History Newsroom South East BBC London News page 1 BBC London News page 2 South East Today South Today On 2nd September 2001 Newsroom South East bade farewell to its viewers in Kent. The following day saw the launch of a brand new regional news programme, made specifically for those lucky viewers in Kent and East Sussex...   
Apologies for the quality of these images; they were obtained with a portable aerial. Along with other regions, South East Today adopted the flying map opening graphics (left) and a BBC News-style beige-coloured set. The host at launch was Laurie Mayer (middle) - who used to present South East at Six all those years ago! However he left the programme on 26th June 2002. The weather is brought to us by Natalie Booker (right). The programme is not presented from a studio as such, instead coming from the end bit of the newsroom, as seem on these pre-launch shots:    
Now thanks to the wonders of digital satellite, South East Today is available for all of the UK to see, in glorious widescreen!      
Watch the opening titles  BBC South East uses the same Acrobats ident as every other region to introduce its regional news. But unlike the other English regions which switched to BBC London News-style opening titles in September 2002, South East Today retained its original look for a further year.    
After Laurie's sudden departure, South East Today was presented by Giles Dilnot and Beverley Thompson, with John Young deputising. The backdrop shows a busy scene in Tunbridge Wells, the town in which the programme is based (is this the only BBC region not based in a city?). Meanwhile Kaddy-Lee Preston is predicting a sunny day in the South East! The desk is evidently not big enough to seat more than one presenter at a time, meaning that for the double-headed pieces towards the end of the programme, the presenters have to perch themselves on stools in front of the newsroom.  
Left: Giles Dilnot does some BBC London-style standing up in front of the newsroom. Right: John Young conducts an interview with Brighton correspondent Natalie Graham - try to pay attention, John! Incidentally, Brighton and Hove is a hotly contested location, with both South East Today and neighbour South Today laying claim to the city.  
The midway sting, also used to lead into the 10.25pm bulletin.  
Left: Natalie Graham presents a Saturday afternoon bulletin. Right: the closing caption.     
The programme fell back in line with the other English regions in September 2003, with a new 'spot the locations' title sequence (above), remixed music (along with a horrible edit)...  
...and red panels in the studio (above).  
In April 2004 the programme received a more extensive revamp, with a set which closely mimiced the national BBC News set (above). Meanwhile the opening title sequence had the BBC London News theme tune dubbed onto it.  
Left: Geoff Clark, who joined South East Today after many years at Meridian television. Right: towards the end of the programme, the team retreat to the 'soft area' for sport and lighter news features.  
Left: along with the rest of the BBC, South East Today adopted new weather graphics on 16th May 2005. Right: isn't that Michael Fish? Yes, the veteran forecaster makes the occasional return on a freelance basis to stand in for the region's regular weather presenters.    
New opening titles were introduced in September 2007 (above) - but they weren't to last long, due to the introduction of a standardised design for all English regional news on 21st April 2008. BBC South East managed to work in some of the clips from their short-lived previous title sequence, however:       
South East Today's coverage area is the smallest of all the BBC's regional news programmes (in fact it's smaller than the area covered by BBC Southern Counties Radio!) and despite the name covers only a small part of the South East. So what of the rest of the region, then - Surrey, Essex, North Sussex, West Kent, Hertfordshire, South Bedfordshire, South Buckinghamshire and East Berkshire? These areas are not looked upon so kindly - they just get lumped in with London. Click here for more... History Newsroom South East BBC London News page 1 BBC London News page 2 South East Today South Today | 
