New Meridian, BBC South & South East Thread

I wish you'd posted this sooner, it's gone from iplayer now (unless anyone knows differently ?)

Eh? The South are fortunate to have not one, but two heritage anchors who know their patch and are well received by viewers.

Doesn’t mean everyone likes or has to like them though?

I checked with a colleague and Meridian has been fully HD since 2014, aside from any archive footage that has been upscaled from SD tapes. As with all news outlets, footage can come from a variety of sources so the quality may vary between reports depending on the delivery. The number of pixels and sharpness of the picture isn't the only measure and there can be good HD and bad HD pictures!

Look at his posting history in this thread and you can see that MeridianTVFan doesn't base his judgement on journalistic skill or presenting ability, it's about who he fancies.

Long may the South's heritage presenters continue, years of experience and reassuring familiarity that simply cannot be recreated.

Well I'd hope so - as Australia went with an HD system in 2001 when they introduced DVB-T (just as the US did with their ATSC standard in the late 90s), when we went with SD 16:9 in 1998... They've had a bit of a head start on us. (*)

(*) Yes - I know it's more complicated than this because of some, quite frankly, bizarre Aussie regulatory rules (and the 576/50p anomaly)

There's an item coming up about Meridian's 25th anniversary, including an interview with a former presenter.

Former weatherman, Ron Lobeck, on the SE edition. Was it anyone different on the South edition? As I thought he only covered the SE? Plus, any reference to the former CNS area that wasn't part of the Meridian region in 1993!?

It was Nick Knowles on the Thames Valley edition, with no reference to Central News South.

Extremely poor to not have a token remark like when Thames Valley Tonight recovered a landmark birthday for independent television in the South. There was a line by Wesley along the lines of...''in the north of the region ATV became Central''

To be fair, 25 is a milestone anniversary for Meridian, whereas Central is 36 years old, and Central News South ended 11 years ago. The 50th anniversary of ITV in the South was only 2 years after the end of Central News South.

Similarly, I'm assuming ITV News Westcountry isn't marking Westcountry's 25th anniversary, and wouldn't expect them to, given that what was Westcountry Television doesn't exist anymore.

They've been marking anniversaries from the start of the original local ITV company, Westward Television, so I'm not expecting them to mark anything for a few years yet.