The rest of Britain - today (more or less)
Ever since I began this project I've had people emailing me asking me to include all the other studios around the UK. Well, sorry, but I am trying to fit work, home and some sort of social life into my time. However, tucked away at the end of my 'history of old ITV studios in London' page was a section that began as a summary of what happened to the old ITV studios around the rest of the country. Since then it has expanded a bit to include a few other studios so it's probably about time it was given its own page. This is it.
Incidentally - I'm only including production studios that make a variety of programmes for network transmission on UK channels - not those built for a specific soap (eg Doctors) or regional news studios.
Please don't ask me why I'm not including the history of all the various Southern/Central/Border TV studios or whatever your particular interest is. I'm simply summarising here what we have now and have had for the past three or four years in the UK. If you want to create your own history of regional studios - feel free and I'll happily give your site a link!
studios listed below...
ex-ITV studios - (Maidstone Studios; NEP Studio 1 - Cardiff; EPIC - Norwich)
current ITV studios (The Manchester Studios; The Leeds Studios)
independent studios (Paintworks - Bristol (includes section on HTV Bristol); Dragon International Studios - Cardiff; Barcud Derwen - Caernarfon; Web Studios and The Pie Factory - Salford; Sharp Project - East Manchester)
Old BBC regional production studios (Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle, Southampton)
Current BBC studios (Llandaff - Cardiff; Roath Lock - Cardiff; Blackstaff - Belfast; Pacific Quay - Glasgow)
Ex-ITV regional studios
Since the mid 1990s most production studios around the country owned by Carlton and Granada - eventually becoming 'ITV plc' - have been sold off or closed down. These were in Bristol (HTV West), Cardiff (HTV Wales), Birmingham (Central), Newcastle (Tyne Tees), Carlisle (Border), Plymouth (Westcountry), Maidstone (TVS), Nottingham (Central), Norwich (Anglia), Southampton (Meridian), Albert Dock Liverpool (Granada) and Gillingham (TVS).
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Why Gillingham??? All right, it closed well before the mid 1990s so it shouldn't be included in the list anyway. I'm just intrigued by an ITV production studio being built in a modestly sized town not previously or since particularly noted for its cultural output. With apologies to the good people of Gillingham, obviously. The studio in Gillingham had originally been a 1931 Plaza cinema. It was quickly converted to a studio as the new Maidstone Studios would not be ready in time for TVS to begin broadcasting to the new South East ITV region on 1st January 1982. They called it the 'TVS Television Theatre'. It had a useable floor area of about 5,400 sq ft, permanent audience seating for 260 and was equipped with five Marconi Mk IXB cameras. The original intention had been to sell it off as soon as Maidstone was open but TVS hung onto it for a while, making programmes such as regional afternoon magazine Not for Women Only and from 1986 The Television Show, which was broadcast live from here on Sunday evenings across the ITV network. Oddly, the show that kept the studio open was Muppets spin-off Fraggle Rock, which ran from 1983-1987. Once this ended the studio was hardly used so it was put up for sale early in 1988 and was purchased by Network One TV in June 1989. (This company also took over the Greenwood in 1990.) Masterchef was made here then, plus a handful of other shows. It closed as a studio in July 1991 and following a brief spell as a Quasar laser gaming centre (that's more like it!) it lay empty for several years and was demolished in 2001.
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Outside London only The Manchester Studios (Granada) and The Leeds Studios (Yorkshire) are still owned by ITV. More on them later. However, it's not all bad news...
The ex ITV studios in Maidstone, Cardiff and Norwich have fortunately survived as independent facilities...
