EXCLUSIVE: Central News South to Close

To be fair, there's literally only one or two regional news bulletins on, on each weekend day. And each are no longer than about ten-minutes, aren't they? For such a minor service to become pan-region hardly seems like that big a deal to me - it's not like having the main 30-minute weekday programme going pan-regional.



As things are at the moment, isn't it the case that only certain weekday short-bulletins are sub-regional anyway, and others pan-regional? So, again, replacing those few sub-regional bulletins with pan-regional ones doesn't strike me as such a great loss.

In Yorkshire the only fully sub-regional bulletin is the 10.56am one. There's also opt outs of about 5 minutes at Lunchtime and of course during the main programme

The GMTV bulletins, 10.50pm and Weekends are pan-regional and alaways have been

I've not done the maths in detail, I'm sure someone will oblige, but I'm sure that the extra 150 local minutes a week given by the extra thirty minute 6pm programme across five days will come to less local minutes than are lost across the country by making so many other bulletins pan-regional.

I feel sorry for some of the local weekend newsreaders. I can think of one whose just lost his weekend job at ITV for the second time in not many years.

Well now at the risk of diverting the subject slightly, does this mean that Ridge Hill becomes HTV, and Oxford becomes Meridian in a full sense, with local programmes from those regions also -- or is it that only the news service to these areas is being reallocated?

Surely the latter, as that Sky High programme would no longer be quite right, and local south coast programmes being shown in Northants seems a little odd.

"For such a minor service to become pan-region hardly seems like that big a deal to me - it's not like having the main 30-minute weekday programme going pan-regional."

ITV work on the basis that people will consider all the gradual little changes not to be a big deal.
Overtime the service is eroded and they go to OFCOM and say "hey no one watches our regional news programmes anymore." OFCOM say ok don't bother at all then!

The most recent series of Sky High featured "map" graphics each week, and really emphasied the county names, how big the ITV Central region is, etc. I'm sure previous series of Sky High weren't quite like that.

I now think that it was because they kind-of knew that the dispansion (sp?) of the CNSouth area was on the cards, so wanted to show off the region's current size, in it's final months/years of being applicable?

They also had a VERY liberal interpretation of "the midlands", featuring what are really only slight "overlap zone" counties - such as east-central Wales counties, and counties that are arguably predominantly in Anglia (West).

Of course, Calendar and Central both have valid claims to Lincolnshire. A reasonable (if crude) guideline would be a north/south split, although I'd have thought that Central's claim should mainly only be the south-west of the county (?) I would imagine that WAY more than 50% of viewers in the south-east of the county would have their aeriels pointing towards Calendar rather than Central (correct?). The idea of Skegness being in the "east midlands" sounds a bit far-fetched to me.

But, the week that Sky High visited Rutland and Lincolnshire, they didn't seem to stick strictly to the south of the county. I'm sure they went much further north than Lincoln. A very liberal interpretation of "the midlands" indeed.

From the sounds of the Calendar news, the Sheffield relay will carry Calendar East, What BBC Look North service broadcasts from the Sheffield relay?

Presumably, ITV 'Thames Valley' will make its own regional programmes, if it is news programme is independent from Meridian?

Skegness is part of the East Midlands. All of the administrative county of Lincolnshire is part of the East Midlands. The unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North-East Linoclnshire are part of Yorkshire and the Humber. Don't blame me, blame the Government and their blessed regions!!

Stangely enough, the relay transmitter in Lincoln transmits ITV Yorkshire-- but BBC East Midlands! If you draw a line between Belmot and Waltham, Sleaford is halfway bewteen the two. I'm guessing people in Lincs south of Sleaford will tune into Central, and people north of Sleaford probably tune into Yorkshire.

One good thing about this (and I don't think all the changes are all bad) is that it does show how one of the advantages of having ITV as one big company - they can move and change transmitter allocations/news areas in a way that they couldn't before.

Imagine the fuss if the IBA/ITC had decided that Central should lose a few thousand viewers to HTV or they wanted to create a new region? The franchise companies wouldn't be happy - they'd lose revenue. But now it's all irrelevant it's just one department taking over part of the work of another

The Cental South/ Meridian West areas have always been a problem, both for the BBC and ITV - it's in an odd place and apart from Oxford lacks identity . It wasn't long ago that the BBC viewers in Oxford shared local news with London and ITV viewers sharing with Southampton or Birmingham. I think the isolationist 'Thames Valley' idea that is proposed (and the BBC are using) is a far better solution

Sheffield was always an Emley dependent so I assume it has the Leeds version. Wasn't something announced recently about Yorkshire getting bigger premises in Sheffield?

He was, indeed, but pre-recorded if I'm not mistaken.

He was also on Central News South. That one appeared to be live and was considerably longer, as you would expect.

Not a mention of anything on Meridian North/West; and I didn't watch West as I'm not down to be their duty viewer till somewhen in autumn 2008.

The Abingdon / Newbury merger has been rumoured for so long now it isn't a huge surprise it is happening - though it is a shame for those working in Abingdon (as it was for those working in Newbury when it shut)

This larger Thames Valley region does make editorial sense in quite a few ways - and is an understandable economy for ITV to make these days. (After all they want to make as much money as possible...) If it means a better quality show for both regions then it could be good news - however the production values at Meridian took a nose-dive when they left Newbury/Southampton and moved to the tin shed - it is is pity that Abingdon's relatively high production standards are likely to disappear. The future I guess.

Be interesting to see if this has any influence on what the BBC does regionally. Is South Today Oxford a fully split show at 1830 yet - I know there has been an aspiration to split for a while, since presentation moved to Oxford from Southampton? I suspect with analogue switch-off so close the BBC won't want to addconnections to the Hannington transmitter (which is fed from an off-air feed of BBC Southampton, but was fed directly by Meridian Newbury) to allow Oxford to feed that as well and directly match the new ITV region.

Similarly although BBC Cambridge has recently had a bit of a spruce-up technically (new cameras, new graphics kit, newer vision mixer etc.) there is still the issue of what happens when they leave their current premises. A BBC Milton Keynes TV operation was mooted a while back. The perceived wisdom was that this would just be a relocation for BBC Cambridge - and the editorial patch would still be the same as now - matching Anglia West. I wonder if there will, again, be consideration for this to become an Oxbridge opt by adding the BBC Oxford region to the patch? I doubt it - the editorial patches didn't really work last time they looked at this possibility.