[lookoutwales]

Quite surprised Prynhawn Da continues to survive though I guess it sharing a studio and probably production tem with Heno keeps the costs down.

The current look is nearly 12 years old - and there's a story behind that.

Tinopolis won back the contract to produce the two magazine shows in 2012, but they had to make stringent cutbacks such as losing their Friday show and closing their district office in Caernarfon (which has a small crew producing items from the northern half of Wales)

The result upon launch was a decidedly low-budget version of Heno (it had been going out as 'Wedi 7' for several years) more based on studio-based tabloid chat, and with a 10pm repeat slot to boot. This was how it looked.

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But it was so badly received (even Tinopolis hated what they were putting out) that within two months, they revamped the whole thing again - format, titles, graphics, studio, even presenters (a friend of mine was one of them - she didn't hang around long)

And somehow, they also managed to reopen their Caernarfon base (Galeri, from where they occasionally present shows) and rehire its staff. This was one of the first trails for the re-revamped Heno.

www.youtube.com 

As you say, they used to produce the weather until the BBC took it back when they moved to Central Square.

Tinopolis do produce Ralio from there, and Pawb a'i Farn, but similar to Question Time that's mostly filmed out on the road.

The weather contract did belong to ITV Wales for a while - think they picked it up first when it was tendered out (as per much of the output) after years of being produced in-house by Pres.

I can remember Derek Brockway popping up one Sunday to do the forecasts (as part of a Welsh learning challenge or some such)

Pawb a'i Farn was also a BBC programme - and a debate programme in the more traditional vein - before shifting to a youth-oriented format under Tinopolis.