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Maidstone Studios were built by TVS in 1982/83. In 1993 Meridian Broadcasting took over the south-east ITV franchise but not these studios. TVS intended to continue operating as an independent production company but soon after were bought up by International Family Entertainment Inc who ran The Family Channel. Meridian continued to rent a news studio from the new owner and continue to do so today - a small area of the building is still operated by ITV. After a while the building became the HQ for Flextech, the satellite broadcaster, and a number of channels were played out from here for a few years. The studios themselves though had little use. There is still an impressive satellite dish 'farm' on the site, although few are now being used for transmission. In 2001 the studios were purchased by a group of businessmen and experienced television producers whose aim was “To be a self-sustaining studio and media production centre supporting creative development with local, national and worldwide potential in the new millennium and digital era”. In other words, to attract programme makers away from their usual studios in London. The studios keep relatively busy and amongst other shows have in recent years specialised in children's programmes including Ministry of Mayhem, Basil Brush, Escape From Scorpion Island and Art Attack. The four original studios are 1 - 2,000 sq ft; 2 - 6,000 sq ft; 3 - 500 sq ft and 4 - 250 sq ft. In 2005 they opened a new 12,000 sq ft stage - 'studio 5' - a useful large space with which they hoped to attract big light entertainment programmes. It is licensed for an audience of no less than 2,400 - although clearly this is standing room only! Nevertheless, there is room for an impressively large seated audience. Studio 5 was originally constructed relatively cheaply but over the past few years has had some much needed money spent on it. At first, it did not have its own production galleries but borrowed those of the other studios as and when required. A dedicated gallery suite was opened early in 2007, a short walk across in the main building. The studio opened with a very basic lighting grid but is now partly equipped with motorised trusses. These are a great improvement but are not as flexible as the bars or monopoles to be found in other large studios. For example, it is not possible to replace a blown bulb or rerig a lamp without the use of a 'flying carpet' access hoist once the studio set is in place. Bookings for studio 5 in the past few years have included the first series of Duel, Dale's Supermarket Sweep, 1 vs 100 and the BBC's Making Your Mind Up - which became newsworthy for all the wrong reasons when Terry Wogan announced the incorrect winner in 2007. Productions during 2010 included ITV1's Easter Special gameshow The Door (which I had the experience of lighting), Got To Dance for Sky1 (in HD) and Five's talent contest Don't Stop Believing. Bookings in 2011 included ITV1's dating gameshow Take Me Out. I mentioned above that The Door was a bit of an experience. Certainly, I have never worked before or since in such an extraordinary whiff caused by rotting vegetables, animal and fish carcasses, and with such an alarming range of creatures including snakes, rats, spiders, scorpions and tens of thousands of flies. Some of the above escaped at one time or other but most, I believe, were recaptured. Not the flies, obviously. The studio management were extraordinarily relaxed about all this going on in their studio. Good for them. I can think of one or two managers in other studios who would have had a small but spectacular explosive fit. The management of Maidstone is keen to see the studios succeed and are investing in them all the time. They deserve success and with studio 5 improving all the time they will no doubt attract more work. Interestingly, they are said to be considering constructing a very large studio - considerably bigger than studio 5 and larger than any other TV studio in the UK. This, they hope, would attract those 'event' type TV shows that currently use film stages and OB units. This would certainly be an interesting development and one that could secure Maidstone's future in the long term. However, they may have been beaten to it by Pinewood, who are constructing a 30,000 sq ft stage suitable for big TV shows and Elstree who are planning a similar sized stage. Even Sky are going to build a very large fully equipped studio in the near future.
The old HTV Wales main production studio (7,500 sq ft) at Culverhouse Cross opened in 1984 and is now operated by NEP Cymru as as Studio 1.
