BBC Look East is the BBC's regional television news programme for the BBC East region, covering Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, north Buckinghamshire and southern Lincolnshire.
The programme began on October 5th 1959,[1] making it the longest-running regional news programme on the BBC. It is broadcast on BBC One from its studio in The Forum, Norwich (where BBC Radio Norfolk is also based) and from Hills Road, Cambridge (where BBC Radio Cambridgeshire is also based).
Look East moved to The Forum on 29 September 2003, having previously been based in St Catherine's Close, Norwich.
The programme can be watched in any part of the UK (and Europe) on Sky Digital channel 981, and channel 982 for the "west" sub-regional service from Cambridge, on the BBC UK regional TV on satellite service. The services were added to the Sky Digital platform on 29 July 2003. The availability of these services resolved part of the problems caused by the geography of the area that meant some viewers in North Norfolk could see BBC Look North (Hull), while viewers in Kings Lynn saw the wrong sub-region of Look East.
In 1997 Look East launched the sub-regional service, Close Up, for viewers in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, north Buckinghamshire, and Northamptonshire. The opt allows the two sub-regions to provide, during the main evening programme, around 10 minutes of news more relevant to their area. After the BBC News at Ten on weeknights, both the East and West of the region receive fully separate editions of Look East from Norwich and Cambridge respectively. Both editions of the programme can be received on Sky Digital, on channels 981 and 982.
On the 7th of December 2009 the studio in Norwich received a make-over, which makes it look more like the normal BBC News studio. Also, the West opt received a similar make-over, and is now homed in the same building as Radio Cambridgeshire.
Genre: News
