Editing BBC London (section)

==History==
The bulletin launched on 1 October 2001 following changes to the coverage areas of BBC transmitters allowing for the establishment of new editorial areas. The main result was a reorganisation of the BBC's [[BBC South East|South East]] region; the London area was to break away entirely, while a new programme, ''[[South East Today]]'' was to be created for the new South East region. BBC London, as it came to be called, replaced the long-running ''[[Newsroom South East]]''. 

[[Greater London]] and its environs have had a regional BBC television news service for many decades, but the boundaries of the region have always been somewhat nebulous due to the coverage areas of the transmitters used, as television signals do not tend to stick neatly to administrative or historical boundaries. Therefore, while the main focus of "regional" news coverage for this area has always been on the capital itself, it has for much of the BBC's life had to offer coverage of other parts of the [[Home Counties]] as well. 

There were many incarnations of regional news programmes in this area before the current programme was introduced in 2001. These included the London segment of the ''[[Nationwide (TV series)|Nationwide]]'' from [[Lime Grove Studios]]; in this case, the regional presenters for London were also usually the main presenters of the national sequence of the programme which followed. Other identities for the London area coverage were [[BBC London Plus]], and finally ''Newsroom South East''. 

Originally, the BBC London and the [[South East England|South East]] region took in the whole of [[Greater London]], together with parts of [[Essex]], Hertfordshire, [[Kent]], Surrey, [[Hampshire]], Buckinghamshire, [[Berkshire]], Sussex, [[Bedfordshire]] and [[Oxfordshire]].  This meant that sizeable communities which probably deserved dedicated programming of their own – such as [[Oxford]], [[Luton]], [[Crawley]] and [[Medway]] – were often ill-served by a London-biased programme. 

The area created for the BBC London programme to broadcast to now covers a much more tightly-defined area, chiefly [[Greater London]] but still including parts of [[Bedfordshire]], [[Essex]], and [[Hertfordshire]] in the [[East of England]] region and parts of [[Berkshire]], [[Buckinghamshire]], [[Hampshire]], [[Kent]], [[Oxfordshire]], [[Surrey]] and [[West Sussex]] in the [[South East England]] region. There is also some overlap with the editorial areas of other BBC regions in this part of England such as [[BBC East]], [[BBC South East]] and [[BBC South]].

[[Oxfordshire]] (excluding [[Henley-on-Thames]]), most of [[Buckinghamshire]] (excluding [[Marlow, Buckinghamshire|Marlow]] and [[High Wycombe]]), north [[Berkshire]], north east [[Wiltshire]], south east [[Gloucestershire]] and south west [[Northamptonshire]],  took an opt-out of [[South Today]] for some years before coming to an end on financial grounds in 2022. <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tvradiobits.co.uk/news/southeast3.htm|title=TV & Radio Bits – BBC South East – South Today|access-date=3 April 2007}} {{Dead link|date=September 2010|bot=H3llBot}}</ref>  Most of Kent and [[East Sussex]] continues to be covered by the BBC South East region based in [[Royal Tunbridge Wells|Tunbridge Wells]], which produces ''[[BBC South East Today|South East Today]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://tvnews.thetvroomplus.com/news-143.html |title=The TV Room Plus – BBC South East News |access-date=5 April 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120723083954/http://tvnews.thetvroomplus.com/news-143.html |archive-date=23 July 2012 }}</ref>