Mike Neville (newsreader)
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Mike Neville MBE (born 17 October 1936, Willington Quay, Wallsend) is a former British television presenter. He is highly regarded in the area for his solid presentational style and witty banter. In 1990, Neville was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to broadcasting. He lives in Whickham with his wife of 40 years, Pam.
[edit] Career
Mike Neville's roots lay in North East theatre, but the launch of Tyne Tees Television in 1959 offered a new opportunity. Mike began work as young reporter on the fledgling station.
He later switched to the rival BBC news programme Look North and was the main presenter for 32 years. He also regularly presented the BBC's Nationwide programme during the 80s, but turned down offers to move to London, preferring to stay in the North East of England.
Mike Neville and George House (aka Jarge Hoose), as co-presenters of Look North, in the 1960s and 1970s, not only incorporated Geordie into the show, albeit usually in comedy pieces pointing up the gulf between ordinary Geordies and officials speaking Standard English, but were responsible for a series of recordings, beginning with Larn Yersel' Geordie which attempted, not always seriously, to bring the Geordie dialect to the rest of England.
In 1996, Mike was approached by ITV Tyne Tees and offered a chance to return to the commercial station. Tyne Tees offered him his own hour long news programme: North East Tonight with Mike Neville, the local ITV news programme for the North East of England.
Mike made the switch back to Tyne Tees, which coincided with a rebrand from Tyne Tees to Channel 3 North East. He was the anchor of the show until late 2005 when he underwent an operation to remove a blood clot from his leg. On 5th June 2006, Neville announced that he would be retiring from the show after 40 years presenting news in the North East [1].
