He has helped make Tyne Tees among the top rated regional independent broadcasters, but now he's faced with an even bigger task - fighting off the challenge of satellite and cable. Steve Pratt meets the man in charge of ITV in theNorth-East.

TYNE Tees Television presenter Mike Neville can be forgiven for not remembering the Boldon Comprehensive School pupil who turned up at the BBC studios in Newcastle 20 or more years ago and said he wanted to appear on television. But the schoolboy, Graeme Thompson, has never forgotten that meeting with the man who now calls him boss, or the advice he gave him.

The two were reunited when South Shields-born Thompson returned to broadcasting in the North-East. One of his first tasks was to mastermind the defection of legendary presenter Mike Neville from the BBC in 1996.

Today, North East Tonight with Mike Neville is an award and ratings winning lynchpin of regional output at Tyne Tees Television, where Thompson has had the dual role of Managing Director and Controller of Programme since the New Year.

It could all have been so different if he hadn't met Neville. Young Graeme had ambitions of becoming an actor, and had gone to the BBC with a school friend as part of a careers syllabus.

"We were told that if we were lucky we'd meet Mike Neville. It was such a thrill," he recalls. "I said that I wanted to be on television. I said, 'I want to be like you, Mike. I want to be famous'."

Neville was sympathetic to his ambitions but added a note of caution. "He said to remember that you need to get qualifications. Afterwards he sent me a letter that said, 'lovely to have met you, keep up the good work but make sure you do well in your schoolwork'."

It was advice Thompson's mother repeated, after he applied to go to Rada (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) in London. "She said that 85 per cent of actors are out of work so you're going to need some kind of fallback position," he says.

"I used to enjoy English and helped out with the school newspaper. I thought being a reporter sounded quite glamorous. I applied for a journalism course and got accepted. I had to commit to that before the Rada auditions."

HAVING gained his qualifications at Darlington College, he went straight into reporting. His post as arts correspondent with the Redditch Indicator meant he was reviewing the local amateur operatic society one night and Alan Howard in The Henrys at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon the next.

He never did get around to being an actor and these days remains firmly on the other side of the footlights, writing pantomimes - 15 so far - for local theatre groups.

His role as chairman of Newcastle's Live Theatre, currently working on a £4m expansion plan, also allows him to indulge his interest in the stage.

The thing he loves about pantomime is "all the old routines and slapstick and corny one-liners". Yet as part of the brave new ITV plc, the newly-united commercial network, he's turning his back on the old routine in the overhaul and upgrading of the ITV network that means big changes in the regions.

"Live has changed, TV has changed, ITV North-East is changing - not just physically but in mood," he says. "That's what we're trying to do in Tyne Tees. We're trying to be confident and reflect this is an exciting place to be."

One major change is the planned move from the City Road headquarters in Newcastle. The building, a maze of offices and studio space, is out of place in the modern TV world. Like other ITV regional stations, Tyne Tees will be moving to a smaller, more modern building on a green field site.

There is no room for sentiment. "Times change. ITV has, to an extent, engineered the change. But ITV has to change or die really," says Thompson. "More than half the population has access to multi-channels. On satellite, there are more than 200 channels. ITV has to find a way of making sure it remains as Britain's most popular channel. It can only do that after it reacts to changing tastes and expectations.

'WE want ITV to be the most popular channel in the North-East. To do that we have to get reinventing ourselves."

No longer a licence to print money, the network is reshaping itself into a more cost-effective, financially-appealing package. Changes at Tyne Tees Television, already reduced following the merger with Yorkshire and subsequent swallowing up by Granada, are inevitable.

TV companies no longer need studio space, making redundant the Tyne Tees studio where shows like The Tube were made. Thompson and his team started looking in earnest for premises in the Newcastle/Gateshead area at the end of last year. There are business plans and architects' plans but so far no decision.

The City Road HQ won't be sold until another base is found. Thompson hopes to be transmitting from the new building by late summer or early autumn next year.

With a new building will come £6m of investment in new technology - cameras, editing systems, satellite technology - that will enable reporters to edit in the field without returning to the studio.

He also wants to develop closer links with ITV News, reasoning it would be better to use Tyne Tees reporters who know the region rather than send them from outside the area. "That's a relationship we haven't had in the past few years," he says. "It has been us and them, regional and national. In a 24 hour news environment, the two should be compatible."

Thompson is the first regional boss to have dual responsibilities of MD and programme controller in ITV in a move other stations are likely to copy. It works at Tyne Tees, he says, because he has a very good team behind him.

News remains at the core of the eight-and-a-half hours of regional programming put out by Tyne Tees each week.

Thompson set up the Belasis news operation in Billingham in 1993 and edited the Teesside-based Network North news programme. He'd left the area after working as a producer at Radio York and later producing shows for Radio 2 and documentaries for the World Service. He produced Radio 4's consumer programme You And Yours.

WHILE working in the CAMP department - Current Affairs and Magazine Programmes - he became the only male producer on Woman's Hour. He learnt valuable lessons there. Not only to be careful what he said, following an embarrassing faux pas at the first programme meeting, but also how to make current affairs relevant and interesting.

"You can take a story that's going to affect people and give it a treatment you probably couldn't on a news programme, which had been my background until then. You can reach people through a slightly different route," he says.

"That's not to say Woman's Hour didn't ask the hard questions. It's like Mike Neville whom a lot of people regard as a very jolly, nice, avuncular guy, not in the Paxman mould of questioning. But Mike has this ability to ask very direct and challenging questions without causing offence."

North East Tonight is among the top three regional news programme and "outperforms everything else on the dial". This is partly, he feels, because the region is well-defined one "which knows itself and is interested in itself".

Regional shows such as The Dales Diary with Luke Casey and The Way We Were are popular with viewers. Tyne Tees shows probably do better than any other region's in the 7.30pm slot against EastEnders on BBC1.

"It's not because EastEnders isn't popular, but there's an appetite for programmes that reflect the region back on itself," he says. "But who would have thought that Grundy with a programme about architecture would get a 28 per cent share of the audience against EastEnders?"

Published: ??/??/2004