ITV regional news in Gloucestershire

so i've been away on business in lovely bourton-on-the-water (a wonderfully charming little place - well worth a visit) and i noticed the itv regional news for this area is... meridian. it came as a bit of a surprise initially, when i saw it for the first time i had assumed a fault of some kind had prevented the correct news programme from going to air.

the bbc news region is midlands today with nick owen of breakfast tv fame, covering towns and cities which seemed to be relevant and nearby.

however, after watching a couple of editions of the meridian news programme, it seemed to make no sense that this region was being shown here at all: news stories were covering such places as crawley, ashford, and that little island a stone's throw away from me called the "isle of wight".

have viewers in gloucestershire always been so badly served by itv regional news?

The Oxford transmitter, that serves parts of Gloucestershire carries ITV Meridian's 'South' region, yes crazy, but it's been like that since the last rationalisation. Other parts of the county are served by Mendip, (ITV West), Ridge Hill (carries two versions of ITV on analogue, West and Central) and Sutton Coldfield (also Central)

It's a bit of a regional TV 'no mans land'.

Used to be served by Central South from the Oxford and Ridge Hill transmitters, but ITV's bean counters did away with that about 4 years ago.

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/oxford/oxford-tv-map.jpg

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/ridgehill/map.php

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/mendip/maps.php

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/suttoncoldfield/maps.php

Gloucestershire is HTV West Territory and Herefordshire CenWest. They had a big reshuffle in 2007, IIRC.

Mendip is in Somerset, so the farther south you go in Glos, the more likely you are to receive that. I think Cleeve Hill relay is tuned to that transmitter?

Ridge Hill is in Herefordshire, so I would imagine viewers in Forest of Dean and Tewkesbury would be more likely to get that. The settlements along the Fosse Way corridor are nearer to Oxford, hence Meridian.

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/oxford/maps.php

I suspect to add to the OP's confusion, where he was staying was served by the Icomb Hill relay. That was a Sutton Coldfield relay, but after DSO it will be an Oxford relay (according to the most recent Ofcom plan) . It seems that currently BBC 1/2 is fed from SC (hence Midlands Today) but ITV/4 fed from Oxford (hence Meridian). Relays after DSO for complex technical reasons have to source all their feeds from the same transmitter, though the South Lakeland relays remain a notable exception)

Remember that Ridge Hill has an additional seventh Mux, a retransmit of Mendip 3/4, carrying the ITV West channels beamed southwards providing dual region coverage in the area.

No, that 7th Mux won't appear until 'Midlands DSO' next year. Currently it's just an extra analogue only beam of ITV West.

Apologies, thought that was on air now.

Presumably it was originally served by Central South from Abingdon (well from 1992 anyway), which got merged with Meridian North (formerly broadcast from Newbury and then moved to the triple-region site at Whiteley) to form ITV Thames Valley (and came from the Meridian studios in Whiteley) in an early cost-cutting round (which also created a few new sub-regional shows?).

Then the more recent round of cost-cutting merged Meridian South, Meridian South-East and ITV Thames Valley (previously Meridian North and Central South) into a single Meridian region with a sub-regional sub-opt?

Yep, with the old Thames Valley bolted on to the main chunk of Meridian, ie the bit serving Southampton/south coast - no opt of it's own - meaning that Gloucestershire does indeed seem pretty distant!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_U0OIjNAf0

Yes, Central South launched in 1989 (in a 'car crash' of a first show, I'm sure it's on You Tube somewhere )

Technical details of studio here:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaPID2kZA6M

Transmitted from the Oxford and Ridge Hill transmitters, until 2006 when the Oxford Tx was combined with Hannington to enlarge the Meridian North region. Ridge Hill was returned to Central W Mids, but as a concession an additional beam was added from RH that carries ITV West (from Bristol). From next April when RH undergoes DSO, there will be two PSB-2 muxes, one carrying Central ITV1, the other West ITV1. Seems a shame it can't be a special PSB mux carrying just BBC 1 and ITV 1 West, they could also be at about 11 Mb/s each