BBC London News - History

History

The programme launched on 1 October 2001 as BBC LDN. After a major reorganisation of the BBC's South East region, with the London area splitting away to form its own separate region. The previous programme, Newsroom South East, had gradually decreased in its coverage as certain areas were switched to receive over regional news programmes. A brand new programme for the new South East region, South East Today launched shortly before Newsroom South East, effectively broadcasting solely to the London area, became BBC London News.

During planning, the programme for London had been named London Live, also at the time the name of the region's BBC Local Radio station; titles were produced by the Lambie-Nairn design agency but never shown onscreen.

The eventual title became BBC London, though the programme is always referred to by presenters as BBC London News, while programme titles were originally BBC LDN: an abbreviation of 'London'.

The area created for the BBC London programme to broadcast to now covers a much more tightly-defined area, chiefly Greater London but still including parts of Bedfordshire, Essex, and Hertfordshire in the East of England region and parts of Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Kent, Berkshire, Surrey and Sussex in the South East England region. There is also some overlap with the editorial areas of other BBC regions in this part of England. Parts of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, Northamptonshire, Berkshire and Gloucestershire now take an opt-out of South Today, while most of Kent and East Sussex is now covered by the new BBC South East region based in Tunbridge Wells, which produces South East Today.