BBC South
Encyclopedia
BBC South is the BBC English Region
serving West Sussex
, Hampshire
, Dorset
, western Berkshire
, Oxfordshire
, south east Wiltshire
and the Isle of Wight
.
) consists of its flagship regional news service BBC South Today, the opt-out service BBC Oxford News (for viewers served by the Oxford transmitter), the topical magazine programme Inside Out and a 20-minute opt-out during The Politics Show
. A late night football magazine show Late Kick Off
is co-produced with BBC West
, BBC South West
and the independent production company Pergall Media.
, BBC Oxford
and BBC Radio Berkshire
.
Radio Solent, BBC Oxford and Radio Berkshire broadcast between 5am and 1am with local programming broadcast between 5am and 7pm on weekdays. The three stations carry networked programming with the two stations in the BBC South East
region every evening. The stations also simulcast overnight programming from BBC Radio 5 Live
each night after closedown.
, BBC Red Button and BBC Local websites for each county.
. The programme was later renamed as South Today. In 1967, Bruce Parker
joined BBC South and went on to become its longest-serving presenter, anchoring South Today for over 30 years.
In 1969, South Today became part of Nationwide
, with its own opt-out section of the main programme for local news. In 1984, following the end of the short-lived Nationwide replacement Sixty Minutes, South Today became a standalone programme, competing heavily ever since with the now-defunct TVS's news programme Coast to Coast
and the present incumbent Meridian Tonight
.
, with local radio and television studios also in Oxford
, Brighton
, Portsmouth
and Reading
.
Prior to moving to the current studios in 1991, BBC South was based at South Western House, a former grand hotel set up to cater for first class passengers using the transatlantic liners from Southampton and latterly used as a military HQ during the planning of the D-day
landings. The building was famed for its clear views of Southampton docks, making events such as the departure of the Queen Mary easy to film, as cameras only had to set up on the roof of the building, though the technology used at South Western House was famed for its unreliability, as most of this equipment was second hand and brought in from other BBC buildings.. The introduction of colour television in the early 1970s led to a major reconstruction of the building, which had a main studio (used largely for South Today) and a small presentation studio for news bulletins and continuity - unusually, the camera for the small studio was situated in the outside corridor and looking into the room.
In 1991, BBC South moved into new, purpose-built facilities at Havelock Road in Southampton. The new studios were built on to the side of the hill at the top of the city with the railway tunnel running directly underneath. This slope meant that the new television studios were far larger than the previous ones, as they could take up vast amounts of space on a lower level. The new facilities also included brand new equipment and technology, radio studios for BBC Radio Solent
and editing suites.
The extra space was because BBC South, at the time, was one of the new regional production centres. Previously production centres had been in the large regions with studio facilities, these being the nations, BBC Midlands, BBC North West
and BBC West
. However, some smaller production centres were being trialled in the South and the North East
. As a result, the new studio was made slightly larger so that it could accommodate a network production. When the BBC decided to reduce regional productions as a cost cutting measure, the fact that BBC South's studio was not too large meant that it was allowed to remain open, unlike many of the other studios and production centres.
The complex has two studios. Studio A, the larger, is used for South Today
and is audience capable, while Studio B, the smaller, is occasionally used by South Today and was originally used for the Oxford Opt-out. It is currently used as a meeting room.
BBC English Regions
BBC English Regions is the division of the BBC responsible for local television, radio, web and teletext services in England. It is one of the BBC's four 'Nations' - the others being BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and BBC Northern Ireland....
serving West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, western Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
, south east Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
and the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
.
Television
BBC Souths television output (broadcast on BBC OneBBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
) consists of its flagship regional news service BBC South Today, the opt-out service BBC Oxford News (for viewers served by the Oxford transmitter), the topical magazine programme Inside Out and a 20-minute opt-out during The Politics Show
The Politics Show
The Politics Show is an hour long BBC One television political programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on Sundays. The programme usually starts at midday, but is often earlier or later when sporting events clash in the schedules. It was launched in 2003 and was originally presented by Jeremy...
. A late night football magazine show Late Kick Off
Late Kick Off
Late Kick Off was a BBC One regional television football programme which was launched on 18 January 2010 and ran up to and including the 2010-2011 football season...
is co-produced with BBC West
BBC West
BBC West is the BBC English Region serving Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.-Television:...
