ITV Meridian

Meridian Broadcasting

Based in	Whiteley, Hampshire (previously Southampton) Maidstone, Kent
Broadcast area	South and South East England
Launched	1 January 1993 (1993-01-01)
Meridian logo from 1993-2004, unveiled in 1991. ITV generic ident used from 1999-2001. ITV was changed to ITV1 in 2001 and the generic ident continued to remain in use until 2002.
Closed	Lost on-air identity 27 October 2002 (now known as ITV1 at all times)
Replaced	Television South
Website	itv.com/meridian
Owned by	United News & Media (1996-2000) Granada (2000-2004) ITV plc (2004-present)

Meridian Broadcasting (now branded as ITV Meridian) is the holder of the ITV franchise for the South and South East of England.^[1] The station is owned and operated by ITV plc, under the licensee of ITV Broadcasting Limited.

It has been broadcasting since 1 January 1993, when it replaced TVS. The main headquarters were situated at studios in Northam, Southampton (previously used by both Southern and TVS), but in December 2004 they moved to part of an office building on the Solent Business Park, near Whiteley, Hampshire. As with other regional ITV companies, Meridian's role has gradually been reduced from producing a wide variety of regional and network programming (as it did since 1993, when it inherited a large studio complex in Southampton) to producing little more than regional news bulletins which are a contractual obligation (as it does today).

Over the weekend of 22-23 October 2011, Meridian moved to new premises, again at Whiteley.

• Note: Prior to 9 February 2009, ITV's "South & South East" franchise area coincided only partly with that of the South East England government region, as it did not include the Oxford transmitter region (Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Swindon), which was instead part of the legal "Midlands" franchise area; it also includes parts of Dorset and Wiltshire which are in the South West England region. The area still does not contain parts of the region bordering London which are instead served by ITV London.

History

The first programme shown on Meridian was Meridian - The First 10 Minutes, a ten-minute outside broadcast from Winchester Cathedral, presented by Debbie Thrower and previewing the station's forthcoming output. Thrower opened the broadcast with the following words:

“

Happy New Year as you join Meridian live from Winchester Cathedral. Hello, I'm Debbie Thower and welcome to 1993 and a double celebration. This magnificent cathedral was completed 900 years ago this year and your new ITV station, Meridian, has been on air now for little over nine seconds. For centuries, this cathedral in Winchester has been a symbol of continuity. And tonight, we recognise the value of preserving all what's best.

”

Other launch day programmes included Michael Palin's documentary First Night on Meridian and the first Meridian News bulletins for the South, South East and West sub-regions. The launch day schedule also included the movie Best Defense.

The first advert shown on Meridian was for the special edition Ford Fiesta Meridian which featured the station's logo and was available through Southern Ford dealers.^[2]

Meridian Broadcasting was originally intended to function as a publisher-broadcaster, commissioning most programmes from independent producers and with in-house production largely restricted to regional news. However, over time and as its ownership changed, Meridian began to make a number of regional and networked programmes itself. As its parent company MAI (later known as United News & Media) also became a significant shareholder in Channel 5, Meridian supplied a number of the new channel's programmes such as sports programme Turnstyle and children's show Havakazoo.

Meridian-commissioned programmes that were introduced included Wizadora for pre-school children, plus ZZZap! and Eye of the Storm for older children. Later on other children's programming was introduced including Dog and Duck for pre-school children. Drama became a successful genre for Meridian, with Peter Kosminsky's hard-hitting No Child of Mine (co-produced by Stonehenge Films, United Productions and Meridian for ITV) tackling the emotionally difficult subject of child abuse, winning Meridian a BAFTA. Later, the same production team tackled vicious childhood bullying in Walking on the Moon for ITV. Hornblower was a Sunday night success for ITV and another Sunday night favourite, Where the Heart Is, transferred production from Anglia to Meridian in 2004.

