In fact, the World Cup rescheduling has meant Oxford has had its own stand-alone bulletins at 7:15 - without rejoining Southampton. Alina has even been doing Oxford-only weather forecasts.
Friday evenings often see a full 6:30 half-hour from Oxford too.
And they've recently started doing their own afternoon news before CBBC as well.
As indicated elsewhere on this thread, I am delighted that those of us served By Ridge Hill in Gloucestershire will be getting ITV West.
But where do the proposals leave Swindon? As I understand it, both Oxford and Mendip can be received in a fair part of Swindon, but there are also West relays at Seagry Court and Chisledon. Driving on the A419 from Cirencester to the M4 it is obvious that the closer you get to the M4 those aerials pointing towards Mendip disappear - presumably because of the nearby hills on the other side of the M4.
So will the Seagry Court and Chisledon relays be switched to the new Thames Valley region? But if the many Mendip aerials are anything to go by, people in the town do feel themselves to be more connected with the West, rather than what will be an even bigger (and more distant) editorial patch than that currently covered by Central South. Will this also mean that ITV West will cease to cover news stories in Swindon?
To me the welcome proposals address the concerns for us in Gloucestershire, but if anything, for the above reasons, make matters worse for those in Swindon.
I'd be interested to hear others' views on this.....and in particular from anyone who lives in Swindon, as to what they would want to receive......West or Thames Valley?
I'm not sure this has been mentioned anywhere but in my local newspaper it says that ITV's new Thames Valley service will be based in Abingdon as opposed to Whitely. I'm sure this is just a mistake, although maybe a change of plan?
I'm not sure this has been mentioned anywhere but in my local newspaper it says that ITV's new Thames Valley service will be based in Abingdon as opposed to Whitely. I'm sure this is just a mistake, although maybe a change of plan?
It'll be based in Abingdon, but studio production will be in Whitely.
Whitely isn't in the editorial area which will be covered by ITV Thames Valley
I'm not sure this has been mentioned anywhere but in my local newspaper it says that ITV's new Thames Valley service will be based in Abingdon as opposed to Whitely. I'm sure this is just a mistake, although maybe a change of plan?
It'll be based in Abingdon, but studio production will be in Whitely.
Whitely isn't in the editorial area which will be covered by ITV Thames Valley
Ah I see, thanks for clearing that up. Seems a bit daft to have news gathering and the studio miles apart.
I'm not sure this has been mentioned anywhere but in my local newspaper it says that ITV's new Thames Valley service will be based in Abingdon as opposed to Whitely. I'm sure this is just a mistake, although maybe a change of plan?
It'll be based in Abingdon, but studio production will be in Whitely.
Whitely isn't in the editorial area which will be covered by ITV Thames Valley
Ah I see, thanks for clearing that up. Seems a bit daft to have news gathering and the studio miles apart.
It's becoming common in ITV regional news now. Central News East's newsgathering is in Nottingham, with the studio in Birmingham. Also Tyne Tees South's newsroom is on Teesside but the programme is broadcast from Gateshead. Similar operations happen at Meridian too.
It's basically a cost-saving exercise. Keeping all the studio production at one base means fewer staff are required.
Even though the Thames Valley programme will be produced at Southampton (Whitley), I'm not so sure that it will necessarily use the "Meridian" title.
Clearly, it would be daft to use the midlands-implying "Central" as far south as Berks and north Hants, but I think it makes sense to avoid both of its predecessors's titles, and make a clean break. (Like BBC Tunbridge Wells avoided inheriting the BBC Elstree "Newsroom South East" title).
I would imagine that, in order to get the general public more used to the idea that it's "ITV1" and a "single company" now, ITV plc would love to ultimately drop the old regional company names from the news titles (which is virtually the only on-screen place where they still survive).
I can imagine the Abingdon/Whitley programme being called something purely geographic like "Thames Valley News/Tonight", despite the other two newses produced at Whitley remaining as "Meridian News/Tonight" (for the time being, at least).
