THERE'S always a family feel when, come September, the time arrives to launch a new series of the BBC's Geordie junior soap Byker Grove. The Tyneside cinema in Newcastle is hired and a couple of episodes screened for cast, relatives and friends. Then there's a chance to chat and catch up with people over lunch.

It feels like a real family occasion. Now there has been a death in the family. The next series of made-in-Newcastle Byker Grove will be the last. After 17 years and 344 episodes, the BBC is axing the still-popular children's television show.

The series has been responsible for launching a number of careers, including bringing top duo Ant and Dec together, as well as featuring ground-breaking storylines on topics including teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, child abuse, abortion and homosexuality.

The axing is particularly ruthless because it's not being blamed on falling ratings or standards. The BBC is killing off the series because it doesn't fit into what Richard Deverell, Controller BBC Children's, calls "our portfolio of programmes and services and our focus on the primary school age group".

Byker Grove appears to be the victim of a focus group - that's come up with the BBC's Creative Future recommendations - more than anything else.

The cancellation is also a blow for TV production in the North-East. The Catherine Cookson series is long gone, as has all network and much regional production at ITV Tyne Tees.

The last BBC series filmed in the region - ironically by BBC Scotland - was the police drama 55 Degrees North, which was axed after just two seasons.

The BBC, which claims to be committed to producing more work outside London and in the regions, makes only the nightly Look North and the odd documentary from its Newcastle "Pink Palace" HQ.

Announcing the Byker Grove axing, the BBC maintained that BBC Children's continues its commitment to North-East production and will look to commission a new drama from the region for 2008.

This was much the same brief that former Coronation Street writer Adele Rose and the late Andrea Wonfor, then with Zenith North, had when they created Byker Grove in 1989. They'd been asked by the- then head of children's programmes, Anna Home, to create a programme to be made at the BBC's new Newcastle studios.

"I'd been up to Newcastle a few weeks before and fallen in love with the area. I met Andrea, saw the area and saw Byker, and thought, 'this is it'," Rose recalled, back in the area for the Byker Grove launch last September.

But a twice-weekly series designed to be shot at the BBC's Pink Palace was never actually filmed there. Although set in a youth club in the Byker district of Newcastle, it was actually shot in Benwell at a former pub called The Mitre. This became the home for the cast and the production team, with the building and grounds standing in for the youth club.

"The series has changed a lot in many ways, but in other ways not at all. It still has a lot of heart, humanity, reality and comedy. If you keep up with that record, you'll be doing okay," Rose told the launch.

Okay is clearly not good enough for BBC bosses who've given the order to shut down the Grove. The decision will leave the young cast and the "father" of the family, producer Ed Pugh, devastated.

Despite the North-East setting and mainly North-East cast, Byker Grove was never regarded as just a regional programme. It was popular with audiences all over the country.

And it'll be remembered as more than just the show that brought together Ant and Dec, the award-winning Geordie pair who are among today's top TV performers.

Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnally met at Byker Grove as youngsters, and they went on to enjoy chart success as PJ and Duncan, before presenting shows like Pop Idol, I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here and their own Ant And Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.

Jill Halfpenny, who's been in both EastEnders and Coronation Street and won BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing, began her career as a Grover. So did CBBC presenter Andrew Hayden-Smith, who appears in this weekend's Doctor Who story.

Big Breakfast presenter Donna Air and Emma Cleasby, who starred in the film Dog Soldiers and 55 Degrees North, are others who received their first TV experience at Byker Grove. Casper Berry, who played bad boy Gil in the very first series, is now a successful TV producer.

Denise Welch and Roger Lloyd Pack are among the adult actors who appeared in early series. Of course, there were dozens of others who didn't make the big time or pursue acting careers after leaving the Grove family when they grew too old for youth club.

Perhaps when the Grovers finally leave, The Mitre's resident ghost, the Lady in White, will be joined by the spirits of dozens of Tyneside youngsters who populated the series.

* The final series of Byker Grove will go out on CBBC One in September.