New Meridian, BBC South & South East Thread

Meridian's new studio facility at Whitely opens on Oct 23rd (lease on present building 500 yds away is due to expire)

http://www.prosoundnewseurope.com/newsletteraudio4broadcast-content/full/new-meridian-broadcast-centre-set-to-open

I'm told the new facility is (not surprisingly) HD but initially will only transmit in SD

Will be interesting to see if they get a new-style studio or stick with the rubbish current design. Hopefully the former!

I would hope that it would be a different news studio but knowing the fact that all other ITV regions have got the same design I somehow can't see any change.

There was a fire alarm during the lunchtime South East Today. We didn't hear or see anything, the first report had pretty much ended (they cut the closing line off) when they opted back to BBC News.

Did they mention it at 18:30 at all?

The set is staying the same. Simon Hardwick will be tweeting over the weekend as the studio move takes place.

That's a real shame...cheers for that Rob, will keep an eye on his Twitter.

yes, he's posting some fascinating stuff about the move. It seems they're literally wheeling a lot of stuff across the road:

http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg640/scaled.php?tn=0&server=640&filename=iiujtd.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640

What's the story about the move then, were the owners unwilling to renew the lease or did ITV choose to move across the road because it's cheaper? It seems a bit of a waste moving buildings after such a short time

Interesting that today's Meridian bulletin is coming from Millbank

Did they mention on Meridian Tonight that they were moving?

No, they're not mentioning the changes. Simply because the viewers won't notice any changes.

Well when they moved to Whitley they had 3 programmes to broadcast, 3 studios, galleries etc. I imagine they're downsizing.