ITV West & Westcountry

ITV West & Westcountry, is a non-franchise ITV regional station covering South West England and incorporating the ITV West and ITV Westcountry news output.

History
ITV West & Westcountry launched on 16 February 2009, and merged the two regions of ITV West and ITV Westcountry into one amalgamated region. The idea was first proposed following a speech by Michael Grade about regional broadcasting post-switchover at the 2007 Nations and Regions conference in Cardiff. There was speculation that ITV Westcountry and ITV West could merge operations, as part of further streamlining of regional operations, and rumours suggested that, while a newsroom (and separate regional identity) would be retained in the south west, the main Westcountry Live programme would move to a studio alongside The West Tonight at ITV West in Bristol. On 12 September 2007, ITV issued a statement to the City of London, saying that it wished to reduce the number of news studios from 17 to just 9. This includes merging ITV West with ITV Westcountry to form the non-franchise region ITV West & Westcountry from Spring 2009. Shortly after the broadcasting regulator Ofcom gave ITV plc the go-ahead to merge the two regions.

Studios
ITV West & Westcountry's studio operations were all moved to ITV West's headquarters in Bristol, with the studio facilities in Plymouth mothballed, with a small news bureaux remaining.

Productions
ITV West & Westcountry produces a local news programme The West Country Tonight, which replaced Westcountry Live and The West Tonight on Monday 16 February 2009. The programme includes separate opt-out news bulletins for the first fifteen minutes of the main 6pm programme from each of the two regions, some of which are pre-recorded depending on the day's news and due to the use of only one presenting team. The main 6pm evening programme is supplemented by shorter daytime bulletins, with the weekday Daybreak, lunch and late bulletin after the ITV News at Ten consisting of opt-out news for either the West or Westcountry regions. Separate daytime bulletins for the regions were reintroduced in September 2011.

ITV West & Westcountry are also required to produce 13 hours of non-news programming a year - currently, the only non-news programme in production is The West Country at Westminster, a monthly political programme.