ITV Westcountry, formerly known as Westcountry Television, is the ITV franchise holder in the South West of England. The company replaced its predecessor, TSW (Television South West), from the 1 January 1993. The station is owned and operated by ITV plc under the licensee of ITV Broadcasting Limited (formerly Westcountry Television Limited).

Covering Devon, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and areas of Somerset and Dorset, Westcountry forms part of the non-franchise ITV West & Westcountry region, alongside ITV West (previously HTV West). Although Westcountry is intended for the South West of England, the station is received in areas of South Wales, via a strong signal at the Huntshaw Cross transmitter.

On 16 February 2009, the newly merged station launched a new regional news programme called The West Country Tonight.

In February 2009, the Westcountry region, along with areas covered by ITV Wales and Granada ceased its analogue broadcasts as part of the switch to digital TV.

Westcountry Television was one of two rival consortia bidding against the incumbent TSW when the ITV franchises were put to tender early in 1991. Westcountry's original shareholders were Brittany Ferries and South West Water; the latter investor attracted criticism as only three years earlier it was responsible for one of the worst water pollution incidents in the United Kingdom and which occurred within the contract area at Camelford. On 16 October 1991, Westcountry was announced as the winner, bidding £7 million a year against TSW's 16 million. Several local MPs were concerned that South West Water's involvement would lead to partiality in news items concerning the local water firm.

Fred Wedlock (23 May 1942 – 4 March 2010) was a folk singer best known for his UK hit single "The Oldest Swinger In Town". Wedlock performed at many venues in Britain and Europe, presented programmes for West Country TV and acted with the Bristol Old Vic and the Ministry of Entertainment, as well as undertaking after-dinner speaking engagements.

Fred Wedlock was born in the old Bristol Maternity Hospital in Southwell Street, Kingsdown, Bristol. He was brought up in Redcliffe, where his father ran the York House pub. He sang in the church choir at St Mary Redcliffe. Wedlock was educated at Bristol Grammar School in the 1950s. He represented the school and the Old Bristolians playing hockey.

After attending Swansea University, he taught in the East End of London during the 1960s and then at South Bristol College, before taking up music full time in the 1970s. Wedlock was a regular performer at the Bristol Troubadour Club and he played the folk circuit, both prior to, and in the wake of, his single chart success, with performances at clubs and festivals all over the world. He also presented many programmes on West Country TV. In 1997 Wedlock took a leading role in Bristol Old Vic's production of Up the Feeder, Down the Mouth, a theatrical history of Bristol Docks, written by A. C. H. Smith. In 2001 the production was remounted on the waterfront. He also appeared in several productions for Bristol theatre company, The Ministry of Entertainment, most recently in December 2009.

Plymouth College (PMC) is a co-educational independent school in Plymouth, Devon, England, for day and boarding pupils from the ages of 11 to 18. It was founded as a boys' school in 1877 and became coeducational in 1995.

The school was established in 1877 and in 1896 it bought out its older rival Mannamead School (founded in 1854), and was temporarily known as Plymouth and Mannamead College (hence the surviving abbreviation PMC). The school's motto, Dat Deus Incrementum – God Gives The Increase, is the same as that of Westminster School, Marlborough College and Tonbridge School. In 1976, the first girls were admitted to the school's sixth form. It became fully coeducational in 1995, which also saw the end of Saturday morning lessons. In 2004, the school absorbed St Dunstan's Abbey School, a local but older independent school for girls. The combined school is still known as Plymouth College and remains at Ford Park, near Mutley Plain, just north of the city centre. The preparatory school is a mile south-west, within the gated Millfields complex at Stonehouse.

Henry Hallam (9 July 1777 – 21 January 1859) was an English historian.

The only son of John Hallam, canon of Windsor and dean of Bristol, Henry Hallam was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1799. Called to the bar, he practised for some years on the Oxford circuit; but his tastes were literary, and when, on his father's death in 1812, he inherited a small estate in Lincolnshire, he gave himself up to study. He had become connected with the brilliant band of authors and politicians who led the Whig party, a connection to which he owed his appointment to the well-paid and easy post of commissioner of stamps; but took no part in politics himself. He was, however, an active supporter of many popular movements—particularly of that which ended in the abolition of the slave trade; and he was attached to the political principles of the Whigs.

Hallam's earliest literary work was undertaken in connection with the Whig periodical, the Edinburgh Review, where his review of Walter Scott's Dryden attracted attention. His first major work, The View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, was produced in 1818, and was followed nine years later by the Constitutional History of England. In 1838–1839 appeared the Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries. A volume of supplemental notes to his Middle Ages was published in 1843; these facts and dates represent nearly all of Hallam's career.