The main studio here was closed by ITV but operated independently as Studio 1 Facilities from the spring of 1993 until the autumn of 2006. This very small company ran the studio within the huge ex-HTV site on the outskirts of Cardiff. They mostly made programmes for S4C but the studio was also occasionally used for some of the early (new) Dr Who episodes as a film stage. In 2005 I had the pleasure of lighting an Aled Jones music special here which went out on Christmas Day and returned in 2009 for a music series with opera singer, Shan Cothi. I also lit a chat show with Rob Brydon and the cast of Little Britain for BBC3 in 2005. The studio has a most unusual lighting grid - with monopoles and a complicated system of cross-over tracks where scopes have to be 'parked up'. It is also somewhat restricted by a number of enormous ventilation tubes that are distributed across the grid. The ex-HTV site was until recently owned by a media company but apart from studio 1 and regional ITV programming in studio 2 the buildings were mostly empty. In 2006 the whole site was bought back by ITV plc to be developed as a media centre and an expanded base for ITV Wales. Studio 1 had seen very little investment for many years and attracted less and less work. Eventually, towards the end of 2006, Studio 1 Facilities Ltd. ceased operation. The studio was then let on a seven year lease to Barcud Derwen, the Welsh TV facilities company. The site was run by Barcud's HD OB management arm, Omni TV, and was renamed 'Omni Studio'. It continued to be used for various entertainment series and gameshows, mostly for S4C and was also booked by the BBC's Mastermind. It was also used as a 4-waller for shooting commercials and as a rehearsal space for rock tours. The studio has often been booked by local production company Presentable for their Poker-based programmes, which they make for Channel 4. Sadly, in June 2010 Barcud Derwen went into administration. Their base in North Wales was closed down but the Omni division of the company, consisting mostly of an HD OB scanner and the lease on this studio, was purchased by US company NEP Broadcasting to become NEP Cymru. They have returned to the old name of 'Studio 1'. There are no technical facilities remaining and all the lights were sold off but the studio operates very well as a 4-waller using an OB unit for facilities as and when required. The dimmers and telescopes remain and the old prop room is used as a lighting gallery, which actually works better than before since it is closer to the studio floor. Since Cardiff is but a couple of hours' drive from west London - and is incidentally a very nice city to visit - this studio could well offer some serious competition to some of London's studios if it is 'discovered' by production managers seeking a relatively cheap studio, particularly if they need a standing set for a series.
Meanwhile - 'from Norwich' as the quiz of the week used to proudly boast - there is a bit more good news. The old Anglia studio centre in Magdalen Street was purchased by Norfolk County Council in 2006 and over £1m was spent on upgrading the facilities. It is now marketed as the East of England Production Innovation Centre or EPIC. I am informed that... it will function as a "Creative Industries Enterprise Hub". In that role it will have three main functions: to provide first class production and post production facilities to local, regional and national production companies and broadcasters; to support new or existing production and production related businesses, particularly by offering production space on 'easy in' and 'easy out' terms to companies and start-ups; and to help produce the creatives of the future by providing training and education facilities which will be used for related courses by local H.E. colleges and other providers. Phew! You might have guessed that the previous words are not mine but those of Mark Wells, its centre director. (No, not that Mark Wells - another one.) Still - good luck to him and let's hope that the enterprise is successful.
The main studio - now officially called 'Studio E @ Epic' - is 80 x 60ft within firelanes and about 6,000 sq ft overall. It has been refurbished and following a £1.5m grant has been converted to HD. Six Sony HDC-1500 cameras have been purchased for the main studio and all three studios (the other two are each 1,000 sq ft) became fully HD capable in September 2008. Of the two small studios, one is marketed as a 'discussion studio' - equipped with four JVC HD/SD cameras and the other as a virtual studio. This also has four JVC cameras and an Orad Smart Set system that was installed in April 2008. The main studio has mostly been used so far as a 4-waller for shooting drama, commercials etc but Question Time has used the studio's facilities. It is surely only a matter of time before a few regular series are based here. In June 2010 an edition of Frank Skinner's Opinionated was recorded in this studio. It is perhaps worth pointing out that these studios are not the original Anglia House centre that opened in the 1950s. That is still located on Prince of Wales Road. That centre had four studios which inexplicably weren't enough for this small company so in the 1990s they expanded and took over a property in Magdalen Street, moving their news operation there. In 2006 they moved the local news back to Anglia House and sold the newer studios to the local council. It is these that are now the 'Epic' centre. I hope you're following all this. Quite why Anglia needed so many studios (they even took over an old post office building next to the original studios) is a mystery yet to be solved. As far as network multicamera shows go all I can remember coming from Anglia over the past 50 years is Sale of the Century, Gambit, Tales of the Unexpected - er - The Time The Place and of course Trisha. Of course there have been a few single camera dramas too like The Chief so maybe they needed studio space. Anyway, the local ITV news is now rattling round in the otherwise deserted original studio centre. I understand the old studio 1 was divided into two news studios when the department returned in 2006.
