Thames Valley Tonight

History

The region was created by a merger between Meridian West and Central South's regional news services, and broadcast to the Meridian West sub-region from the Hannington transmitter, and the Central South sub-region from the Oxford transmitter. The Thames Valley operation covered 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 was around 3 million people.

The main presenters were Mary Green and Wesley Smith (with Hannah Shellswell co-presenting with Smith on Fridays). Chris Maughan, Victoria Bennett and David Reilly presented the Sports News, either in the studio or from the newsroom. While the newsgathering arm of the operation was based at the old Central South location at Abingdon in Oxfordshire, the presentation studio (formerly used for Meridian West) was based at Meridian's headquarters in Whiteley, Hampshire. Bureaux offices were located at Swindon, Reading and Westminster. The view projected on to the screen behind the newsreaders was of the Oracle Shopping Centre in Reading, chosen presumably as the town lay 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.

In just over two years on air, Thames Valley Tonight won a number of awards, including the RTS Southern Centre 'Programme of the Year' Award in 2007 for coverage of the summer floods and the 2008 EDF News Programme of the Year Award for its coverage of the opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport.

Merger

On 12 September 2007, it was reported that ITV plc boss Michael Grade wanted to cut down its number of regional newsrooms from seventeen to nine by merging some services, which could save between £35m and £40m per year. This would involve combining the Meridian and Thames Valley regions. In the Thames Valley, the merger would signal the end of Thames Valley Tonight/Thames Valley Today and would be replaced by a pan-regional edition of Meridian Tonight. The current Thames Valley region would be merged with the Meridian South sub-region for opt-outs within the main weekday programme, a late night bulletin and localised weather forecasts.

Robin Britton, previously Head of News for ITV Thames Valley and Regional Editor for Meridian West, was subsequently appointed Head of News for the new operation.

The final main edition of Thames Valley Tonight was broadcast on Friday 6 February 2009. The last Thames Valley news bulletin was broadcast at 6.10 pm on Sunday 8 February 2009.

In September 2013, a Thames Valley service was reintroduced by ITV News Meridian in the form of a ten-minute opt out during the 6 pm programme and a full late night bulletin after ITV News at Ten on weekdays.

Former on air team

• Victoria Bennett
• Sally Biddulph (née Mules, now with ITV News)
• Andrea Byrne (now with ITV News and ITV News Cymru Wales)
• Martyn Davies (emigrated to Australia)
• Juliette Fletcher (freelance with ITV News Meridian)
• Mary Green (now with BBC Radio Berkshire)
• Gemma Humphries
• Gillian Kelly
• Mark Lipscomb
• Chris Maughan (continues with ITV News Meridian)
• Simon Parkin
• David Reilly
• Reshma Rumsey
• Hannah Shellswell (née Stewart-Jones)
• Wesley Smith (freelance journalist)

Production Team

Head of News

Robin Britton Producer

Kim Hewitt Output Producers

Caroline Asker

Caroline Ferguson

Natalie Kenny

Emma Pyne Assistant Producer

Janet Hayman News Editor

Jim Stevens Features Producer

Reshma Rumsey Forward Planning Editor

Kate Taylor Studio Directors

Keith Peries

James Tee Technical Co-ordinator

Steve Atkey Graphic Designer

Amanda Hall

References

References

1. (12 September 2007). "ITV to merge regional newsrooms". BBC News.