Meridian
This section essentially covers the period
from 1 January 1993 right up to March 2005 with the closure
of the Northam studio complex and auctioning of its
unwanted contents, though later regional programme details
might be added at some point in the future.
Unlike TVS, Meridian was able to promote its programmes on
ITV before taking over the franchise, so for a few days
before the end of 1992 there was a strange mixture of TVS
branding and promotions for forthcoming Meridian
programmes, so this time the majority of viewers were
probably aware of what was going to happen on the first day
of January 1993.
The aftermath of the controversial "closed franchise
auction" that took place in 1991 was probably predictable
in the case of TVS: Meridian was chosen as its successor,
and was different from both Southern and TVS in the sense
that it used independent producers (and production
companies) to produce the majority of its programmes, at
least to begin with. Compared with the TVS era (and even
Southern's output), networked shows - after an initial
flourish with ideas such as
Full Stretch - were much
fewer in number than before.
Midnight on New Years' Day was not a good time for a
formal introduction of a new ITV company; the viewers at
home were probably either too busy celebrating the New Year
or asleep, so there was just a brief ten minute
introduction to Meridian and its new programming. This
programme initially had a few minor sound level problems
which were rumoured to be caused by disgruntled ex-TVS
technicians, but generally speaking the launch could be
regarded as successful.
Later that same day at 7pm was the proper
introduction to Meridian and its programmes entitled
First Night On Meridian, with Michael Palin being
the main presenter. During the programme he made a journey
across the Meridian region using public transport, which
was in direct contrast to the high profile 'all action'
helicopter ride that Khalid Aziz made during the TVS
opening show
Bring In The New - obviously Meridian
were intent on not making the same 'mistakes' that TVS
made!
Whilst travelling by train, Michael Palin interviewed
various members of the public to find out what they wanted
from a new ITV service, though the answers as you might
expect were fairly predictable. He travelled from Brighton
in the east of the region across to Portsmouth, ending up
on the Isle of Wight before travelling to Southampton. A
few people who appear in Meridian's productions such as
Tracey Ullman and Toyah Willcox were also featured.
First Night On Meridian interspersed Michael
Palin's train and ferry journey with clips of forthcoming
Meridian programmes such as
A Class Act which was a
comedy sketch show starring Tracey Ullman who had become
successful in America after appearing on BBC2's
Three Of
A Kind. Other comedy programmes introduced included
Coltrane in a Caddilac (Robbie Coltraine doing a
road trip across America in a car) as well as
Full
Stretch (see below) with 'many more' being promised at
the time.
Other Meridian-commissioned programmes that were
introduced included
Wizadora for pre-school
children, plus
Zzap and
Eye Of The Storm for
older children. Later on other children's programming was
introduced including
Dog and Duck for pre-school
children.
When TVS took over from Southern in 1982 the
south-east region was enlarged, but when Meridian took over
the franchise a new West sub-region was created in order to
improve the area's local news coverage using a small news
studio based at Newbury.
With the formal introduction over with, Meridian now
had to prove that it was up to the task of replacing TVS as
the ITV contractor for the South and South-East of England.
Unfortunately for Meridian very few if any of its early
networked productions had any lasting impact, which was a
real shame given the potential that appeared to exist with
some of the ideas that Meridian initially had to offer.
As was usual with such a change, there were
reassurances made to the viewers that favourite programmes
such as
Coronation Street will still continue to be
shown despite the change from TVS to Meridian. However they
would of course be now promoted using a different style
from that used by TVS.
Meridian Tonight was the new early evening
regional news programme that replaced
Coast to
Coast, with Debbie Thrower and Fred Dinenage presenting
the South edition from the Northam studios in Southampton
whilst Alison Holloway and Mike Debens presented the
South-East edition from Maidstone.
Here is a view of the control room as rehearsals were
taking place for
Meridian Tonight at the new Newbury
studio three days before Meridian launched, and the event
was an opportunity for the Meridian news team to get to
know each other and prepare for the big launch.
The prize for the most-hyped new series amongst those
produced by Meridian for its launch just has to be awarded
to
Full Stretch (a comedy based on a luxury
chauffeur-driven taxi business), but that's probably
because it was Meridian's first primetime networked comedy;
if this flopped then the future of Meridian's comedy output
destined for the ITV network would be put in jeopardy.
Unfortunately for Meridian,
Full Stretch only lasted
the one series; it must have looked good on paper with a
script penned by established writers Dick Clement and Ian
Le Frenais, but ultimately it was disappointing to watch.