When TVS took over from Southern in 1982, the south-east region was enlarged by switching the Bluebell Hill transmitter from Thames/LWT, resulting in a new centre in Maidstone, but when Meridian took over the franchise, they created a new "West" sub-region around the Hannington transmitter in order to improve the area's local news coverage, using a small news studio based at a converted warehouse in Newbury. This studio was later closed and news presentation for the "West" region moved to the main studios at Northam in Southampton. Following the closure of the Northam studios in 2004, presentation of all three editions of Meridian Tonight and local programmes moved to new headquarters in Whiteley.

Ownership

Meridian Broadcasting was founded as a consortium of Mills & Allen Int., Selectv (15%) programme makers, and Central (20%) who advised the consortium. Central along with Selectv were instrumental in winning the franchise as a low bidder. (MAI).^[3] In early 1994, MAI bought Anglia Television,^[4] and in 1995, it was a major shareholder in the consortium that won the franchise for Channel 5.^[5]

In 1996, MAI merged with United Newspapers (via an agreed takeover by United) to form United News and Media (UNM). The resulting company owned the Daily Express newspaper, Meridian, Anglia, and a large shareholding (through the Yorkshire Post) in Yorkshire Tyne Tees Television, the owners of Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television.^[6] This stake was sold to Granada, allowing them to take control of the two franchises. In October, United News and Media agreed to buy Scottish Television's 20% stake in HTV,^[7] on 28 June 1997, HTV was taken over fully by United News and Media plc (now United Business Media plc) for £370 million.^[8]

UNM had spent several years attempting to merge with either Granada Group or Carlton Communications, but negotiations came to nothing. Instead, in 2000, UNM sold its broadcasting and newspaper interests and became United Business Media. Meridian, Anglia and HTV were acquired by Granada, but the UK Broadcasting Act, at that time, did not allow one company to control that number of franchises. Granada gave HTV to Carlton, in return for Carlton relinquishing the 20% stake in Meridian that it had inherited from Central Independent Television.^[9]

In 2002, Granada and Carlton decided to consolidate the separate brandings for the ITV franchises that they controlled, this consolidation became even more apparent after Granada and Carlton merged to form ITV plc.

Studios

Former Meridian studios in Southampton.

Meridian Logo on the side of their studios

Main article: Television Centre, Southampton

When Meridian originally won the franchise in 1991, their plans were to purchase buildings, not unlike their current arrangement today: with a small studio for continuity and local news. This was planned because being a publisher-broadcaster they did not plan to make any programmes themselves, instead buying in programmes from independent production companies. However, when TVS lost their franchise, TVS' plans were to become an independent production company based at Vinters Park, Maidstone, where the former TVS South East division was located. Meridian took the opportunity to purchase the Southampton studios from TVS.

Meridian did put these studios to good use in the future; on some occasions, Meridian would hire their studios out to the independent companies to use for the programmes and under the ownership of United News & Media some Channel 5 programmes were made there. However, as a publisher-broadcaster, the facilities were generally too big for Meridian. By 2004, ITV plc had decided that regional programming would be phased out in the years to come. In 2004, Meridian closed their Northam studios and moved to a unit in a business park in Whiteley.

These headquarters contain a newsroom plus the main technical production and transmission arms of the programmes including three small news studios. There is also a south-east newsroom with producers and reporters based at The Maidstone Studios. Meridian South-East had originally used these studios to make the South East edition of Meridian Tonight before moving in 1994 to a studio at New Hythe near Maidstone in Kent. Thames Valley Tonight was also produced at the Whiteley headquarters, with the former Central South studio in Abingdon serving as a satellite newsroom remaining in a small part of the building.

In the summer of 2008, Meridian's former studios at Southampton started to be dismantled with plans for a multi-storey block of flats to be built. In December 2010, the site was still lying empty after the developer Oakdene fell into administration in 2009.^[10]

Over the weekend of 22-23 October 2011, ITV Meridian moved to new premises, again at Whiteley.^[11] The move was due to the cancellation of the lease at its former Whiteley premises.^[12]

Sub-regions

Until early 2009, ITV Meridian operated 3 sub-regions. The last sub-regional bulletins for the South and South East regions were aired on Friday 6 February 2009. The new pan-regional edition of Meridian Tonight began on 9 February 2009, presented by Sangeeta Bhabra and Fred Dinenage.

