ITV Meridian - Sub-regions

Sub-regions

When Meridian launched, it divided its news operations into three separate sub regions. These regions were served by their version of news programme Meridian Tonight, presented by an individual team of presenters from a studio within the sub region. These regions were:

• Meridian South East, serving Kent, Medway, East Sussex, South Essex and Brighton and Hove. Initially broadcast from The Maidstone Studios, before moving to New Hythe in 1994.
• Meridian South, serving Brighton and Hove, West Sussex, southern Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth, Poole, Dorchester, Weymouth, & southern Wiltshire. Initially broadcast from Meridian's Southampton headquarters.
• Meridian West, serving northern Hampshire, northern Wiltshire, Berkshire and parts of Surrey. Initially broadcast from Newbury.

The services remained without major modification until 2001 when the Newbury complex was closed and the Meridian West studio operation was moved to the Southampton headquarters; Newsgathering remained the same as previously. When the company moved to Whiteley in 2004, all three editions of Meridian Tonight moved with the company, resulting in the closure of the New Hythe studio base, although no Newsgathering was affected. Despite this move not being uncommon in the broadcasting industry, some considered the move controversial, particularly as the Meridian South East programme would be presented 60 miles from the nearest part of the South East region and 160 miles from its furthest point.

On 4 December 2006, the Meridian West and Central South sub regions were merged to form the non-broadcast region ITV Thames Valley. This new service was broadcast from Whiteley, using Central's Abingdon base as a Newsgathering centre.

Under cost-cutting plans announced by ITV in September 2007 and agreed to by the UK's broadcasting regulator Ofcom in October 2008, the region's three sub-regions would be replaced with one programme. This new programme would be split between the South East and a combined South/Thames Valley region for the first half of the programme, and joined as one for the remainder of the programme. One of the opt out segments would be pre-recorded depending on the regions news. The new programme began on 9 February 2009, presented by Sangeeta Bhabra and Fred Dinenage. Pan-regional bulletins including morning ones during ITV Daybreak, which are branded Daybreak Meridian News, are also used in the region. The sub-regions retain their own local advertisements.