REPORTER/PRESENTER
Roger Tames joined Tyne Tees TV as a trainee sports reporter in January 1976 and within a couple of years was presenting the Sunday afternoon football programme SHOOT. Other series followed including sports quiz, SPORTING CHANCE,  DARTS MASTERS, the football nostalgia show FOOTBALL FLASHBACK and a live one hour entertainment style live magazine called THE FOOTBALL SHOW.

Tyne Tees have showcased sport in a variety of magazine formats over the years. Roger was part of the original Sportstime team and progressed through EXTRA TIME, THE BACK PAGE, CAFE SPORT, SOCCER SUNDAY to the most recent run of SOCCER NIGHT plus numerous one-off shows. There were also three series of a live one hour football phone-in programme called LATE NIGHT LEGENDS which was in conjunction with Century Radio, plus several live CHAMPIONS LEAGUE matches when TTT opted out of the network to cover Newcastle United.

COMMENTATOR
Roger has been the voice of north east football on Tyne Tees from 1980  with the nineties  the halcyon days for regional football with TTT covering live Football League games for four seasons.

The growth of digital channels saw Roger cover the European Champions League first for On-digital and then the ITV Sports Channel. He has worked as voice-over/reporter with Football League coverage on ITV's THE CHAMPIONSHIP as well as a regular live reporter on ITV's  THE GOAL RUSH  and has since performed the same role for Setanta Sports.

The highlight of his commentating career was undoubtedly EURO 2000 when he provided commentary for the world feed  pushed to more than 100 countries world wide with an estimated audience for the final of around 100 million viewers.  He has also worked on two World Cups and  the 1988 OLYMPICS.  In October 2007 Roger provided CENTURY RADIO with live commentaries on all Sunderland games.

Away from football, Roger commentated on ice hockey with the north east's own regional  tournament THE CASTLE EDEN CUP . He also covered basketball and co-produced the award winning series SLAM XXL  which won the Regional Sports Programme award at the RTS Sports Awards.

In 1983 and 1984 Roger was the reporter on a series of three network documentaries for Channel 4 following the athlete Steve Cram through to the Los Angeles Olympics,  also writing a book based on interviews from the series entitled STEVE CRAM: THE MAKING OF AN ATHLETE.

PRODUCTION
Although most of Roger's time has been spent as an active broadcaster, fifteen years as first Sports Editor then Head of Sport at Tyne Tees meant that all budgets and series programme administration were his responsibilty together with the hiring of all staff.

Since 1994 he has been responsible for producing all the videos and DVDs published by Newcastle United including early Black and White Video Magazines plus all the end of season reviews. Other titles include PETER THE GREAT (Beardsley) SIX OF THE BEST (Keegan) A TON OF THE TOON, THE OFFICIAL HISTORY OF NEWCASTLE UNITED, 501 NEWCASTLE GOALS, MAGPIE MAGIC, BIG HITS AND SHEARER THE LEGEND. Many of these he scripted and narrated.

Similar titles have been published for Sunderland including THE HISTORY OF ROKER PARK plus two Hartlepool United promotion specials. Last year he produced DURHAM AT THE DOUBLE (Durham CCC's two trophy wins) and ALAN SHEARER'S ULTIMATE FOOTBALL (which he wrote for Alan to present).

Roger's time at independent production company filmNova involved helping produce race coverage of the Great Run series for Channel 5 and narrating the overseas version of races for worldwide distribution. Hewas also twice the reporter/producer on documentary style programmes on THE GREAT ETHIOPIAN RUN.

EVENT PRESENTATION
Roger has regularly hosted award events in the North East many of which were televised.  He helped launch the now long established NORTH EAST SPORTS AWARDS in partnership with Sport England and presented the event for 14 years. Roger  was also was a partner in reviving and hosting THE NORTH EAST FOOTBALL AWARDS in conjunction with The Prince's Trust.

Other recent events hosted include the RICS AWARDS, the opening of the ENGLISH INSTITUTE OF SPORT at Gateshead Stadium and the SUNDERLAND AQUATIC CENTRE (50 metre pool). He compiled the video content and hosted both THE VARIETY CLUB'S TRIBUTE TO SUNDERLAND and DURHAMD CCC's annual awards dinner where they celebrated their first county championship.