EXCLUSIVE: Central News South to Close

The South Bank plays in all network programmes. It provides the continuity announcer audio for England and Wales (including all of Border). It provides a "clean" feed to Glasgow and Belfast; and a "slightly soiled" feed to Leeds, which includes the announcer audio. It also plays out the commercials, promos and pre-recorded local programmes for the stations (traditionally) known as London, Anglia, Meridian, Westcountry, HTV West and HTV Wales. It also now receives the local news bulletins for those stations UP a contribution line from the local studios and inserts those into the transmission stream for the correct region. With the odd exception, the transmitters for those stations are now fed direct from the South Bank.

Leeds inserts the commercials, promos and pre-recorded local programmes for Border, Yorkshire, Tyne-Tees, Granada and Central. It deals with their local news in the same way as South Bank and feeds their transmitters in the same way.

Theoretically (I don't know if it's been tested), either centre could take over ALL the stations in the case of an emergency at the other site.

To complete the picture, Channel Television in Jersey receive a "dirty" feed of Meridian South (the Rowridge transmitter feed) from the South Bank, which they opt in and out of as necessary.

(Usual disclaimer about this being an overview and not intended to be 1000% technically accurate.)

I suspect the existing feed to Hannington will be paralleled to feed Oxford as well ? Unless Hann and Oxford are to carry different ads ? They might be real cheapskates and simply RBL ITV Oxford from Hannington (that's exactly what the Beeb do with BBC 2)



Here I suspect a simple RBL link from Mendip (unless separate commercials are also req)

Sorry about that, I certainly had no intention to sound aggressive, but reading it back it does sound like it

I feel he wont go on to present this new programme from Southampton. But maybe there will be a new door opened at the BBC in Oxford for him, hopefully? Wes is much loved by his region so it would be stupid if no one is willing to give this legend a job. ITV are stupid if they dont fight to keep him. I was thinking though he might do something like Anne Dawson and lecture at a university. But he belongs on screen!

I don't think they've nailed anything down yet, Mark, but I WOULD suspect they'd want to split the commercials, in view of the history of the areas being separate.

I reckon Wesley might move to CNW-- I believe that he occsionally stands in for Bob Warman. He can still present Central Lobby then... who knows; when Bob Warman retires, then Wes could take over?

Nick,
Would you please state your source that has confirmed there will be a 'north' signal and a 'south' signal broadcast from Ridge Hill.
Thanks.

It's in this document I linked to earlier: www.savecentralnews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10

So why can't the studio in Abingdon remain operating, with cameras and lights being remotely operated from a gallery at Whiteley? This would allow the staff savings to be made, whilst enabling the programme to be presented at the place from where it is produced. It would also allow the Abingdon studio to be considerably expanded, since the gallery and racks currently surround it. I suppose the big if is whether the current equipment in Abingdon is compatible with this?

This would obviously incur an additional cost (for lines to send the four camera streams to the Whiteley gallery), but these uncompressed streams could be compressed into a number of MPEG-2 streams which would fit down a single channel.

No.

A good journo NEVER reveals his source.

You'll just have to take my word for it.

Who said anything about 'good'?

I have not been moved to post before on this site, but the reallocation of those viewers in Gloucestershire not able to get ITV West, but getting Central South from Ridge Hill, is great news.
As a Gloucestrian "born and bred" I have always felt I live in the west, not the midlands or any artificially constructed region like central south that bears no trelationship to people's social geography. We have no interest here in news from Aylesbury, and I'm sure the reverse also applies.
Already in Gloucester and Cheltenham we receive BBC West on cable and as our BBC region on Sky satellite. And the sourthern half of the county has always received its regional TV from Mendip. So the news that we are to get ITV West from Ridge Hill is excellent, and bound to please the literally thousands of people living here who have complained over the years about not getting West TV.
A couple of questions from me:
1. I find the use of a new transmitter to trasmit ITV West from Ridge Hill interesting. Will the Ridge Hill relays in Gloucestershire (St Briavels, Upper Soudley and Andoversford) also transmit ITV West? And what about those relays in Gloucestershire fed from Sutton Coldfield like Icomb Hill, Winchcombe, and Guiting Power? Surely, it should be possibel to take a satellite feed to all these relays of ITV West? This would then remove the crazily inconsistent regional coverage of Gloucestershire that has existed to date.
2. As mentioned above, we already get BBC West on satellite and cable here. Will the arrangement for a new transmitter from Ridge Hill carrying ITV West to us, also enable the BBC to feed us Points West from the mast? (I understand the BBC has always had a reserve feed to Ridge Hill from Bristol as a back-up)