For a year I was the editor of BBC Look North in Hull. If I can borrow from Dickens: ‘It was the best of times and it was the worst of times’.  

The work, however, can speak for itself.

Innovative and engaging or a victory of style over substance. The BBC’s Journalism Review Board thought they were far more of the later than the former.

Pioneering is such a painful business.

But judge for yourself.

Like everyone else we carried ‘straight’ reports. In our case from from every constituency in our region.

We talked at length to the party leaders.

 

Then we tried something different.....

 

This was my attempt to interest the viewers in politics. And it seems to have worked. Our ratings held up whilst other programmes in the BBC watched as their audience deserted them. In fact our audience share actually went up over the four weeks of the campaign.

We were the only region in the BBC to see an increase.

Mastermind: Peter Levy puts the candidates for the Beverley and Holderness constituency, one of the most marginal in the UK, through their Mastermind paces.

Mud Race: Politics is a dirty game.

Market Square: The candidates have just 20 seconds to pitch for the right to be the MP for Beverley and Holderness.

Mini Marr: It speaks for itself

Elaine Dunkley and Tom Hepworth are acknowledged as two very talented producers and as authors of the work.