Mercia Television

Mercia is the Midlands Network Six regional franchisee. Mercia was announced as the winner of the Midlands franchise in February 2009, over rival bids from incumbent Spectrum, along with TVM and Central TV. The company, owned by Emoa Television, takes its name from the ancient Midlands kingdom of Mercia, and also the former Midlands Weekend Network Six broadcast between 2005 and 2006, namely Mercia Weekend Television (which too, briefly was under Emoa ownership). The channel launched on Friday 13 March 2009 at 9.25, and spent a day showcasing its broad variety of regional programmes and associated network programming.

Mercia is based temporarily at the former base of Emoa Mercia, on the Falcon Business Park in southern Birmingham. Although it initially was persuing talks with Central Independent Television to acquire its Abingdon, Oxford facilities, it was later confirmed that Mercia purchased Spectrum's faciltiies in Nottingham, Oxford and Northampton instead.

Mercia's headline regional news programme is titled Mercia Reports, and largely mirrors the style of the former Spectrum's programme, however innovating with audiences in new and dynamic ways. Mercia is also to produce a variety of new regional titles, and is also looking to commission a proportion of its output. It is complemented by teletext service Mercia Extra, and an online portal/VOD system.

The station's launching slogan was TV for the Heart of England, featuring the heart as its central logo in its presentation.

History
Mercia reached a deal with Spectrum in March 2009 to purchase its studio facilities in Nottingham, Oxford and Northampton to continue Mercia's subregional magazine programme, Mercia Reports.



In April, it unveiled its line-up of regional titles, which included Network Midlands, Back or Bust, Midlands Community, Local Ear, Midlands Money and Mercia Life. In addition, its Network programme commitments were also unveiled, taking over the production of The Lunchtime Programme and Powerstation from GTV, along with new series Our Furry Friends, Wildlife On Your Doorstep and a yet unnamed children's series for 2010.

In July 2009, it refreshed its identity, unveiling a new set of live-action idents with the tagline "room with a view". The set also included an updated logo (since Mercia had recieved complaints that its logo typeface was too thin), but the heart theme, general presentation and the heart generic ident remained unchanged.

It adopted a new, more streamlined schedule in November 2009, which saw viewing figures increase by 20% on the same period last year. Its snow, heart and ice themed Christmas idents were unveiled on 10 December, and continued until 6 January 2010.

During 06 September to 01 Decemeber 2010, the channel will temporarily move playout from Emoa Birmingham to Cheviot Studios, Newcastle whilst an upgrade of technical facilties take place.

Associated services
Mercia's's DTT multiplex is engineered as follows:

A. Mercia B. SSN C. Mercia +1 D. CMV 1. Six News Channel 2. Arena 3. Six Mix 4. Sci-Tech 5. Chart Show TV (6am-6pm) / Flaunt (Thursday-Saturday 6pm-6am) / The Vault (Sunday-Wednesday 6pm-6am) 0. Six Text 0. Vibra (tbc)

Network
Mercia's Network productions are produced under the Emoa Productions banner, and have included factual documentary Wildlife on your Doorstep, comic magazine Our Furry Friends and late night music strand, Powerstation. It will also take over the production of The Lunchtime Programme from GTV from September 2009.

Regional
Mercia produces all of its own regional programmes, including local news magazine Mercia Reports, infrastructure history programme Network Midlands, business reality show Back or Bust, weekly sports magazine Sportsview, local music production Local ear and gossip magazine show Mercia Life.