Prior to this, the sub regional news programmes were as follows:

• ITV Meridian South East (Kent, Medway, East Sussex, South Essex and Brighton and Hove);
• ITV Meridian South (Brighton and Hove, West Sussex, southern Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth, Poole, Dorchester, Weymouth, & southern Wiltshire);
• ITV Thames Valley - this replaced ITV Meridian West which served northern Hampshire, northern Wiltshire, Berkshire and parts of Surrey, when it merged with neighbouring Central South to create a single ITV Thames Valley region.^[13] Its news programme was called Thames Valley Tonight, and although ITV Thames Valley was not branded as Meridian, it was broadcast from Meridian's studios. It was the biggest of the three sub-regions adding Oxfordshire, the Swindon area and Buckinghamshire to the Meridian West counties.

The South and South-East regions produced their own editions of the flagship news magazine Meridian Tonight (18:00 weeknights), alongside further Meridian News bulletins throughout the day. From 2004, all of the bulletins for all three sub-regions came from studios in the same building in Whiteley, Hampshire. Some considered this controversial, particularly as the Meridian South East programme for Kent, East Sussex and South Essex was presented by anchors from a studio in Hampshire, 60 miles from the nearest part of the South East region (Brighton) and 160 miles from its furthest point (Broadstairs). This practice wasn't a new one though, as Anglia had been broadcasting both editions of Anglia News/Anglia Tonight from Norwich for the east and west of the region since their inception in June 1990, covering a geographical area roughly the same size in length as Meridian's.

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 evening news broadcasts - Meridian South, Meridian South East and Thames Valley - would become split between East (South East) and West (Meridian South/Thames Valley) for the first half of the programme, and joined as one for the remainder of the programme. As of February 2009 there are pan-regional bulletins including morning ones during ITV Daybreak which are branded Daybreak Meridian News. The sub-regions retain their own local advertisements.

The pan-regional part of the programmes now covers a large part of England, stretching from Kent and south Essex (Southend-on-Sea) to Dorset (Weymouth) as well as north to Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

Over half of Meridian's existing staff were made redundant under plans published by the broadcaster in October 2008. All employees who wished to remain with the company were obliged to re-apply for jobs.^[14] Some staff opted for voluntary redundancy and many others have been left without jobs. The pan-regional programme started in February 2009.^{[15][16][17][18][19]}

Identity

Meridian's original ident featured an exploding mix of orange, yellow and blue, which then came together to form the distinctive sun/moon face logo. The unusual logo design was reportedly inspired by maritime images (the sun/moon face is a recurring feature on compasses, sextants and other nautical artefacts used in the navigation of ships), appropriately reflecting the south's long seafaring history. The name "Meridian", which derives from the Latin meridionālis meaning "of the south", may also be linked to the Prime Meridian (the boundary between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres of the globe, and a key landmark in the measurement of time), which passes through the middle of the region, although this has not been confirmed.

The original formup lasted until September 1996, when the ident was replaced by one with a deep purple/blue background and an emphasis on the deep colours of the logo, as well as a smoother formup. This ident was replaced in autumn 1998 by one with a yellow background and featuring the ITV logo underneath the Meridian name. This was an attempt to avoid the generic ITV look to follow, but Meridian was nevertheless forced to adopt this in November 1999. In the 1999 generic ITV ident, the emphasis was on network's hearts logo with a small Meridian logo only featuring at the end of the formup. The Meridian logo was reduced to little more than a smear in a box. This look was in use until October 2002 when ITV1 in England and Wales abandoned local continuity and idents. The only exception were ITV1 idents featuring the word "Meridian" below the ITV1 logo, shown before regional programming. However, even this did not last, and only a few years later these regional idents were dropped. Meridian for a while managed to still retain some identity, by featuring their (sun/moon face) logo on the local weather forecast. However the logo was removed in 2004, last seen at the start of the late-night weather forecast on 5 December 2004. On 1 February 2005 it was replaced with a generic "ITV Meridian" logo, the official name of the franchise.

