The region covers television services for Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, most of Dorset and West Sussex and parts of Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, Surrey, Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire.

The television output also produces occasional regional documentaries, the such as Titanic – Southampton Remembers and Sea City.

In 1984, following the end of the short-lived Nationwide replacement Sixty Minutes, South Today became a standalone programme, competing heavily ever since with the long-defunct Southern Television's news programme Day by Day, TVS's Coast to Coast and the present incumbent ITV News Meridian.

Additionally, following the digital switchover of the Whitehawk Hill transmitter on 7 March 2012, Brighton and Hove transferred to the coverage of BBC South East.

BBC South's regional broadcasting centre is based in Southampton, with local radio and television studios also in Brighton, Dorchester, Guildford, Oxford, Reading and Swindon.

Prior to moving to the current studios in 1991, BBC South was based next to the disused Southampton Terminus railway station at South Western House, a former grand hotel set up to cater for first class passengers using the transatlantic liners from Southampton and latterly used as a military HQ during the planning of the D-day landings.

A small studio at Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth was closed in June 2020, as part of a wider programme of cost reduction across BBC English Regions.