 Although initially, ITV Thames Valley's flagship news programme, Thames Valley Tonight, received some minor criticism by viewers due to its lack of locality of news items in some areas due to the much larger geographical coverage area compared to its sub-regional predecessors.Central and Meridian are both owned by ITV plc, which holds all the ITV franchise licences in England and Wales, so this change amounts simply to an internal organisation.Meridian classed the ITV Thames Valley service as ""a third semi-independent sub-region for the Thames Valley"", and stated its headquarters were in Abingdon.