Talk:ITV Thames Valley

Ridge Hill
Are we sure that Ridge Hill going to ITV West (Harlech Ciderland) means the digital switch over date will be definately moved forward. I ask this because, despite ITVplc's tinkering of their regional news boundaries, it doesn't change the channel 3 franchise map which has existed fro decades and officially continues to do so. Grampian has been renamed STV, but as far as I'm aware, it's still the Grampian franchise area and is treated as such in officialdom. I very much doubt we'll see a unique date for Thames Valley either, Oxford staying with Central and Hannington staying with Meridian.

[Gareth]
 * ITV Thames Valley will be broadcast from the Oxford and Hannington transmitters while Ridge Hill is going to take ITV West to extend its coverage to Cheltham and Glostershire, so there will be no reminants of Central South whatsoever. Officially, the boundaries are not changing, however it is unlikely the current viewers of Central South and Meridian North will ever see those names ever again. ITV Thames Valley has been put in place to save a bit of cash... so they don't spend too much on two seperate sub-regions. Thames Valley is launching December 4 this year, although intially they thought it would be done for November 4. Hope this helps! Marbles333 20:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

What I was querying was the idea that the Ridge Hill transmitter will now be using the HTV West timetable for digital switchover and Oxford will be using Meridian's switchover date just because ITVplc have decided to change it's regional news editorial areas. It doesn't effect the official/ceremonial ITV boundaries and therefore it shouldn't change the digital switchover date of any of the trasmitters. Ridge Hill & Oxford will remain Central transmitters as far as Ofcom is concerned, despite ITVplc deciding to no longer brand them as such and feed them non-Central local programming, and thus, analogue transmissions should cease with the remaining Central transmitters. Can you confirm or deny this? garyparks
 * I've just found out; Ridge Hill will be providing both Central and HTV West, but HTV West will be directed at the south (supposedly by another transmitter on site) and Central West will be broadcast to the north of Ridge Hill's broadcast area. (Central will be carried only by its northern relays, HTV will only be carried by Southern relays). Digital switchover is happening ITV region by ITV region, so I expect that whoever has HTV West after these changes will get switched off in 2010 (at HTV West's time); it makes it much simpler. Imagine telling people "You get HTV West but you're in the Central broadcast area and you get switched off in 2011, so just ignore the HTV West turnoff date". Its too confusing for the casual viewer (who should think they are no longer part of Central or Meridian), and would be much simpler to assume by the (fake) new areas, and I expect ITV Thames Valley will have a sloppy switchover, with half of the region going in 2011 and the rest in 2012. With Ridge Hill, they're not going to leave one transmission site of HTV West still with analogue when all the others have converted. All in all, if HTV West is to be broadcast by a new transmitter near to/or on the Ridge Hill site, in Ofcom's eyes it is a different transmitter not part of Central at all, and therefore would not be restricted to official franchise boundaries; therefore can change the Digital Switchover date. I daresay they could get clearance by Ofcom to enable them to carry this out, it would be too confusing to viewers otherwise. Marbles333 17:55, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

It maybe confusing but still, Ridge Hill is a Central region transmitter which ITVplc obtains the right to broadcast from via owning Central Independent Television, the franchise holder for the Central region which still includes Ridge Hill. Oxford's exactly the same. Ofcom works from the legalities of the franchise areas, not ITVplc's own local news areas. Nonetheless, despite what you believe, you don't appear to know for a fact and until you do, you shouldn't state in the article that the switchover date for these transmitters will change. garyparks


 * Ridge Hill (the main mast as it is now) will continue to be a Central transmitter; it will have an extra transmitter to broadcast ITV West to the south of it's broadcast area, therefore the "main" Ridge Hill (broadcasting Central) will be unaffected. Oxford will remain 2011 as we see it, and Hannington 2012. The only exception is those in Gloucester and Cheltenham, who will be served by this "new" transmitter, which ITV will register as part of HTV West. It's not my opinion; its what's been stated in releases (many of which have been posted in the "ITV1 Thames Valley" thread in Digital Spy). To be honest, I don't even think ITV plc know what they're doing, its been delay after delay after delay. ITV is not a broadcaster; it is a buisiness, and by doing so they've lost their touch with stuff like this. AFACT, the switchover for Thames Valley will be 2011/2012, unless ITV plc swindle Ofcom into doing something they should have left alone. Marbles333 14:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

If this is so, fair enough, though maybe you could add some of the above (regarding the transmitter situation) into the article without getting to technical about it. garyparks

ITV plc Official Email
I emailed the Duty Office (which is actually in Central I believe). My message can be seen below:

Subject:	 RE: ITV Thames Valley Date:	Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:39:45 +0100 From:	"Duty Office" Add to Address BookAdd to Address Book To:	"Marbles333"

Thank you for your email which we have forwarded to the technical desk for their consideration Regards Duty officer a.f

-Original Message- From: Marbles333 [mailto: address removed] Sent: 20 October 2006 18:26 To: Duty Office Subject: ITV Thames Valley

Not sure whether this should be sent to Central or Meridian, but can you confirm whether the launch of ITV Thames Valley will affect the Digital Switchover dates for the areas that will be transferred to HTV West and/or ITV Thames Valley as of 4 December 2006?