, BBC South West
BBC South West
BBC South West is the BBC English Region serving Devon, Cornwall and the Channel Islands.-Television:BBC South Wests television service consists of the flagship regional news service Spotlight, the opt-out service BBC Channel Islands, the topical magazine programme Inside Out and a 20-minute...
and the independent production company Pergall Media.
Radio
The region is the controlling centre for local radio stations BBC Radio SolentBBC Radio Solent
BBC Radio Solent is the BBC Local Radio service for the Isle of Wight and the English counties of Hampshire and Dorset. Its studios are located in Southampton, in the same purpose-built office block in Havelock Road as the BBC South Today news studios, and there are district offices in Portsmouth,...
, BBC Oxford
BBC Oxford
BBC Oxford is the name given to the sub-opt out region serving Oxford and the surrounding areas. Its services include:*BBC Oxford News, the local news service called BBC Oxford on screen...
and BBC Radio Berkshire
BBC Radio Berkshire
BBC Radio Berkshire is the BBC Local Radio service for the English county of Berkshire, as well as parts of North Hampshire, including Basingstoke. Radio Berkshire broadcasts on 94.6 , 95.4 , 104.1 and 104.4 FM from its studios at Caversham Park near Reading. The 104.1 FM signal is the strongest...
.
Radio Solent, BBC Oxford and Radio Berkshire broadcast between 5am and 1am with local programming broadcast between 5am and 7pm on weekdays. The three stations carry networked programming with the two stations in the BBC South East
BBC South East
BBC South East is the BBC English Region serving East Sussex, Kent, and parts of Surrey and West Sussex.The BBC region was created in September 2001 by the joining of the Heathfield transmitter , with the Bluebell Hill and Dover transmitters to form a new regional TV service...
region every evening. The stations also simulcast overnight programming from BBC Radio 5 Live
BBC Radio 5 Live
BBC Radio 5 Live is the BBC's national radio service that specialises in live BBC News, phone-ins, and sports commentaries...
each night after closedown.
Online & Interactive
BBC South also produces regional news & local radio pages for CeefaxCeefax
Ceefax is the BBC's teletext information service transmitted via the analogue signal, started in 1974 and will run until April 2012 for Pages from Ceefax, while the actual interactive service will run until 24 October 2012, in-line with the digital switchover.-History:During the late 60s, engineer...
, BBC Red Button and BBC Local websites for each county.
History
The BBC's television news operation in Southampton began on 5 January 1961 with the launch of South at Six, presented by Martin Muncaster, who had defected from Southern TelevisionSouthern Television
Southern Television was the first ITV broadcasting licence holder for the south and south-east of England from 30 August 1958 until the night of 31 December 1981. The company was launched as Southern Television Limited and the title Southern Television was consistently used on-air throughout its life...
. The programme was later renamed as South Today. In 1967, Bruce Parker
Bruce Parker
Bruce Parker is a British journalist and television presenter whose career spanned the middle 1960s to 2003, when he retired. Strongly committed to regional broadcasting, he was responsible in the mid-1960s for a pilot local radio station in the Channel Islands, which eventually led to the setting...
joined BBC South and went on to become its longest-serving presenter, anchoring South Today for over 30 years.
In 1969, South Today became part of Nationwide
Nationwide (TV series)
Nationwide was a BBC News and Current affairs television programme broadcast on BBC One each weekday following the early evening news. It followed a magazine format, combining political analysis and discussion with consumer affairs, light entertainment and sports reporting...
, with its own opt-out section of the main programme for local news. In 1984, following the end of the short-lived Nationwide replacement Sixty Minutes, South Today became a standalone programme, competing heavily ever since with the now-defunct TVS's news programme Coast to Coast
Coast to Coast (UK TV series)
Coast to Coast was the flagship regional news programme produced by Television South, covering the south and southeast of England with separate news services for both parts of the dual-region between January 1982 and December 1992.-Beginnings:...
and the present incumbent Meridian Tonight
Meridian Tonight
Meridian Tonight is a regional television news and current affairs programme, produced by ITV Meridian , serving the South and South East of England , and usually broadcast at 6pm and 10.30pm every weeknight. Other bulletins are branded as Meridian News...
