A HUDDERSFIELD lecturer has recaptured the excitement of the time Yorkshire’s own television studio was created.

Steve Burnip has developed a website featuring pictures, film and audio reminiscences of the studio’s creation.

The Huddersfield University lecturer created the website as part of his MA degree in oral history at the university.

The website concentrates on the first five months of Yorkshire Television in 1968.

When he needed a dissertation topic he decided that the birth of Yorkshire Television would be a good one to cover.

Mr Burnip conducted a number of interviews with a range of people who were employees of Yorkshire Television when it began in 1968.

He also had access to photographs from the early months of the company and footage showing construction and opening of the studios.

All of this material now features on the website, which is named Memories of YTV that he created as part of his MA project.

The website includes a history of the company that went on-air for the first time on July 29, 1968.

Until then, Manchester-based Granada had provided programming for the Yorkshire region during the week with ABC taking over at weekends.

Before he joined the university in 2005 as a senior lecturer in journalism and media, Steve Burnip had a 17-year career at Yorkshire Television.

He began as a producer on the news programme Calendar and became a producer/director, working on a wide variety of feature series.

He was also studio producer of Yorkshire Television’s Tonight programme.

“It was a fantastic place to work,” he said. “It was fun, exciting and it was really a real showbiz place. Musicians, writers, the great, the good and the famous – we used to get them all on the Tonight programme. The studio had a real buzz. I worked with a lot of people who were there on day one of the company so I thought it would be really interesting to look at the very early days.”

Steve aims to continue to add to his website.

He said: “Although I have finished it in terms of the MA project it was so interesting to do and I had such fun doing it that I am going to carry it on.”

It was acknowledged that Yorkshire needed its own service and in February 1967, as part of a shake-up of the ITV network, new regional licences were advertised.

The TV rental firm Telefusion won the day and Yorkshire Television was born. The building work began on August 3, 1967, on Kirkstall Road in Leeds.

It was soon reported that Yorkshire Television had made a profit of £160,000 in the first six months.

Steve said: “It had the advertising monopoly of course but a television station isn’t worth watching without engaging shows.

“Yorkshire Television’s real success was down to the many people who worked there.”

“It was once a centre of fantastic programme making and it’s such a shame now that all of that has gone.

“It was a real powerhouse of entertainment and the studio had very talented staff.”