Meridian Tonight - Graphics

Graphics

Upon launch of the three regional news services in 1993, Meridian made the decision that all three programmes would share the same titles, music and name. Upon the launch of Meridian Tonight in 1993 until c.1996, the programme titles featured a large translucent Meridian logo flipping over to reveal and yellow and blue map of the region. Accompanied by a trumpeted fanfare the region lights up with several dots, marking Meridian's news-gathering centres, and three pulses marking, Southampton, Maidstone and Newbury: the locations of each of the three programmes. Each respective region would then zoom into their region of the Meridian region before the flipping logo reveals the programme name, separated by a horizontal line, at the end of the sequence.

The title sequence and music was changed c.1996 to a blue and gold background variant featuring a partly obscured circle displaying news related imagery, before flipping to reveal the centre of the Meridian logo falling back into the centre of the line separating the programme name.

The look was changed once again in March 1999 with the new titles featuring a vibrant purple background being changed into yellows and reds to form the Meridian logo. The music remained the same, but was enhanced to be more dramatic with a voiceover at the beginning declaring "This is Meridian Tonight". The programme name now featured the Meridian logo above, or to the side of the programme name and appearing as a DOG in the bottom left corner of the screen throughout the programme. The last Meridian individual look was introduced c.2002 and featured two translucent halves of Meridian's logo merging and moving together against a purple backdrop. The end board of the sequence saw to two halves move closer against a stripe of red and yellow colour against the Meridian Tonight name.

Following the merger of Granada PLC and Carlton Communications in 2004 to form ITV plc, Meridian has used generic title sequences adopted across the ITV plc network of ITV stations. In 2004, this featured a blue and yellow look concentrating on vertical columns of translucent squares displaying images of the Meridian region, before ending with four square ITV logo over a map of the UK made out of squares. This was altered following the change of ITV logo to a sequence showing footage of the region and ending with the name over a light blue and turquoise cylinder, and further altered in 2010 to match the new ITV News style. This latest style featured a yellow and translucent black colour scheme and again focusing on footage of locations within the region.