ITV’s Regional news replacement for The West Tonight and WestCountry Live, will broadcast at 6pm every weeknight from Monday 16th February 2009.
The West Country Tonight will be presented by current West Tonight presenters Lisa Aziz and Steve Scott.
The bulletin will cover seven counties in the West of England and will include at least 15 minutes of dedicated news in each of the ITV West and ITV Westcountry regions.
An Ofcom statement said: “West and Westcountry areas will be served by a single regional main weekday news bulletin, containing variations of 15 minutes for each of the West and Westcountry areas, and by a separate nine minute bulletin after News at Ten.”
Lisa Aziz said: “I’m thrilled to bits. I love my job and I’m really excited to be giving the important news to our viewers and getting out and about in the Westcountry.”
Westcountry Live Presenters Richard Bath and Alexis Bowater are being made redundant. Jemma Woodman and Julie Fisher will also be departing from the news.
The ITV Westcountry headquarters in Plymouth will close shortly and merge with ITV West in Bristol.
Filed under: ITV Region, The West Country Tonight
Likewise, living in Penzance I’m not interested in Bristol Rovers (or Yeovil Town either 
) Agree the program is awful, I think it concentrated more on Cornwall and Devon on it’s initial program to try to show it’s not going to change now they’ve shut the Plymouth Studios and moved all Cornwall operations to Bristol, but it has, No offence to the presenters but the show was really bland and sterile. They are serving too big an area and, as a result, serving nobody.
Bad idea and bad move that, I think, will eventually drive people from the two ITV regions to watch their own BBC regional programs and lose ITV local advertising revenue. ITV has never been the same since all the merging they did in the 1990’s.
What have you done, this program tries to cover too much of the country and fails miseribly. How anyone can think that someone in st Ives wouls be remotly interested in a story from Bristol is beyond me. It’s about time that you owned up to the blunder and give us back our own presenters and reporters with a program about the West Country, which is from Dorset/Summerset down.
Rubbish I have switched to BBC
What have ITV done?I do not want to know what is happening in Bristol, and to only have 15 mins of our area per show.
Well its tragic.For me its time to support fully the BBC news,so Im afraid its goodby from me and I would expect a majority of people in this area feel the same.
IM SORRY I AM GOING TO GO THE BBC
RICHARD WAS THE BEST REPORTER ON THE WEST COUNTRY
YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN ST.IVES AREA
WHOS IDEA WAS THIS
We are watching The West Country Tonight for the first time and wonder why the presenters tonight, 18th Feb, look so miserable and that there is no apparent rapport between them. The previous presenters for our area, Bideford, from Plymouth were so much more relaxed and watchable. If this continues we will be moving to BBC.
Not a smile in sight,boring.
Ignore all the comments. I think “The West Country Tonight” is a a great news programme. The presenters are always great. John Stephens – The presenters DO smile and have a laugh. You probably haven’t noticed. People saying “we don’t want to hear news from Bristol” – well tough, we have to hear news which happens in Cornwall and I’m sure some Bristolians won’t want to.
Also, on the picture saying “The West Tonight”, underneath, it says “Best regional news programme” which is true.
If any of the ITV West presenters are looking at this, Well Done for a great news programme and feel proud of yourselves – you are funny, and read the news incredibly well.
ITV West team – 10 out of 10 
I’m writing to say how very disappointment and dissatisfied with the new The West Country Tonight programme. I live in St. Austell, I really don’t want to hear about what’s happening in West Sommerset, Paignton or even Wiltshire!!!!! There is very little news that’s near to me.
Frankly, I feel the change over is a waste of time viewing and I hate to say I’m considering switching to BBC1 Spotlight News, at least that still local and relevant to me
What have you done to our local service?????? well I’ll tell you you’ve butchered it to death!
The program is awful. We are not interested in Plymouth Argyle and we only get 7 seconds of Bristol Rovers news. The program is poor and I am not interested in Devon,Exeter and especially Yeovil Town. Bristol news only please.