twice! He tries to cover it and talk louder, but fails!

So funny when he jumps with shock and the look on his face as he tries to continue reading the autocue!!

Due to circumstances beyond my control ('er indoors recording a load of stuff off Astra), I had occasion to watch the 22:25 edition of Pants Worst off DTT tonight.

It was the first time I'd sampled an edition for months and reminded me why we call it what we do and never normally watch it.

It was presented by David Garmston, who actually looked as if he was already dead. Do they do their own make-up? If so, perhaps some more lessons would be appropriate. He presented in a way which indicated that he was totally bored, didn't want to be there and wasn't the slightest bit interested in so much as one of the stories.

I see that since the addition of the Ridge Hill transmitter the programme now consists of 59% stories from the city of Bristol and 39% stories from the city of Gloucester. There was one story from Taunton, about the job losses at Somerset County Council.

David delighted in telling us that there will be features on the programme all next week about how the cutbacks in Taunton "will affect everyone in the region". Sorry David, but we in Wiltshire don't care a twopenny toss about Somerset County Council; and Somerset County Council doesn't actually cover the whole of the Pants Worst region.

The programme ended with Richard Angwin's pre-recorded weather forecast, which, believe it or not, didn't even include a weather map, just a caption which appeared to be in the wrong aspect ratio for the screen they projected it onto. Oh, and I think Richard had his make-up lessons from the same person as David, as he also looked as if he'd passed away about two months ago.

Very poor, I'm afraid. could do one hell of a lot better.

The late evening weather forecast of Pants Wet is already pre-recorded. I must admit the programme is not as good as it used to be... I swear they make up some stories of slow news days. Alex Shovell is still as awful as ever and as for some of the new reporters!!! However, it's still 1000% better The Westcountry Tonight with the monotone news readers and news from deepest Cornwall... I live in Bristol I don't care!

Last Saturday (25 September 2010) I was in Plymouth. Shock horror, the former Westward TV/TSW studios have been demolished. Well almost. One back corner is still standing, but for how much longer?

Here's a video of the site.

The Westward TV studios - gone but not forgotten. What a pity the building has been demolished. That's another icon to regional TV in the south west gone for good. Why on Earth wasn't the building listed to stop it being demolished. Look what else they could have done with it:
Offices (Foot Anstey Sargent had it for several years).
South West Film & Television Archive
Shopping mall
Cinema

No way could the site have become a shopping mall, it had out lived it's useful life and wasn't worth (imo) listing, it was very much identikit to all the rest of the early 1960's post WWII reconstruction of the City Centre. Even if Westcountry hadn't replaced TSW in the early 1990's I would have expected TSW to have relocated very soon after 1992.

You are only 10 months behind with the news Mr Towers.

I parked on the site the other day, it's currently a cheap car park

Why not? Alternatively it could have become a department store, e.g. John Lewis, who I think don't have a store in Plymouth.


Why not? They could even have put a map on the top right corner of the front and replica WESTWARD TELEVISION lettering on the front, as a reminder of the past. If it wasn't suitable for use as a shopping mall or department store, why couldn't the South West Film & Television Archive have had it?


What makes you think TSW would have moved out of their Derry's Cross studios which had been the home of Westward/TSW for 32 years April 1961 to December 1992? Surely if they'd kept the franchise, they'd still have been there come 2002 when regional branding was dropped altogether (and ITV1 pres was done from London as of October 2002).


In what way am I ten months behind the times? When I first went to Plymouth in March 2005, I saw the building as Foot Anstey Sargent, called into the reception and spoke to the receptionist about it. She said the building was the old TSW studio, but had been altered internally so it no longer remotely resembled a TV studio. Also, she told me the builidng was set to be demolished.

On my subsequent visits to Plymouth in September 2007, September 2008 and June 2009, the building was still standing. My latest visit to Plymouth last Saturday was during a long weekend in Devon (staying in Torquay), I travelled to Torquay Friday 24 September morning and back home Monday 27 September evening. Passing the site of the ex-Westward/TSW building, I noticed for the first time it had been demolished. Also I noticed the site is currently a car park.

So evidently the building must have been demolished between June 2009 and September 2010. I should think they must have only started demolishing it recently (a month or two ago) as much rubble is still there, and the back corner is still standing. If it had been demolished 10 months ago, surely by now the whole building would be completely buldozed and the rubble cleared away.

You would have thought so. Financial issues I think. It's been the same since January.

Unlikely since Derry's Cross is a prime city centre site, and very attractive to developers.

Westcountry TV wasn't awash with money. They rented their building in Plympton from the Council. It was just a converted industrial unit.

Sorry TT, but your points bear no resemblance to the site whatsoever, the building footprint is small yet a key link in the City. Check Google Maps and you will soon realise that it's only marginally larger than the adjacent Athenaeum Theatre which itself is dwarfed by buildings around it. There's absolutely no room for a Shopping Mall or a department store of any realistic 2010 scale.

The tower block to be constructed on the site is a much more valuable use of the space, providing accomodation, hotel and limited retail space.

I also believe the bulding like many of it's era really needed to be removed as it presented an asbestos risk, a common material used in insulation at the time.

Didn't TSW try and challenge the franchise award to Westcountry? That meant that they didn't enter into negotiations with each other about passing on their studios - as Southern did to TVS, and then TVS did to Meridian with regard to Northam? That meant that Westcountry had to find their own location pretty quickly? Or am I misremembering?

I'd be gobsmacked if any BBC regional news operations had a make-up artist for their 2225 bulletin - most (if not quite all?) don't have any make-up artists at all, with the presenters expected to do their own since the mid-90s (if not earlier).