Productions

Some of Meridian's notable contributions to the national television network include:

• 7 Days
• Catchphrase (Series 9, 7 episodes)
• Dog and Duck
• Dogs with Dunbar
• Doing It Up
• Eye of the Storm
• Freescreen
• Hornblower
• Late Night Live
• Monkey Business
• No Child of Mine
• Ridge Riders
• The Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1993–2000; previously TVS)
• Screen Challenge
• Ski Time
• Sooty's Amazing Adventures
• Teddybears
• That's Esther
• Walking on the Moon
• What's My Line?
• Where the Heart Is (transferred from Anglia)
• Wizadora
• WoW
• ZZZap!

References

1. ^ "Meridian licence". Ofcom. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/tvlicensing/c3/meridian/. Retrieved 2011-01-27. 
2. ^ "Meridian | Idents". TVARK. 1993-01-01. http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/itvsouth/meridian_idents.html. Retrieved 2011-01-27. 
3. ^ "United Business Media annual report". Investis.com. http://www.investis.com/ubm/reports/04annual/creview.html. Retrieved 2011-01-27. 
4. ^ Murray, John (19 February 1994). "Heseltine clears way for Anglia TV bid". The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/heseltine-clears-way-for-anglia-tv-bid-1395076.html. 
5. ^ "OfCom". OfCom. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc/uk_television_sector/overview/key_dates.asp.html. Retrieved 2011-01-27. 
6. ^ "PRNewsWire". PRNewsWire. http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/27568&EDATE=. Retrieved 2011-01-27. 
7. ^ Hollick secures a stake in HTV as fight for franchises hots up, The Independent, 25 October 1995.
8. ^ Independent.co.uk, 28 June 1997.
9. ^ ITV plc^{[dead link]}
10. ^ ITV Meridian opts for new studio in Whiteley rather than return to Southampton, Southern Daily Echo, 23 December 2010.
11. ^ http://www.prosoundnewseurope.com/newsletteraudio4broadcast-content/full/new-meridian-broadcast-centre-set-to-open
12. ^ ITV Meridian opts for new studio in Whiteley rather than return to Southampton, Southern Daily Echo, 23 December 2010.
13. ^ Leigh Holmwood. "ITV axes 40 news jobs | Media". MediaGuardian. http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,1791328,00.html. Retrieved 2011-01-27. 
14. ^ "Meridian faces axe". Salisbury Journal. 21 September 2007. http://www.thisissalisbury.co.uk/display.var.1703437.0.meridian_faces_axe.php. Retrieved 2007-09-21. 
15. ^ Epolitix.com
16. ^ Sturgess, Trevor (2008-09-30). "TV 'carnage' as Meridian slashes newsroom jobs". Kentonline.co.uk. http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kol08/article/default.asp?article_id=49008. Retrieved 2011-01-27. 
17. ^ « Edit (2007-11-05). "BECTU News - Meridian staff act over news cuts". Bectu.org.uk. http://www.bectu.org.uk/2007/11/05/meridian-staff-act-over-news-cuts/. Retrieved 2011-01-27. 
18. ^ "Strike threat over ITV news cuts". BBC News. 14 September 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6994696.stm. Retrieved 12 May 2010. 
19. ^ "Nearly 100 jobs to go at Meridian (From Bournemouth Echo)". Bournemouthecho.co.uk. 2008-09-30. http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/2454985.nearly_100_jobs_to_go_at_meridian/. Retrieved 2011-01-27. 

External links

• ITV Meridian at itv.com
• TV Ark | Meridian