New Meridian, BBC South & South East Thread

Also posted in the BBC Midlands Today thread:



I had always assumed that the Beeb would indeed add a BBC West option to Ridge Hill on or soon after switchover in 2011. I'm bemused that such a move has, to my knowledge, never even been remotely suggested or considered by the Beeb.

Poor old north Gloucestershire viewers being lumped-in with news from the likes of Brum and the Potteries has arguably *always* been a poor situation. Given that it is perfectly physically and technologically possible to remedy this, and given that ITV indeed already have remedied this, it seems to be a very poor show on the part of the Beeb.

I presume that north Gloucestershire postcodes are mapped to Points West on satellite and cable, so it's only Freeview viewers that are stuck with MT?

Love Phil on the Meridian Tonight sofa! He is a breathe of fresh air.

Phil Hornby again? Although he doesn't seem comfortable on the sofa, I think he's Fred's natural successor!

I think he is quite natural, he's warm and the best cover presenter! He only has been presenting more recently - bit of a turnaround on the 'demotion' as such when Ian and Sangheeta took over.

Meridian weather presenter Luke Castiglione was presenting London Tonight's weather on Friday. Don't think he has done LT before. I may be wrong. Any suggestion he is moving into national / London following the departure of Martyn Davies? Or just cover for Rob McCullum?

ITV regional weather presenters were down at the Met Office in Exeter for a conference. Alas, Luke was covering for Robin McCallum as well as the Meridian region.

Incidentally, the weekend before last, Philippa Drew also covered London bulletins from Whiteley.

My understanding is, coinciding with the Whitehawk Hill changes in spring 2012, a couple of its westerly "relay" transmitters were changed to being relays of Rowridge instead?

This, I presumed, would mean that viewers in the likes of Worthing and Littlehampton surely still *do* get the Southampton-flavoured news, and haven't been lumped-in with Tunbridge Wells as you are suggesting?

The Findon transmitter near Worthing had it's power increased to fill in gaps left by Whitehawk switching to South East, this means some viewers get both regions.

However, Virgin customers in Worthing, Shoreham and Littlehampton have had SE since DSO as it's shared with Brighton and Hove.

On a different note, tonight's South Today featured a caption promoting the BBC Two series The Choir, as a result of a piece on a hospital choir. However, the caption itself was awful. Apart from the 'normal' fluorescent blue colour scheme, the box logo was squashed and distorted and the text was out of place. I couldn't quite place what was wrong with it but it was wrong.

EDIT: I've placed that wrong thing, it was the BBC One typeface on a BBC Two caption.

Well tonight South Today reported on a story from Lyme Regis, with their own reporter too! A little out of their patch is it not? Maybe they could switch the Weymouth TX to a Rowridge feed after all

I've just watched Tuesday evening's BBC Oxford News on the iPlayer, having not seen the programme for several days.

The sub-opt has now reverted back to being branded as "South Today". The title sequence is identical to the one already in use since 2008 (same images etc) except for the programme name on the endboard.

Visually, there is no attempt to have any suffix etc (e.g. "South Today Oxford" or similar) on either the titles endboard or the astons. However, the studio presenter verbally name-checks the programme as "South Today from Oxford" at the start of the programme.

I wonder why the change? I hope it's not a precursor to the sub-opt being scrapped under DQF or anything.

Also, the Oxford programme's title music is now the version with the added "beacon" sounds (as currently used by Midlands Today). However, the main Southampton edition still uses the existing (non-"beacon"-ised) title music.

Goodbye consistency, hello BBC regional news!

I've always thought that the more seamless way to do opt outs is to follow the Look East model.