As ITV Thames Valley would be formed from two complete seperate sub-regions, would that make it a sloppy switchover with one transmitter converting to DTT in 2011 and the other in 2012? I also heard that the Ridge Hill transmitter will be adding extra antennaes to broadcast both HTV West (to Cheltenham/Gloucester areas) and Central West (other areas); but would people served by the transmitter be officially part of Central or HTV West come digital switchover?

I assume ITV plc will treat ITV Thames Valley as a regional brand in its own right (a "fake" franchise with no reference at all to neither Central or Meridian), but officially it doesn't exist and wouldn't that affect Switchover dates because of the official boundaries are the plan of action? I believe detailed plans have been made based upon the official franchise areas, so would there be a messy switchover in those areas?

Kind regards -

ITV Thames Valley Switchover Confirmed
...in response to that email I posted months ago, and this arrived in my inbox from ITV today:

RE: ITV Thames Valley

Date:	Mon, 13 Nov 2006 09:58:48 -0000

From:	"Duty Office"  Add to Address BookAdd to Address Book

To:	XXXXX@yahoo.co.uk

Thank you for your email we have now received a reply from our technical director.

"The Thames Valley changes have already been factored into the plans for Digital switchover.

It does not affect the plans for Central or ITV West but the Oxford Transmitter which forms part of Thames Valley later this year will move from the Central region into the Meridian region and become part of the switchover plan for Meridian.

The new transmitter on Ridge Hill carrying ITV West will not convert as part of the ITV West changeover but as part of the ITV Central changeover.

We believe that these changes correctly communicated in the run up to switchover in each area will not cause any viewer issues."

Best regards Duty officer a.f

So there you have it; it will change digital switchover dates. I have removed email addresses for security reasons Marbles333 17:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Verbal reference before Regional programming
All ITV Plc franchises have verbal announcements prior to regional programming. ITV Thames Valley is not a subregion of Meridian (yes, we know half of it legally is but ITV treat it as a separate entity). I notice on the Meridian webstream Thames Valley Tonight is opened by "blah blah... the latest headlines from ITV Thames Valley". I assume they will verbally refer to it as ITV1 Thames Valley because you can't very well state "Now on ITV1 Meridian..." to viewers in Oxford who have never had Meridian! Its most likely they'll do that, or alternatively not use regional announcements at all, but that would be a problem as the Network announcements which precede regional programming are for the London region, therefore they announce London regional programming. Hope this helps Marbles333 18:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Non-news programming
This evening at 7.30, viewers of the Central franchise (including the north of the Thames Valley news region) received "Safari Park". Meridian viewers (including the south of the Thames Valley news region) received "Country Lives".

ITV Thames Valley (if that name is even used by ITV) only produces news programming. Until that changes (if ever) this is only a news region.

The only time when ITV Thames Valley as a whole takes a Meridian programme is during GMTV when the Meridian South, Meridian South East and Thames Valley news services are combined.

Calling it a news region also gets round the clumsy "unofficial" prefix.

NotMuchToSay 21:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Well it's still an unofficial ITV News region! I'm awaiting information from ITV. BTW the infobox would look less clumsy without a logo at all. Marbles333 21:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think that news regions are official or unnoficial. What's to say that Central West is official? Central had agreed with the ITC what the boundaries of the Central news services were, and now ITV has agreed with Ofcom on the boundaries of the new Thames Valley service. I'll remove the ITV logo if you want, though. NotMuchToSay 21:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

ITV Regional Companies Official Name changes
On 29 December 2006, the following ITV companies officially changed their names:


 * Meridian Broadcasting Limited became ITV Meridian Ltd
 * Central Independent Television became ITV Central Ltd
 * Border Television became ITV Border Ltd
 * HTV Group became ITV Wales and West Ltd

See http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk and search under "ITV" - URL linking is not supported. So that signalled the death knell for HTV then. Marbles 19:54, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Coverage area - request for clarity in the article
I'm afraid this article fails to really define the coverage area, preferring to concentrate on the covering the change in a way (IMHO) more appropriate to WikiNews than to Wikipedia. The article does say:


 * It serves the southern area of the Central franchise and the north west area of the Meridian franchise.

which doesn't really tell the reader much. How southern?; how far north-west?. The infobox says Thames Valley, but unfortunately that is an informal region with lots of different overlapping definitions. And unlike ITV Thames Valley, most of them don't include *any* of Hampshire. And the map seems to indicate that large swathes of the Isle of Wight are in the ITV Thames Valley area!. Unfortunately I don't know the answer. Can anybody help improve this article. -- chris_j_wood 17:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The Isle of Wight is overspill coverage. The service is broadcast to former Central (South) and Meridian (West) regions. That map shows transmitter coverage, not intended coverage, e.g. it's possible to recieve HTV in the Republic of Ireland, but that doesn't make it part of its region does it? There have been many uproaring complaints about the service, especially with the naming dispute, so you're not the only one, the viewers themselves are confused. /Marbles 20:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

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