New Meridian, BBC South & South East Thread

I noticed the old thread had long gone down into the archives, so I hope nobody minds but I thought I'd create a new one.

BBC South weathergirl Alina Jenkins presented her last ever forecast. Since she's left we've had forecasts done by the national team from London. Hopefully BBC South'll get their own new forecaster soon.

Has anyone seen in the Meridian South and West studios? Unlike in the South East they now have backgrounds. Meridian West of Reading (I think), and Meridian South of Portsmouth. Meridian South East still has the animated green background. I must say it looks much better now.

Which town/city do you think a SouthEast backdrop could be? Maidstone? Brighton? Canterbury? It would be good to have 4 or 5 like Anglia Tonight (West) and alternate them.

If a region doesn't really have one town/city that is considered to be "the" city of the region, then alternating views is a far more preferable option than the generic green backdrop (like Calendar, MeridianSE, CNsouth) IMHO.

South East Today had a "Water Special" programme at 6.30 last night (Wed). Covering information and views about the current drought situation.

They tried to do it Question Time-style with a panel of MPs/officials etc, and a studio audience..although, some studio lights didn't work and Geoff was in the dark at one point! They also ran out of cameras when asking for the panels views and Nick Miller did an outside weather broadcast from a boat but the weather map went to quickly for him!

Oh but bless 'em, they tried their best.

What is the green background?

This one. It's still used by Meridian South East and in the pan-regional Meridian bulletins during GMTV:

Apologies for the size, but this is 75% of the original size. I managed to capture a Martyn Davies blooper from ITV Local (South East weather) last Thursday (20th), where he fluffed up and reset to retake. I hope it's of interest to some, especially the VT clock too!

haha, I take it this is played out "as live" and they didn't trim the start

I think this was only available on ITV Local. It showed the fluffed up part, with Martyn resetting the computer for the graphics, and then after the VT clock the sponsor came on and Martyn did the weather without any hiccups.

Well no idea if they're planning on alternating them but from tonight we have a nice backdrop of St Peter's Bridge, Maidstone.

The presenters "hope we like it" - yep, much better!

EDIT: Got a side-on view during the 6.55 recap

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/07190137.jpg

A great improvement all round. Meridian really looked like the poor relation of the network with that hideous generic background (despite having some of the newest studios).

A shame that the generic background will most likely be used at weekends when the bulletins go pan-regional.

I hope they do have backgrounds when the weekend bulletins go pan-regional. The studios look a billion times better now.