Thames Valley Tonight

Infobox Television
show_name = Thames Valley Tonight


caption =
show_name_2 = "Thames Valley Today"
genre = Regional News
runtime = Thames Valley Tonight: 30 Minutes
Thames Valley Today: Varies
creator =
starring = Wesley Smith
Mary Green
(Main anchors)
Hannah Shellswell
(Main stand-in)
channel = Central (South),
Meridian (West)
first_aired = December 4 2006
last_aired = present
country = United Kingdom
producer = ITV Thames Valley
(Meridian / Central)
related =

"Thames Valley Tonight" is a regional news programme broadcast to part of the ITV Network in the Thames Valley area of southern England. The new Thames Valley news region launched on Monday 4th December 2006.

The region was created by a merger between Meridian West and Central South's regional news services, and broadcasts to the Meridian West sub-region from the Hannington transmitter, and the Central South sub-region from the Oxford transmitter. Like all ITV regional news programmes in England and Wales, it uses the generic ITV font and idents. The Thames Valley operation cover Berkshire, Buckinghamshire (west including Aylesbury), Hampshire (north of and including Winchester), Oxfordshire, Surrey (west and including Camberley) and Wiltshire (east and including Swindon). In all the population of the patch is around 3 million people.

The main presenters are Wesley Smith and Mary Green (with Hannah Shellswell co-presenting with Wesley on Fridays). Chris Maughan, Victoria Bennett and David Reilly present the Sports News, either in the studio or from the newsroom. While the newsgathering arm of the operation is based at the old Central South location at Abingdon in Oxfordshire, the presentation studio (formerly used for Meridian West) is based at Meridian's headquarters in Whiteley, Hampshire. Bureaux offices are located at Swindon, Reading and Westminster. The view projected on to the screen behind the newsreaders is of the Oracle Shopping Centre in Reading, chosen presumably as the town now lies in the heart of the new region - previously it sat in an overlap of the now replaced Central South and Meridian West sub-regions - therefore avoiding accusations of favouritism towards one side or the other.

On Air

"Thames Valley Tonight" is the flagship programme for the Thames Valley region, it's transmitted weekdays at 18:00 on ITV. Alongside the main programme sits the service's news bulletins, Thames Valley Today which run in the morning, lunchtime, late evening after the main ITV network news and at weekends.

*Note that during GMTV, the bulletins at approx. 6.35am, 7.05am and 8.05am are branded "GMTV News" and cover both the Thames Valley area and the rest of the Meridian franchise. Non-news programming is still split between the franchisees meaning that viewers in the north of the Thames Valley still receive Central programming and those in the south receive Meridian.

Presenters

Main anchors

*Wesley Smith
*Mary Green
*Hannah Shellswell

ports presenters

*Chris Maughan
*Victoria Bennett
*David Reilly

Weather presenters

*Simon Parkin (has also covered on Meridian)
*Martyn Davies (weekends, holidays and additional cover - also on Meridian)
*Gemma Humphries (weekends, holidiays and additional cover - also on Meridian)

Production Team

Head of News
Robin BrittonProducer
Kim HewittOutput Producers
Caroline Asker
Caroline FergusonAssistant Producer
Janet HaymanNews Editor
Jim StevensFeatures Producer
Reshma RumseyForward Planning Editor
Kate TaylorStudio Director
Keith PeriesTechnical Co-ordinator
Steve AtkeyGraphic Designer
Amanda Hall

External links

* [http://www.itvlocal.com/thamesvalley/news Meridian & Thames Valley News] at itvlocal.com