ITV News Meridian

ITV News Meridian is the regional news programme for the ITV Meridian region and part of the ITV Central region, serving the south and south east of England and the Thames Valley.

The news service is produced and broadcast from ITV Meridian's studios in Whiteley, near Fareham with reporters also based at bureaux in Maidstone, Brighton, Reading, Abingdon and Poole. The Head of News is Robin Britton who previously launched Thames Valley Tonight and the West edition of Meridian Tonight.

January 1993 – December 2006
Meridian Tonight launched on 4 January 1993 – three days after Meridian replaced TVS. The programme broadcast three local editions simultaneously, from studios in Southampton, Maidstone, and Newbury; the original set design was by Eye-Catching Design. The three original sub-regional services for Meridian Tonight and Meridian News were:


 * East (Kent, Medway, southern Essex, East Sussex, and Brighton & Hove), based in Maidstone before moving to New Hythe in 1994. The news operation was moved back to Maidstone (Vinters Park Studios) ten years later.
 * South (Brighton & Hove, West Sussex, southern Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth, eastern Dorset, and the Isle of Wight), based in Southampton before moving to Whiteley in 2004.
 * West (northern Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, and parts of Surrey), based in Newbury.
 * GMTV bulletins in the South and West sub-regions were shared while the East received its own bulletins.

Studio production of the West edition moved from Meridian's Newbury studios to the main studios at Northam in Southampton in 2001, following the closure of the Newbury complex. Presentation for all three services moved to new smaller studios at Whiteley, near Fareham on Saturday 4 December 2004; the studios in Southampton and near Maidstone were closed at this time. Newsgathering operations in all areas were retained.

In December 2006, the GMTV bulletins became pan-regional. Weekend bulletins had become pan-regional across the South and East only, whilst the West retained its own weekend bulletins right up until 3 December 2006, when ITV Thames Valley was launched.

December 2006 – February 2009
On 4 December 2006, the long expected merger between West and Central South, took place to form the non-franchise ITV Thames Valley service, broadcasting Thames Valley Today/Tonight from the same studio at Whiteley. The merger saw Oxfordshire, the Swindon area, and Buckinghamshire being added to the region for news purposes. The former Central South headquarters at Abingdon was retained as the main newsgathering base for ITV Thames Valley, but the studio presentation facility was mothballed.

Bulletins during GMTV became pan-regional across the entire combined ITV Meridian and ITV Thames Valley areas, and branded as GMTV News. Weekend bulletins continued to be separate Meridian News (pan-regional for South and East) and Thames Valley Today/Tonight services.

February 2009 – present
At the end of 2008, in light of a restructuring through the ITV regional news network, around 100 staff across the Meridian & Thames Valley areas were made redundant and all sub-regional services in the Thames Valley were axed. A single news programme for the entire region was launched. Within this, two sub-regions remained - the new West, comprising the former South & Thames Valley areas combined, and the East, consisting of the former South-East region.

The remaining sub-regional elements are:
 * The opening 15 to 18 minutes of the main 6pm programme.
 * Localised weather forecasts.
 * Full late night bulletins on weeknights, following ITV News at Ten.

Both sub-regional editions utilise exactly the same presenter(s) and studio/set, therefore one of the two opt-outs - depending on the day's news - is pre-recorded 'as live' shortly before broadcast.

The news service is produced and broadcast from ITV Meridian's studios in Whiteley, near Fareham with reporters also based at bureaux in Maidstone, Brighton, Reading, Abingdon and Poole. The Head of News is Robin Britton who previously launched Thames Valley Tonight and the West edition of Meridian Tonight.

Broadcast times
Meridian News airs on Meridian seven days a week. Meridian provides three news bulletins during Daybreak. The lunchtime edition of the programme follows on from the ITV News at 1:30, giving a five minute round-up of developments between 1.55pm and 2.00pm. The main evening edition of Meridian Tonight begins at 6.00pm, and ends at 6.30pm. The late news update from the Meridian sub-regions follows the ITV News at Ten, airing between 10.30pm and 10.35pm, Mondays to Fridays.

Meridian News airs two bulletins at weekends: one on Saturday, in the late afternoon, and one on Sunday: in the early evening.

Former on air team

 * Ian Axton (now with The West Country Tonight)
 * Andrea Byrne (now with ITV News & Wales Tonight)
 * Martyn Davies (emigrated to Australia)
 * Kate Garraway (now with Daybreak)
 * Mary Green
 * Nick Harper


 * Victoria Health
 * Gemma Humphries
 * Hannah Shellswell
 * Debbie Thrower
 * David Wright
 * Jane Wyatt

Graphics
Upon launch of the three regional news services in 1993, Meridian made the decision that all three programmes would share the same titles, music and name. Upon the launch of Meridian Tonight in 1993 until c.1996, the programme titles featured a large translucent Meridian logo flipping over to reveal and yellow and blue map of the region. Accompanied by a trumpeted fanfare the region lights up with several dots, marking Meridian's news-gathering centres, and three pulses marking, Southampton, Maidstone and Newbury: the locations of each of the three programmes. Each respective region would then zoom into their region of the Meridian region before the flipping logo reveals the programme name, separated by a horizontal line, at the end of the sequence.

The title sequence and music was changed c.1996 to a blue and gold background variant featuring a partly obscured circle displaying news related imagery, before flipping to reveal the centre of the Meridian logo falling back into the centre of the line separating the programme name.

The look was changed once again in March 1999 with the new titles featuring a vibrant purple background being changed into yellows and reds to form the Meridian logo. The music remained the same, but was enhanced to be more dramatic with a voiceover by Fred Dinenage at the beginning declaring "This is Meridian Tonight". The programme name now featured the Meridian logo above, or to the side of the programme name and appearing as a DOG in the bottom left corner of the screen throughout the programme. The last Meridian individual look was introduced c.2002 and featured two translucent halves of Meridian's logo merging and moving together against a purple backdrop. The end board of the sequence saw to two halves move closer against a stripe of red and yellow colour against the Meridian Tonight name.

Following the merger of Granada PLC and Carlton Communications in 2004 to form ITV plc, Meridian has used generic title sequences adopted across the ITV plc network of ITV stations. In 2004, this featured a blue and yellow look concentrating on vertical columns of translucent squares displaying images of the Meridian region, before ending with four square ITV logo over a map of the UK made out of squares. This was altered following the change of ITV logo to a sequence showing footage of the region and ending with the name over a light blue and turquoise cylinder, and further altered in 2010 to match the new ITV News style. This latest style featured a yellow and translucent black colour scheme and again focusing on footage of locations within the region.