TELEVISION news coverage of Weymouth and Portland is set for a shake-up after Ofcom gave the go-ahead for ITV to merge its West and Westcountry programmes.

John Andrews, Westcountry news correspondent and union representative, said Ofcom's recommendation would mean seven counties including Tewkesbury to Swindon and as far down as the Scilly Isles would have to be covered within one half-hour programme.

He said: "The programme will be split two ways.

"This means 15 minutes would be dedicated to local news from the Westcountry and the same for the West area.

"That's still a fair amount of local news but not the dedicated local news programme people have had here for nearly 15 years."

Industry watchdog Ofcom announced its approval for ITV to restructure its regional news services as part of its second consultation into the future of public service broadcasting.

Mr Andrews said the blow would be particularly felt by audiences in the south west.

He said: "Local news has been especially appreciated in the south west, people want it and they watch it in droves.

"It's important to them and this is a bit of a blow for audiences down here."

Mr Andrews said another idea to come out of the report was hubbing' - to put several studios at one site.

He said: "At the moment we have our studios in Plymouth, Bristol has studios but under these proposals there will be a newsroom' in the south west.

"There may not be any studios in the south west, it would be somewhere in Britain from which a number of programmes will be broadcast.

"The implication will be the loss of at least half of our journalists' jobs."

Both ITV's Westcountry and West currently employ about 40 journalists, including the Weymouth-based reporter Duncan Sleightholme, winner of ITV's regional reporter of the year title.

Mr Andrews said if studios closed it could also mean job losses for technical, operational and support staff almost immediately.

He said: "The announcement from Ofcom allows ITV to begin a period of consultation, which is scheduled to end in the middle of December.

"They're going to make £30 to £40 million of savings and have these new programmes on air by January 1.

"We're expecting redundancy notices on our desk the early part of next week and at that stage ITV will announce where the studios and jobs will be."

ITV is expected to announce detailed plans for where the new studio and jobs will be at the beginning of next week.