.
Studios
BBC South's regional broadcasting centre is based in SouthamptonSouthampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
, with local radio and television studios also in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
and Reading
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
.
Prior to moving to the current studios in 1991, BBC South was based at South Western House, a former grand hotel set up to cater for first class passengers using the transatlantic liners from Southampton and latterly used as a military HQ during the planning of the D-day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
landings. The building was famed for its clear views of Southampton docks, making events such as the departure of the Queen Mary easy to film, as cameras only had to set up on the roof of the building, though the technology used at South Western House was famed for its unreliability, as most of this equipment was second hand and brought in from other BBC buildings.. The introduction of colour television in the early 1970s led to a major reconstruction of the building, which had a main studio (used largely for South Today) and a small presentation studio for news bulletins and continuity - unusually, the camera for the small studio was situated in the outside corridor and looking into the room.
In 1991, BBC South moved into new, purpose-built facilities at Havelock Road in Southampton. The new studios were built on to the side of the hill at the top of the city with the railway tunnel running directly underneath. This slope meant that the new television studios were far larger than the previous ones, as they could take up vast amounts of space on a lower level. The new facilities also included brand new equipment and technology, radio studios for BBC Radio Solent
BBC Radio Solent
BBC Radio Solent is the BBC Local Radio service for the Isle of Wight and the English counties of Hampshire and Dorset. Its studios are located in Southampton, in the same purpose-built office block in Havelock Road as the BBC South Today news studios, and there are district offices in Portsmouth,...
and editing suites.
The extra space was because BBC South, at the time, was one of the new regional production centres. Previously production centres had been in the large regions with studio facilities, these being the nations, BBC Midlands, BBC North West
BBC North West
BBC North West is the BBC English Region serving Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Walsden in West Yorkshire, the Isle of Man , north-west Derbyshire, the Yorkshire Dales including Settle and Ribblesdale, and southern Cumbria.BBC North West television output is also broadcast in...
and BBC West
BBC West
BBC West is the BBC English Region serving Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.-Television:...
. However, some smaller production centres were being trialled in the South and the North East
BBC North East and Cumbria
BBC North East and Cumbria is the BBC English Region covering Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham, North Yorkshire, Teesside and all but the southern part of Cumbria...
. As a result, the new studio was made slightly larger so that it could accommodate a network production. When the BBC decided to reduce regional productions as a cost cutting measure, the fact that BBC South's studio was not too large meant that it was allowed to remain open, unlike many of the other studios and production centres.
The complex has two studios. Studio A, the larger, is used for South Today
South Today
South Today is the BBC's regional television news programme for East Dorset, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, West Sussex and the western fringes of Surrey...
and is audience capable, while Studio B, the smaller, is occasionally used by South Today and was originally used for the Oxford Opt-out. It is currently used as a meeting room.
See also
- BBC English RegionsBBC English RegionsBBC English Regions is the division of the BBC responsible for local television, radio, web and teletext services in England. It is one of the BBC's four 'Nations' - the others being BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and BBC Northern Ireland....
- BBC South Today
- BBC Radio BerkshireBBC Radio BerkshireBBC Radio Berkshire is the BBC Local Radio service for the English county of Berkshire, as well as parts of North Hampshire, including Basingstoke. Radio Berkshire broadcasts on 94.6 , 95.4 , 104.1 and 104.4 FM from its studios at Caversham Park near Reading. The 104.1 FM signal is the strongest...
- BBC Radio OxfordBBC Radio OxfordBBC Radio Oxford is the BBC Local Radio station for the English county of Oxfordshire, broadcasting on 95.2 FM via the Oxford transmitter and online. The station broadcasts live from the BBC's Summertown studios in Oxford between 5am and 7pm each weekday, for over 13 hours on Saturdays & 19 hours...
- BBC Radio SolentBBC Radio SolentBBC Radio Solent is the BBC Local Radio service for the Isle of Wight and the English counties of Hampshire and Dorset. Its studios are located in Southampton, in the same purpose-built office block in Havelock Road as the BBC South Today news studios, and there are district offices in Portsmouth,...