New Meridian, BBC South & South East Thread

I live in the ITV West region, but thought i'd watch the new Meridian Tonight.

Didnt think much of Sangeeta. Does she always talk like she has a cold?

Fred didnt look too happy.

Simon Parkin is just awful. He was always my least favourite broom cupboard presenter - even preferred Andi Peters to him!! He is so local DJ! Was he the voice for the Lomard Direct ads with the talking phone 'hello!! if you want a low-cost loan...'

I saw some of the 6pm programme earlier, and do feel that the coverage area is ridiculous now, which Robin Britton even boasts about on the ITV local blog:

"The new region is the biggest outside of London - with a population of 8 million people, 12 county councils, 86 MPs (including David Cameron), 60 district councils (from Weymouth to Dover and Banbury to Brighton) 7 international airports and a tunnel to France"

The partnership between Fred and Sangeeta did seem a bit awkward at times, and there certainly wasn't the rapport that the presenting teams on the previous 3 programmes had.

One mistake I noticed was that when the email address "meridiantonight@itv.com" was displayed on screen, Fred read out the address "yourstory@itvlocal.com" (the former address used to be the Meridian South East email address, while the latter was the Meridian South email address).

I've noticed that there's been a lot of negative comments about the changes on the ITV local blog:
http://blogs.itvlocal.com/Meridian/2009/02/08/welcome-to-the-new-meridian-tonight/

I skimmed through the west version on ITV Local and it looked OK. Hope they can keep up the standard.

Sangeeta's not great, though - keeps stumbling over her words.

Sangeeta Bhabra doesn't seem very popular from those comments and ones elsewhere

I thought it was ridiculous, I can't imagine anyone is going to watch this in the extremes of the region, it is just too big an area... Then that is obviously ITV's plan, make it so crap that no one watches it so they can axe it full stop...

I know it may be a mildly ridiculous question, but how on earth are they supposed to get each regions news exactly down to 18 minutes on the dot and make them merge perfectly ?

From what I'm reading on this forum, they both pre-record one of the regions news and they go live with another (thats what it suggests on the behind the scenes video) - and then at 6.18pm they continue live to both regions in what hopefully is one seemless piece.

Yes South version is live the south east version pre-recorded but at least 1 story was duplicated anyway. Total shambles. Many now will just switch to South today / south east today....

I think Fred will leave at the end of the year and Ian may re-appear ? He did say this is my last programme for a while so who knows

There are a lot of disgruntled viewers leaving comments on the blog. I know that people only tend to make their voice heard if they disapprove strongly of something, but it will be very interesting to see how this pans out and what direction the viewing figures head in.

I genuinely believe that the wrong decision has been made regarding the future of ITV's regional programming.

I liked those ads.............................................explains why the phone was red too.

It wasn't him and the phone was blue

Funny thing about Simon, I can never get out of my head that he was working in McDonalds sometime in the late 90s. I think that job summed his talents up quite well.

Nice to see Gareth Evans getting his two-penneth in! Good for him!!! (That's if it is him..which I doubt)



In my opinion the whole programme felt rushed from start to finish. No rapport with the presenters, Fred seems completely p*ssed off with the whole thing and Sangeeta stumbled her words!

Perhaps Fred is just adjusting the viewers to the change then he's leaving to be replaced by Ian Axton but according to Jonathan Marland (well established Meridian name there) he's already left. If Ian Axton and Helen James were the new presenters, I think it could be a lot better but again..there will still be far too much to pack into a 25 minute slot.

Also, it may have been nice that Gemma had a farewell but who knows, perhaps she hasn't actually left.

Meridian Tonight - Opening Titles