Meridian fared much better with its regional
programmes; some such as
Country Ways and
TV
Weekly had been inherited from its TVS predecessor but
others were introduced such as
A Tale of Four
Cities,
I Can Do That,
Ambulance ! and
regional arts magazine
The Pier as well as the short
'soapbox' programme
Three Minutes with regional
issues being covered in
Loud And Clear, but probably
the most successful new introduction was the gardening
programme
Grass Roots. One surprise was soon to be
revealed: a brief revival of the Southern Television
daytime favourite
Houseparty featuring some of the
descendants of the original presenters, which followed a
reunion of the original cast as part of
Southern
Gold.
Pictured here is the South-East edition of
Meridian Tonight in 1994. If anything, Meridian had
far more in common with its Southern predecessor than TVS
ever did, but Meridian's brief as a "publisher broadcaster"
meant that producing networked productions was always going
to be slightly more difficult than its predecessors, even
including Southern. The failure of
Full Stretch and
other early Meridian productions was a major setback for
the company as ITV's peak time networked output in general
was becoming increasingly dominated by a handful of
companies (especially as Granada and Carlton started
acquiring various ITV franchises) as the 1990s progressed,
though period adventure series
Hornblower was later
on to be a notable exception.
Further new ideas for series were soon to emerge,
such as
Serve You Right, a consumer show originally
presented by Bill Buckley and Caroline Righton, though some
of Meridian's regional output was later combined with that
of the HTV and Anglia ITV regions since all three
franchises were for a while owned by UNM (United News and
Media). UNM also owning a share of Channel 5 resulted in a
few programmes such as
Wildlife SOS being shown as
'regional' programmes on Meridian and/or Anglia/HTV before
being shown nationally on Channel 5.
Initially Meridian Television was part of United News
and Media (UNM), and when the ITV franchise ownership
regulations were relaxed in 1994 UNM bought Anglia with HTV
being acquired in 1997. After a failed 1999 proposal to
merge the entire operations of Carlton and UNM, (Lord)
Clive Hollick sold Meridian and Anglia to Granada in 2000
with HTV being passed on to Carlton (Granada at this point
couldn't own all three franchises). UBM (as it is now
known) sold its share of Channel Five to RTL in July 2005.
This was the last Meridian ident that was used before
a general ITV corporate look was subsequently adopted by
all the non-Carlton English ITV regions, and the last ident
to prominently feature the Meridian logo. Basically it was
just the previous ident with an ITV logo added, and it was
the first Meridian ident to feature the ITV logo. The days
of the individual look were now numbered for the English
ITV franchises, with the Carlton-owned regions already
adopting their own universal corporate look by this time.
When the corporate ITV 'hearts' look was introduced
with the slogan "TV from the heart", this is what the end
of the Meridian ident looked like at the time, with the
heart-shaped shadows usually spinning on a vertical axis.
This was often preceded by a short 'live action' sequence
that featured a heart design as part of its theme, as was
also the case with the other regions using this corporate
identity, and the ident was used with two corporate jingles
(the second being used for a few months before the hearts
look was abandoned).
 |
View one of the Meridian-branded ITV heart idents
(requires RealPlayer) |
Along with the new corporate style idents, Meridian
was now using programme promotion trailers from ITV's NPU
(Network Promotions Unit) for networked programmes with the
simple addition of a Meridian logo, though local programmes
continued to use Meridian-produced promotions for a while
longer.
Meridian Tonight also adopted a matching
'blue' look for its presentation.
The adoption of ITV1 branding for all of the English
regions plus Wales meant that the Meridian name was now
consigned to just the ident shown before local programmes
plus local news and weather programmes. This policy
continues to this day, and is identical to all the other
English ITV regions which are now all owned by ITV plc
(Granada).
When ITV unveiled its new look for ITV1 on 2 February
2004 following the merger of Granada and Carlton, this is
what the
Meridian Tonight studio now looked like
after the corporate makeover. Despite all the visual
changes, the South edition of
Meridian Tonight was
still presented by Fred Dinenage and Debbie Thrower.
At this point the on-screen use of the Meridian logo
may have been technically banished to the history books but
it was still to be seen courtesy of the local weather
forecast summary. Meridian moved out of the Northam studio
complex (which was now too old and large for its
requirements) later in 2004 and relocated to an industrial
estate near Fareham, which was something that Meridian had
initially planned to do when it won the ITV franchise but
decided against doing so at the time. All but 100 of the
nearly 3000 unwanted items from the Northam studio complex
were auctioned off on Thursday 3 March 2005, which included
such things as monitors, cameras, lever arch files and
canteen cutlery, plus Fred Dinenage's old newsreading chair
and one of the portacabins that was originally used by TVS.
