10 years of Meridian

Well I was looking forward to Meridian's '10 years' series, but from the first episode it's not really anything to get excited about.

From a presentation fan's point of view, it was dull. Cheap computer generated titles with plinky plonky stock guitar music, no period idents shown during the programme, just a brief clip of the Meridian tonight titles.

But from no other angle did I see this programme to be very good either. Instead of being about 10 years of Meridian, it was just fred dineage linking between various clips from the archives of Meridian News and their regional programmes. No feature on how Meridian got their license, in fact very little about Meridian at all actually, just clips from their output. But as a clip show it didn't work either, because they tried to cram a whole year's worth of Meridian News and 1993 regional programmes into 22 minutes. And to be honest Fred's links (which all used that far too cliched 'presenter sits on the mixing desk in a gallery' style to create that 'behind the scenes' look) looked very much like they just bunged him a tenner to stay behind for a few minutes after MT one night and record the links for the whole series at once.

About the only good point about it was that 'Meridian' was mentioned a lot, not an 'ITV' in sight or earshot (except for the brief mention that they were the new ITV station for the south when they showed a clip which mentioned it).

Compared to 40 years of ITV in the south west, or 20 years of Central News, '10 years' was, well, crap. I doubt i'll be watching the rest of it.

I actually managed to miss the Ten Years program but I knew it would not be anything too special. Yes like everybody else I'd love to see them show a few clips of old idents and hear more about the franchise bid but that's not what ITV want us to see anymore. They want to wipe any trace of a real regional ITV out of our mind forever. Just wondering did they crop to 14:9 or was it in 4:3. My guess is 4:3 as "Year To Remember was 4:3.

I'm watching it back now, and it is indeed 4:3. I'm not surprised its crap, because Meridian has never made (or had made for them) anything special.

I'm not surprised its in front of the mixing desk either, there are only two studios in Southampton now, Studio 1 and the Meridian Tonight studio, and lets face it, its much easier and cheaper to film it infront of a mixing desk than it would be in a studio.

Yes like everybody else I'd love to see them show a few clips of old idents and hear more about the franchise bid but that's not what ITV want us to see anymore. They want to wipe any trace of a real regional ITV out of our mind forever

You don't honestly think that the lack of old idents or information about franchise bids was anything to do with some kind of official edit from ITV, do you?

It'll simply be because whoever made the programme didn't think to include them - and they'd be justified. How many ordinary viewers would feel a trouser-arousal on seeing an old Meridian ident or actually give a toss about the ins and outs of TV franchise deals?

Well the program is entitled "Ten Years of Meridian". Normally when their is an aniversary of something they look back to where it all started. OK not everybody is interrested in seeing the old idents, but look at LWT's final farewell, there was loads of old material in that tribute. I think Granada would discourage Meridian to talk about the regional franchises.

You have a certain way of putting things don't you, but I do agree with what you are saying. I never expected any old idents, nor did I really care about seeing any.

The programme was well put together but the content was nothing to shout about really, which I think is just because after Ten years there have been good programming, but not 'amazing shout about' programmes.

When was the 10th show on or is it on later this afternoon ?

12.30pm this afternoon, so you've missed it by 2 hours, but its on again for the next 7 weeks, same time.

look at LWT's final farewell, there was loads of old material in that tribute

But of course there was, that was the whole point. It was put together *by* anoraks *for* anoraks. The Meridian programme is made for general audiences.

I think Granada would discourage Meridian to talk about the regional franchises

You're reading far too much into this. I'm willing to bet that Granada really doesn't give two hoots about some minor regional programme on Meridian.

Thanks for that Ben will be organised for it next week.

Not on the programme, but on the other hand, if Meridian asked their bosses at Granada if they could have a special '10 years' ident for use before regional programmes during January, I don't doubt that they'd be refused.



Well 20 years of Central News started with an ATV ident, and then showed a Central ident seconds later. Westcountry's 40 years of ITV showed quite a multitude of idents - indeed the titles for the programme were based around idents. Whilst I agree with you that 'normal people' don't care, there is a certain amount of 'oh I remember that' evoked from some people at the sight of an old ident, why else do you think the Thames skyline gets such regular airings on shows about the 70's?

But yes, I accept that the programme could be done without them. That's why I looked at it from two points of view in my opinion on it. From the purely non-pres anorack's point of view who would be watching it as more of a review of the last 10 years than 10 years of Meridian, it wasn't good either. There was too much content crammed into too little time with unfocused linking from Fred Dineage who had clearly not been heavily involved in the series but had just been dragged out in his capacity as a well known regional face and reading from a script.

This sort of thing seems to happen all the time with archive programmes, for example on "YTV 30" in 1998, there was very little old presentation shown, and even what was shown was the same old favourites that are dug out every time (1970s still caption)

As has been said, I'm sure Granada bosses don't involve themselves in minor issues like this, it's like when someone said "ITN" on the ITV News last week, as if it was they were making a major stand against their bosses, in reality it was probably just written on the autocue as an afterthought