The bone-of-contention that was the "HTV" name, has already lead to a change to purely geographic news names in Wales and the West of England. And it was ITV plc's good fortune that Tyne Tees happened to have already dropped the company name from their news title, in favour of "North East", in the mid-1990s (a legacy of the infamous "C3NE" era).
So, why
wouldn't
ITV plc use the creation of a new region as an opportunity to move away from former regional comany names?
Ah I see, thanks for clearing that up. Seems a bit daft to have news gathering and the studio miles apart.
As SfH says it happens a lot. They need to base a news prgramme in the area they're covering for obvious logistical reasons, but with decent communications (which are getting more common these days) the studio can be anywhere.
The only problem is that getting guests from the editorial area to the studio is more tricky.... but there is normally a camera at the newsroom for doing down-the-line interviews
Has anything about CNsouth's ultimate demise been mentioned on the programme itself at any point to date?
Also, what sort of time scale are we talking about?
I seem to remember it being something like three or so years between BBC Midlands Today's first on-air mention of The Mailbox, and the move actually coming to full fruition. Similarly, didn't BBC Newsroom South East first announce the ultimate dispansion of the region, only shortly into the "generic look mk1" era (autumn 1999), yet the dispansion didn't finally happen until 2001.
Going by that, at various other examples throughout TV history, things tarditionally don't happen desperately soon after an initial announcement.
On the other hand, in the very few years that ITV plc has existed so far, they DO seem to have a surprisingly quick turnaround between deciding to change things, and those changes actually reaching fruition and/or viewers' screens.
Central News South will be gone by the end of the year. ITV said in there press release that all of the changes to the regional television news will be complete by the end of the year.
Central News South will be gone by the end of the year. ITV said in there press release that
all of the changes to the regional television news
will be complete by the end of the year.
Really?
I find that kind of surprising, re: Calendar East.
The changes in the CNsouth/Meridian West areas involve a mixture of...
Downsizing:
e.g. dispensing with the Newbury facility altogether; closing down the "production" element at Abingdon; etc.
Redeploying/redifining
what already exists: e.g. the Whitley production team for the current "Newbury" programme will be producing the "Abingdon" programme instead. Which doesn't really change their jobs at all (from their point-of-view, where exactly the not-in-Whitely newsgathering centre is, and what settlements/geographic area (etc) are included in the content of those reports, is irrelevent. As long as the reports etc are "beamed" (or whatever) to Whitley, with which to make the programme).
But Calendar East will be a case of turning what is currently only a "part-time" sub-region into a full service - the complete opposite of "downsizing" (so, quite un-ITV plc). Presumably the Kingston-upon-Hull newgathering centre is not a big operation at present, but will have to become so, for the change to a stand-alone programme/service???
To avoid going off-topic in this thread, my thoughts re: Calendar East continue in the Yorks & Lincs thread.
And, of course, Bristol will presumably have to "up-size" a bit too, to report from around an enlarged region.
I'm surprised that ITV plc will make so much change within, well, a less than six-month period, it seems.
I e-mailed BBC Oxford, asking whether their TV news service will expand into the "Meridian (West)" area (as we all believe ITV's proposed "Thames Valley" region will do), if/when such a time comes that it fully breaks away from the BBC Southampton region.
Their response...
steve.taschini@bbc.co.uk posted:
Dear Jack,
Thank you for emailing us, Although we have ambition to expand our output from Oxford, it is not envisaged that it will match up with the proposed new ITV region. We believe the existing BBC service on the Oxford satellite and analogue transmitter is well placed to serve local audiences and our strategy is to enhance and improve the quality of what we do rather than dilute the impact and reach.
Given that some/all of the Ridge Hill transmitter area is going to join onto the existing Bristol-based regions (in both BBC and ITV's cases???)...
...does that mean that the East Midlands (BBC and ITV) and BBC Oxford will be the only "single transmitter regions" (save for sub-transmitters/relays, obv) in the whole UK?
