New Meridian, BBC South & South East Thread

Not quite, Sally read the headline about Brackley Town FC (Brackley is in South Northants at the very Northern edge of the Oxford TX patch and rarely covered) then the promo'd the Oxford goals which unusually were covered in the second half of the programme within the main South Today Sport segement. Usually on a Monday Oxford opt out a second time for the League Goals from the weekend.

Ah, I misheard.

So, actually all four opening headlines tonight were purely from north of the Ridgeway, then! Could that be a first?

I've never been too sure how "official" or otherwise ST's (and/or ST Oxford's) ownership of south Northants is.

Is it not the case that the Beeb would generally regard Look East as the "proper" region for south Northants?

I think it's a relatively rare occurrence for ST to mention any south Northants stories (apart from re: Silverstone race track events, and the occasional tokenistic mention of e.g. Northamptonshire County Council during election results round-ups etc), and even then only during the Oxford sub-opt. That may be more to do with very little news happening there, rather than any editorial exclusion decision. Certainly, Brackley is always labelled on the sub-regional weather map used at 8pm and 10:25pm.

It makes sense that Southampton pan-regional bulletins stick to a more strict editorial boundary that doesn't even slightly exceed beyond the strict west/north/east perimeters of Oxon/Bucks/Swindon. Given that the pan-region already stretches from Ventnor to Banbury, I'm sure they don't want it to be any bigger!

The editorial boundary should be no more or less than where viewers receieve the service. There are definite postcode boundaries for satellite customers of course, but for terrestrial reception it's rather more vague. In fringe areas, neighbours can receive different regions to each other and aerial installers will tell you that there's sometimes almost no rhyme or reason in overlap areas why one house will get a decent signal from one transmitter and nothing from another, and vice-versa next door. Oxford have often covered Brackley and Silverstone in the past, as well as Swindon, Cirencester and Milton Keynes, all of which are on the fringes of the patch (and arguably MK isn't in the patch at all, but is a major commuting destination for some viewers so has been included for that reason).

In Brackley BBC Oxford/South is the typical local news which as you rightly say is rarely covered which is strange as although Brackley is in South Northants is actually South of Banbury which is regularly covered by BBC Oxford.

Here's the service area for Oxford, the bolder blue is where signals are likely to be stronger than alternatives, the lighter blue the opposite

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/mapsys/anatv/oxford.gif

The map above is actually the analogue TX area for the Oxford (Beckley) transmitter. At DSO the relays at Over Norton, Ascott under Wychwood, Icomb Hill and Guiting Power were all changed to rebroadcast Oxford, so post DSO the area is slightly larger and fills in some of the gaps. You'll notice complete absence of transmission in Henley and High Wycombe - both towns that Oxford have routinely carried stories from in the past. However it's thought that viewers in those towns with Satellite might choose Oxford instead of London as being more relevant.

Yes, and of course both towns have relays that are tied to Crystal Palace, so terrestrially
they are firmly London. Henley's relay also carries BBC R Berks rather than Oxford, (which makes
sense as its probably got more affinity to Reading than Oxford, High W's relay carries BBC 3CR, which I'm not
makes too much sense ?

Yes, I've never really understood why High Wycombe carries 3CR, but it can be split from the rest of the station, generally for commentaries of Wycombe Wanderers. Henley carrying R.Berks is also slightly strange as the town's in the county of Oxfordshire. It means that R.Berks cover the Henley Regatta routinely, whereas R.Oxford don't, yet Oxford TV often has sent to Henley in the past despite the town being in London's area.

Just to add to BBC local radio editorial areas not matching tv region areas.

BBC Surrey is part of BBC South East's administrative area, yet the tv region for the vast majority of the county, including the towns of Guildford, Reigate and Redhill are in BBC London's editorial area and covered by the local transmitters which are relays of CP. (Some viewers using satellite may have SET on Sky 101 in East Surrey/North Sussex).

BBC Sussex is also part of the SE group of local radio, yet the majority of West Sussex is covered by South Today, although the towns of Chichester and Bognor used to be covered by Radio Solent before coverage was extended with an additional transmitter.

As for Henley, the relays for commercial radio are also of the Berkshire variant of Heart Thames Valley, so it may be down to which tx they can feed from which would be Hannington for both BBC and commercial radio.

Well, I suppose the regatta takes place in Oxon and Berks, by virtue of the border running along the middle of the Thames

Well that's historical. The original station, Radio 210/2-Ten FM had Henley (and an AM Tx for Newbury) added in 1994 as part of their licence renewal. I think, for what is now Heart, it rebroadcasts the central Reading Tx, because (being able to receive all three Heart 'Berks' Txs here) it carries Reading ads, where as Hannington carries Hants/Newbury ads. Not sure whether the Beeb feed it from Reading or Hannington for Radio Berks.
The mb21 pics show two sets of Rx aerials, but Reading and Hannington are in the same direction from there anyway !

Silverstone features in the title sequence doesn't it?