The 1980 ITV franchise auction

You're right, it was in TVS's 1991 franchise appication.

History as follows:-

1982 TVS launches, with two sub-regions:

South: Rowridge (inc Whitehawk Hill relay)
Hannington
Midhurst

South East: Dover
Heathfield (inc Tunbridge Wells relay reallocated from London)
Bluebell Hill (reallocated from London)

In Dec 1988 TVS create a news/ads sub opt for Hannington, (5 min bulletin within South version of Coast to Coast, and separate 22:30 bulletin)

1990 ish TVS create a news/ads sub opt for Heathfield, (5 min bulletin within South East version of Coast to Coast, and separate 22:30 bulletin)

In TVS's 1991 application, the plan was for another sub opt (not full sub region) for Whitehawk Hill, so
they would have had a total of five sub opt news services (Hants/Wilts/Dorset/W Sussex), Thames V, Brighton, East Sussex, and Kent)

In the end, they lost. Meridian went for three full sub regions, (South, South East, Thames Valley, (the latter from a new studio in Newbury)

TVS were nervous about the sub opts, because of significant transmitter overlap, which is why they were always restricted to short 5 min opts. Meridian were bitten in the bum by the full Thames Valley opt, because of the large overlap between Rowridge and Hannington. They ended up building three relay stations for mid/south Hampshire to help fix things

The BBC's response to Meridian launching in 1993, was to reallocate Heathfield from London/SE to South(ampton). That lasted until 2001, when the Beeb created a SE region, based at TW. At DSO in March 2012 Whitehawk was reallocated from BBC South to South East. I think Whitehawk still carries the 'Rowridge' version of Meridian though ?

AFAIK, Whitehawk is still a special case. Rowridge news, SE ads, despite the BBC switching to TW. Yes, I remember the switch from NSE to South Today which was really odd as we went from having London news to that from the Solent area. It wasn't until SET launched in 2001 that the BBC started to serve Kent and East Sussex properly. TVS/Meridian were dominant for years thanks to their local news coverage.

Odd - I knew about the Whitehawk proposal - and I guess the other sub-opts must have been what I remembered - though I have no recollection of them! (I was a Southern/TVS Dover viewer from 1977-1990)

I'm assuming they were presented from the smaller pres studios in Northam and Vintners Park - or did they have small sub-opt studios 'in region'?

The Thames Valley opt was presented from the Northam IVC studio, while the Rowridge/Midhurst version carried on from the main Coast To Coast studio.

I presume, that was mirrored at Vinters Park for the E Sussex opt ? I knew nothing of the Heathfield opt, until
a visit I made to Northam (to see the TVS news helicopter) I'm sure I asked how it was done, but I can't remember

TVS had small studios for DTL stuff, (but not for opt presenting) Reading (within The Hexagon Centre) and Poole Arts Centre. I don't recall anything in Brighton ?

Would such bulletins have been live or pre-recorded?

Live - it is only in the last few years pre-recorded bulletins have been permitted.

As I mentioned earlier, Westcountry did win their licence with a plan for news sub opts and had problems with overlaps. I suspect most regions with multiple transmitters would have too

TVS had a base in the Brighton Centre. I also remember Meridian having a DTL studio on Hastings Pier!

Something that I don't think has ever been mentioned here about the 1980 franchise round is that, shortly after the awards were made, The Economist suggested that it might be the last franchise round as the expansion of commercial broadcasting, with cable and satellite etc., would render that model obsolete.

They were right in the long term, but maybe not quite as soon as they thought they'd be.

There were only five sub-channels within Network South - Wessex, Thames Valley, South Downs, Thanet, and Estuary. South Downs used both the Midhurst and Heathfield transmitters. The others just used one transmitter plus relays.

One issue with Network South is significant overlap territory between two transmitters each with a different sub-channel. I'm not sure if any research was carried out into how much overlap territory existed (judging from the direction TV aerials are pointing) but if it was then it will almost certainly be mentioned in the application.

Network South would have been a more radical system than that of TVS or Meridian because the sub-channels would not have just carried different news but different programmes as well. I think that Network South was more open to local indie producers supplying programmes (for its sub-channels) than TVS was and less interested in producing programmes for the ITV network. Can anybody confirm this?

I'm not sure indies were really a thing pre-Channel 4 so it sounds unlikely.

If that's really what they had planned, the whole thing sounds a bit over ambitious and costly and I can't imagine that sort of structure would have lasted long