Centralised ITV1 National Weather?

I have just had a video conferencing session with a good friend who lives somewhere within the eastern region, and noticed, that Martyn Davis, from the ITV1 National Weather was presenting the Anglia News Weather Week programme.

Is it now the case that regional weather is done centrally from London by one presenter, with the relevant regional graphics?

Why didn’t they use special versions of the National graphics instead? Anglia’s weather graphics are very tacky indeed.

AFAIK, the situation is that the national weather team do the weather for Anglia and London, a team in Leeds does the weather for Granada/Border/Yorkshire/Tyne Tees, a team in Birmingham does the weather for Central and HTV, and everyone else does their own (except STV/Grampian, although they are practically the same thing now anyway).

Graphics wise, I thought that London has always used the national graphics, whilst in late 2001 the Carlton regions got common graphics, followed by the Granada regions getting their own set of common graphics in early 2002, whilst everyone else still has their own (again, except for common graphics used on STV and Grampian).

Leeds only do Tyne Tees at weekends and when Bob's off (he's the rather fantastic regional weather forcaster) - although he has to use the same graphics as the Leeds team.

The national ITV Weather is based in London and provides weather for ITV News, ITV News Channel and ITV1 Anglia (possibly Meridian aswell?)

Another weather studio is based at Leeds and provides weather for ITV1 Yorkshire, ITV1 Granada, ITV1 Tyne Tees, ITV1 Border and sometimes for ITV1 nationally, ITV1 London and possibly ITV1 Meridian.

The only other place worthy of mention is the weather facility at Birmingham providing weather services for ITV1 Central, ITV1 Wales, ITV1 West and sometimes for ITV1Westcountry.

Before long you can see all the weather (national or regional) being made in one place to save on the costs. Just think all these different weather presenters being paid all around the country to record two minutes worth of weather everyday.

I know its nice to see a familiar face from your own region presenting the weather but maybe they could employ a few regional weather presenters like Emma Jesson or Ruth Wignall to replace a few of the older presenters nationally like Martyn Davies and get rid of that person who won the ITV search for a weather person on ITV1's This Morning popular daytime tv programme.

Well that only leaves Channel as having unique graphics [and awful ones at that]. The GMG regions have the same, the Carlton regions have the same, the two Scottish regions share graphics and London/UTV have the national look.

Gemma Humphries still did Meridian weather tonight, but Martyn Davies often covers for her when she is off as, like Anglia, they only have one/two main forecasters.

I daresay Martyn has been covering this weekend while they are off, remotely from London. I'm pretty sure Anglia and Meridian still produce their own weather bulletins with their own staff and GMG graphics -- just Martyn is used for cover, much like Central's forecasters are for Wales.

GMG North have enough to go round, five I think -- and SMG, UTV and Channel are out-of-vision [except for UTV Live/Channel Report once a day], so can get away with it more easily.

HTV's weather forecast may as well come from London. You never get the presenter say its going to be wet across the west, you always get:

"In our region"

HTV Wales/HTV West and Central have Charlie Neil, Emma Jesson and James Wright - with Joanna Rice and Su Evans on a freelance basis

Leeds have never done London or Meridian. On the occasion that Jon Mitchell did the ITV National Weather, Sian Lloyd still did London Weather


Its a typical ITV rant line to go down but I can't see it as the whole point of weather is that it is local and they need to know about regional trends. Notice how brief and generic the BBC's regional forecasts during Breakfast tend to be. Also GMG North employ up to 3 presenters each day, so there's no cost cutting there.

And its not just 2 mins of weather, they study the charts, have meetings with off-screen Met Office people, design all the charts and write their own script, which they have to memorise

I'm surprised HTV Wales don't have their own weather service. I suppose at the end of the day its all down to cutting costs.

So London's weather comes from Leeds using the national presenters remotely making reports then does it? Despite there being a studio in London for them to use? I think not...

Well HTV Wales do sort of have their own weather service although last week we had Emma Jesson on Central, Wales and West but this week we got James Wright/Su Evans on Wales and Charlie Neil on Central and HTV West. More often than not Wales get a different presenter to West/Central during the week.

The weekend presenter is always the same for all 3 regions and this weekend was Charlie Neil.

ohwhatanight, London Weather is done by the national forecasters from London, which kinda makes sense.