ITV News Meridian
Regional news for the South and South East of England.
ITV News Meridian is a British television news service produced and broadcast by ITV Meridian from studios in Whiteley, near Fareham. It serves three sub-regions in the South and South East of England: South, South East, and Thames Valley. The programme has won the EDF Programme of the Year for London and the South East and the Royal Television Society's Southern Centre Programme of the Year.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Regional news
- Director
- Alison Nice (Head of News), Kim Hewitt (Programme and Digital Editor)
- Presenter
- Sangeeta Bhabra; Matt Teale
- Country
- England, United Kingdom
- Language
- English
- Location
- Whiteley, Hampshire, England
- Camera
- Multi-camera
- Runtime
- 29 minutes (18:00 broadcast)
Facts from the source article.
History
Meridian's flagship regional news programme launched as Meridian Tonight on 4 January 1993, three days after Meridian replaced Television South. Three sub-regional editions were broadcast simultaneously from studios in Southampton, Maidstone, and Newbury. The South edition was based in Southampton before moving to Whiteley in 2004. The East (now South East) edition was based in Maidstone, moving to an industrial estate near New Hythe in 1994; its news gathering returned to The Maidstone Studios in 2004, while studio production moved to Whiteley. The West (now Thames Valley) edition was based in Newbury, with studio production moving to Southampton in 2001. Meridian's first Controller of News was Jim Raven, formerly Editor for the South East edition of TVS's Coast to Coast. Three regional editors were appointed: Andy Cooper for the South, Mark Southgate for the East, and Robin Britton for the West. The South anchors were Fred Dinenage and Debbie Thrower; the South East anchors were Mike Debens and Alison Holloway; the Thames Valley anchors were Andy Craig and Mai Davies. All three editions won the Royal Television Society's Nations and Regions Programme of the Year award, the only time three programmes have tied for the top prize.
Graphics
Upon launch in 1993, all three programmes shared the same titles, music, and name. The initial title sequence, used until 14 July 1996, featured a large translucent Meridian logo flipping over to reveal a yellow and blue map of the region, with dots marking news-gathering centres and pulses for Southampton, Maidstone, and Newbury; each region then zoomed into its area, and the flipping logo revealed the programme name separated by a horizontal line. On 15 July 1996, the sequence changed to a blue and gold background with a partly obscured circle displaying news imagery, before flipping to show the Meridian logo centre falling into the line separating the programme name. A new look on 4 January 1999 featured a vibrant purple background changing into yellows and reds to form the Meridian logo; the music was enhanced with a voiceover declaring 'This is Meridian Tonight', and the programme name appeared with the Meridian logo above or to the side, with a digital on-screen graphic in the bottom left corner. On 4 February 2002, two translucent halves of the Meridian logo merged against a purple backdrop, ending with the two halves moving closer against a stripe of red and yellow. After the 2004 merger forming ITV plc, Meridian adopted generic ITV network title sequences: on 2 February 2004, a blue and yellow look with vertical columns of translucent squares displaying regional images, ending with four square ITV logos over a map of the UK; on 16 January 2006, the sequence showed regional footage ending with the name over a light blue and turquoise cylinder; and on 15 December 2009, a yellow and translucent black colour scheme focused on regional locations.
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