BBC TV South
Before the advent of the BBC South region in 1961
viewers in the South of England had to make do with the
London regional news opt-out provided from Alexandra
Palace.
The building chosen for the new service was then
known as the South Western Hotel, which was formerly a
luxury hotel that was often used by passengers embarking or
returning from ships docked in Southampton. Indeed the
ill-fated Titanic passengers had spent their last night on
land staying at this very hotel.
Now owned by the BBC, the building was rechristened
South Western House and unused parts of the building were
later sublet to other companies as well as holding the
local BBC television (and later radio) services. Finally by
the start of 1961 the BBC was ready to launch their local
television news service for the region.
The very first news programme from BBC South was
called
South At 6 and was presented by Martin
Muncaster who had been poached from their commercial rival
Southern Television. Indeed there was fierce competition
between the two rivals to establish local news services
which of course still lasts to this day.
South At 6 was soon renamed
South Today
when the start of the early evening local news bulletin was
moved. Bruce Parker is
South Today's longest serving
presenter; his first assignment after joining BBC South was
to report on the final departure of the Queen Mary liner in
October 1967.
By 1969
Nationwide had started but initially
it was only shown three days a week. This magazine
programme featured contributions from all the BBC regional
news studios as well as having an opt-out for a dedicated
local news bulletin.
Pictured here is the entrance to the BBC South TV
studio. A narrow passageway leads to the studio entrance
and a security guard is on hand to ensure that unauthorised
visitors are prevented from entering the studio.
The BBC South control room was naturally the nerve
centre of the broadcast operations. Due to the cost of
establishing a colour service in the various regions, it
obviously took a while for all the local regions to upgrade
their facilities with colour cameras and transmission
equipment. The weather summary featured a caption overlaid
on a child's drawing.
BBC South (and the other regions) produced regional
programmes other than South Today; one example being
Ponderosa Country from 1977 which featured local
country musicians. These programmes were rarely networked
since they were usually only of local interest, but one BBC
South series that was shown nationally was
Hey Look
That's Me, which featured Chris Harris visiting various
places and meeting children taking part in various
activities.
Before lightweight video equipment became available
(or affordable), local news bulletins often only featured a
few still pictures or film clips to illustrate various news
items, and of course photographs or film camera footage had
to be quickly processed first before they could be
utilised.
Here is BBC South presenter Paul Harris doing some
in-vision continuity just before a closedown one evening;
the year is probably 1977. Throughout the 1970s, each local
region provided the links between each evening's programmes
until this practice was stopped circa 1980 in order to save
money.
By the 1980s new technology gave news programmes
greater access to pictures of current events, making
bulletins much more visual as a result. Shown here is
presenter Jenni Murray at the start of a South Today
Falklands War special in 1982; she subsequently moved to
BBC Radio 4 and was replaced by Debbie Thrower.
Also in 1982 there was live coverage of the raising
of the wreck of the Mary Rose, which was shown throughout
the country but was a major news story for the Southern
region. The same year also saw TVS gain the ITV franchise
for the South (and South-East) of England.
Competition between the BBC's South Today and TVS'
new flagship news programme
Coast to Coast became
pretty fierce throughout the 1980s, with TVS initially
having the technical edge due to their investment in new
equipment but this wasn't to last forever. Ironically it
was the future Director General of the BBC Greg Dyke that
was working for TVS during this time!
By 1988 BBC TV South (and BBC Radio Solent) was
finally able to leave behind their aging facilities at
South Western House and move to a new custom-built studio
complex in Havelock Road opposite the Civic Centre in
Southampton. Afterwards South Western House was sold to a
developer who then converted the listed building into
luxury apartments.
During the 1990s there were perhaps fewer changes
compared to the previous three decades, but the competition
changed with TVS losing its franchise and Meridian's early
evening news programme
Meridian Tonight replacing
Coast To Coast.
Meridian Tonight is claimed
to be one of the most successful of the regional ITV news
programmes which perhaps illustrates the level of
competition faced by
South Today.
September 1997 saw the new BBC logo featuring letters
in the Gill Sans font being introduced across the BBC's
operations, and this was the first
South Today title
sequence that featured the new logo. Digital television was
launched a year later but it would be even longer before
all the BBC subregions were available to viewers, and BBC
Two regional optouts were not available for digital viewers
either (but were soon to be scrapped anyway); even digital
terrestrial viewers were subjected to news from London on
the rare occasion of a regional bulletin being shown on BBC
Two.
Here is the BBC South regional version of the BBC One
balloon ident featuring the Sussex Downs as used before
local news and regional programmes, though there was
another South-specific balloon ident showing the Isle of
Wight's Needles rock formation that was used as well.
BBC South mainly concerns itself with local news and
local politics, hence producing a politics (and issues)
programme entitled
South of Westminster. Nowadays
BBC South contributes to the
Politics Show and along
with the other BBC regions BBC South produces a local
version of the magazine programme
Inside Out which
in this case is presented by Chris Packham.
During 2001 all of the BBC regional news programmes
adopted the new BBC News corporate look, which was the
first time since the demise of
Nationwide that the
BBC regions had used a uniform presentation style for news
programming. The BBC Online Southampton website was also
launched at the same time but this has now been replaced by
Hampshire-specific pages.
March 2002 saw the 'dance and movement' idents
replace the balloon sequences used on BBC One, and each of
the regions have their own individually branded idents to
use before news and regional programmes; BBC South tends to
use either Tai Chi (pictured) or Acrobats.
And it wasn't long afterwards that the BBC News
corporate look was subsequently updated to reflect the
changes in general news presentation, with the regional
news title sequences now featuring clips of activities from
the local region that were similar to the changes
subsequently made to the News 24 'on the hour' countdown
sequence. The
South Today studio also gained the new
corporate theme featuring the 'red' colour that now serves
as a common link between news and presentation, and the
local weather forecast now uses the same studio as the news
itself.
