ITV Thames Valley was a non-

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ITV news region covering the

Thames Valley The Thames Valley is an informally-defined sub-region of South East England, centred on the River Thames west of London, with Oxford as a major centre. Its boundaries vary with context. The area is a major tourist destination and economic hub, ...

area of the

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from 4 December 2006 until 8 February 2009. It served the south/south-eastern area of the legal Central franchise and the north/north-western area of the legal Meridian franchise. In its first year, its flagship news programme '' Thames Valley Tonight'' won the Royal Television Society's Southern Centre Award for News Magazine Programme of the Year for its coverage of the 2007 summer floods. The service began broadcasting 4 December 2006 merging the news assets of the two former sub-regions, and its newsrooms were officially opened on 26 January 2007 by ITV executive chairman,

Michael Grade Michael Ian Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth, (born 8 March 1943) is an English television executive and businessman. He has held a number of senior roles in television, including controller of BBC1 (1984–1986), chief executive of Channel 4 (1 ...

. It was operated by

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, and the main news programme in the area was Thames Valley Tonight.

Launch

Initially, ITV Thames Valley was to be launched on 4 November 2006. However, due to transmitter realignment, the date was finally set to 4 December; four weeks later than planned. It was expected the merging of the two sub-regions was originally expected to make over 40 workers redundant in editorial and production positions in Central South due to the favouring of Meridian's

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base for production. However this number was reduced to around 10 by re-organisation of staffing roles. Central South's old newsroom at Abingdon was retained as the main newsgathering base for ITV Thames Valley. The launch was successful in ratings terms. Although initially, ITV Thames Valley's flagship news programme, Thames Valley Tonight, received some minor criticism by viewers due to its lack of locality of news items in some areas due to the much larger geographical coverage area compared to its sub-regional predecessors. Central and Meridian are both owned by

, which holds all the ITV franchise licences in

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and

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, so this change amounts simply to an internal organisation. Meridian classed the ITV Thames Valley service as ''"a third semi-independent sub-region for the Thames Valley"'', and stated its headquarters were in Abingdon. The service was known to be branded as both "ITV Thames Valley" and also "Meridian Thames Valley".

Merger with Meridian

In June 2007, ITV plc executive chairman

hinted at a possible re-structure of the ITV regional layout, stating the existence of smaller regional services "no longer makes sense" relative to the regional audience they serve. The move is expected to give ITV plc "greater value for money", however will be subject to Ofcom approval. The plan was confirmed in September 2007, and would reduce the number of regional news programmes from 17 to just 9 in early 2009, saving around £35 to £40 million each year. Under these proposals, all sub-regions, including Thames Valley, were axed for larger regions only. ITV Thames Valley's service merged with Meridian, enabling a single live regional news programme to cover the whole of the Meridian franchise area (including the ex- Central part of the ''ITV Thames Valley'' patch), with recorded opt-outs for sub-regional news. The last broadcast date of the main weekday evening edition of Thames Valley Tonight was on Friday 6 February 2009 with the very last Thames Valley news bulletin broadcast on Sunday 8 February 2009. The main presenters of the pan-regional successor service are Fred Dinenage and Sangeeta Barbra, both of Meridian. A reduced Thames Valley service was reinstated in September 2013 as part of an expansion of sub-regional news services on ITV. The area now receives a ten-minute opt out within the 6pm edition of ''

ITV News Meridian ''ITV News Meridian'' is a British television news service broadcast and produced by ITV Meridian. Overview The news service is produced and broadcast from ITV Meridian's studios in Whiteley, near Fareham with reporters also based at bureaux in ...

'' for the South of England and a full late night bulletin after ''News at Ten'' on weeknights.

Sub-regions

The ITV Thames Valley news-gathering area itself was divided into two distinct north/south sub-regions for advertising and non-news regional programming only, on the

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service: *Thames Valley North (Ex-Central South): Carried Central's non-news regional programmes with the Thames Valley Tonight news programme *Thames Valley South (Ex-Meridian North): Carried Meridian's non-news regional programmes with the Thames Valley Tonight news programme

Regional area changes

No legal franchise area boundaries were altered between Central and Meridian; only the visual appearance of the service has changed. ITV Thames Valley was not perceived as a legal Channel 3 entity with regulator Ofcom. However, as a consequence of the changes, the ITV contractor for the

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ITV West ITV Wales and West, previously known as Harlech Television (HTV), was an ITV franchise area in the United Kingdom until 31 December 2013, licensed to a broadcaster by the regulator Ofcom. There is no channel, past or present, named "ITV Wale ...

, was unofficially extended to cover the

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and Cheltenham areas, previously served by Central South. This was achieved by an additional set of aerials fitted on the Ridge Hill transmitter broadcasting ITV West on analogue UHF 30 alongside Central West on UHF 25. However, the DTT coverage of Multiplex 2 from the transmitter (which contains the regional ITV service), will not be altered to accommodate these changes, and will solely broadcast the West subregion of Central. This complication will be resolved with

digital switchover The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover (DSO), the analogue switch/sign-off (ASO), the digital migration, or the analogue shutdown, is the process in which older analogue television broadcasting technology is conv ...

; and until then, both regions available from the Ridge Hill transmitter will provide regional news for Gloucester and Cheltenham.ITV West - Important news for ITV1 viewers in Gloucester
/ref> However, as the Ridge Hill transmitter will continue to broadcast Central, the digital switchover date for that transmitter will be unaffected, switching with the rest of the Central region in 2011, despite the fact it also carries ITV West which should be switching a year earlier. The

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...

Launch

Merger with Meridian

Sub-regions

Regional area changes

Programming

Timeline

References

External links