ITV Thames Valley was a non-

franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

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

ITV plc ITV plc is a British media company that holds 13 of the 15 regional television licences that make up the ITV network (Channel 3), the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom. ITV plc is listed on th ...

, 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

Whiteley Whiteley is a community in the county of Hampshire, England, near Fareham. The development straddles the boundary between two council districts: the Borough of Fareham to the south and east, and the city of Winchester to the north and west. Lo ...

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 The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

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 Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known a ...

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

ITV1 ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the ITV (TV network), Channel 3 pu ...

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

. However, as a consequence of the changes, the ITV contractor for the

West of England West of England is a combined authority area in South West England. It is made up of the Bristol, South Gloucestershire, and Bath and North East Somerset unitary authorities. The combined authority is led by the Mayor of the West of England Dan ...

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 Wales ...

, was unofficially extended to cover the

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east of t ...

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 Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

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 con ...

; 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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made no changes to its regional service supplied by the Ridge Hill, Oxford or Hannington transmitters.

Programming

All programming for the ''ITV Thames Valley'' region was produced from Meridian's Whiteley studios, with Central South's Abingdon base retained as a newsgathering centre only. ITV Thames Valley did not produce any non-news programming; the north of the region continued to receive Central's non-news regional programmes (as that was the ITV franchisee) and the

south South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

continued to receive Meridian's. Following a selection process involving Central South and Meridian West staff, Robin Britton was appointed Head of News for ITV Thames Valley. The News Executive team included: *Producer: Kim Hewitt *News editor: Jim Stevens *Features producer: Reshma Rumsey *Forward planning: Kate Taylor *Newsroom Journalist:Gaggan Sabherwal *Assistant producer: Janet Hayman *Technical co-ordinator: Steve Atkey *Graphic designer: Blue Hall *Output producers: Caroline Asker and Caroline Ferguson *Programme presenters: Mary Green, Hannah Shellswell and Wesley Smith *Sports presenters Chris Maugahan, Victoria Bennett and David Reilly *Studio director: Keith Peries The service did not extend to breakfast bulletins (i.e. during

GMTV GMTV (an acronym for Good Morning Television), now legally known as ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited, was the name of the national Channel 3 breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 ...

), however, viewers receives " GMTV News" at this time, which was a service covering the Thames Valley and the rest of the Meridian franchise area. ITV Thames Valley did however have its own weekend bulletins.

Timeline

References

External links

UKfree.TV ITV Thames Valley mapDigital Spy Discussion Thread
{{ITV

Television channels and stations established in 2006 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2009