History Newsroom South East BBC London News page 1 BBC London News page 2 South East Today South Today The Oxfordshire area has always been a difficult one to place in a satisfactory region. From the dawning of time until 2000, the county formed part of the massive BBC South East region, but when the London area decided to go solo at the start of the 21st century, Oxfordshire had to be hived off to someone else. But where? Should the BBC follow ITV's example, and match Oxford with the Ridge Hill transmitter in Herefordshire, to form a 'South Midlands' region? Probably not, having one region that stretches from Hereford to Aylesbury sounds a complete non-starter. Could a match be made with Look East (West) and put Oxford with Sandy Heath in Bedfordshire? Apart from being completely un-nameable, this region would stretch from Swindon to Peterborough - again, hardly satisfactory.   
So the BBC opted to join Oxfordshire onto the South Today region, but with its own 10-minute opt-out at the start of the 6.30 programme, and its own 10.25 bulletin. The service started on 16th October 2000. Oh look, it's those acrobats again.      
These titles were first used on 16th September 2002. Stuart Norval is shown presenting; believe it or not, the studio shown here was nowhere near Oxford - in fact it was based in the same building as its parent, in Southampton! 
However in late 2004 these opt-out bulletins moved to a studio in Oxford (above). By this time BBC South was one of the few remaining English regions still not set up for producing genuine widescreen output.   
Left, middle: from 6.40 Sally Taylor brings Oxford viewers some irrelevant news from the south coast. Right: Alina Jenkins with the weather for the whole region.   
Above: some of the locations featured in South Today Oxford's next title sequence included Swindon's 'Magic Roundabout' and BMW's Mini factory at Cowley.   
The news presented by Geraldine Peers, and the weather with Georgie Palmer.      
Along with all regional news programmes across the UK, South Today received a new opening title sequence on 21st April 2008. The opt-out itself, however, appears to have had its title changed to BBC Oxford. 
By the now the programme had at last begun to be produced in widescreen. Although it does mean places like Swindon now get coverage, which Newsroom South East would never have dared touch with a bargepole, the South Today Oxford solution seems a rather imperfect one. It means Oxfordians now have to be subjected to news from the south coast some 60 miles away, which must seem somewhat irrelevant to them. Perhaps if more money were to be poured in, Oxford could be joined with the Hannington transmitter in North Hampshire and a new, stand-alone Thames Valley region created - although a similar creation by ITV has failed to find much favour with viewers. History Newsroom South East BBC London News page 1 BBC London News page 2 South East Today South Today | 