Current regional ITV studios Please note that I am not attempting to cover the history of ITV's regional studios here. That's a job for someone else to do! I am of course aware that all over the country, studios have been closed or reduced in capability much to the anger of the people who live near them. This section covers those ITV studios still in use which is quite a contrast to the number there were when ITV began in the 1950s.
3sixtymedia/The Manchester Studios (Granada) The first purpose-built television studios to open in the UK were Granada's in Manchester. The BBC would have got there first with TV Centre but due to finance problems, construction was put on hold for a few years during the Centre's development. Granada started broadcasting from its new studios in Quay Street on 3rd May 1956. The company was awarded the franchise eighteen months before going on air. They were thus able to take their time designing and building a centre that fully met their needs. The two storey building seen above was the first to be built, with the distinctive Granada House added later. Sidney Bernstein, the owner of the company, famously decided to name the studios in even numbers only so it would appear that he had twice as many. Studios 2 and 4 were the first to open with 6, 8 and 12 following in order. Studio 2 is still in use as the home of Granada Reports - the regional news - as well as some sport and political programmes. Studio 4 was originally a small continuity studio which was only in use for a few years, although it famously hosted the first appearance of The Beatles in 1962. It was later converted to form the present entrance foyer. There was no studio 10 - that was the Chelsea Palace in London. The last studio - 12 - opened in 1958 and until Rediffusion's studio 5 opened in 1960 was the largest in the UK.
In October 2000, a big change came to the way the business was run. These studios and the BBC's in Oxford Road were struggling to attract sufficient work and contain their costs. The two organisations decided to create a new company - 3sixtymedia - that would consolidate their Manchester operation at Granada's studios. The board of 3sixtymedia was set up with three directors from Granada and two from the BBC with voting rights split 80:20 in favour of Granada. A number of redundancies were made in both companies. As part of the deal, both ITV and the BBC were forbidden from operating any other studios in competition with the new company in the Manchester area. Thus, the BBC's studio A was closed and its technical equipment sold off or scrapped. 3sixtymedia now offer the following TV studios: studio 6 - 4,425 sq ft approx (68 x 52 metric feet within firelanes) - used for the Jeremy Kyle Show, The Heaven and Earth Show and The Royle Family studio 8 - 5,600 sq ft approx - used for University Challenge, Mastermind, A Question of Sport, Soapstar Superchef and Countdown. studio 12 - 7,850 sq ft approx (98.3 x 70 metric feet within firelanes) - used for Stars in Their Eyes, The Price is Right and Soapstar Superstar. It was also used for the BBC's lottery show Who Dares Wins in 2011. The firelanes in this studio are only about 3 feet wide which makes the studio feel narrower than similar studios - but it is the 'normal' 70 feet wide and much longer than most equivalent studios. Interestingly, from 2005 to 2011 the old BBC studio A was operated by 3sixtymedia and offered for hire, albeit as a 4-waller. 3sixtymedia also have some warehouse buildings on or near the main Quay Street site. These are not equipped as television studios but some have TV lino or resin floors. These other spaces are as follows: studio A, Oxford Road - 7,200 sq ft (94 x 66 metric ft within firelanes) - used for Life on Mars and C4's Longford. (Closed in November 2011) The Garden Studio - 1,500 sq ft (can be controlled from the galleries of studios 8 or 12) - originally used by digital channels Granada Breeze and ITV Play The Starlight Theatre (two separate spaces) - 7,500sq ft and 4,500 sq ft - used for ITV Bingo and dramas Vincent, Cold Blood and The Street The Blue Shed (warehouse type stage) - 17,000 sq ft (155 x 110 ft wall to wall) - used for The Forsyte Saga and Casanova Compared with most London based studios, none of these are particularly busy with some remaining empty for many weeks of the year. The exception is perhaps studio 6, with the Jeremy Kyle Show a popular fixture of the ITV daytime schedule. However, Countdown moved here in June 2009, providing a much-needed regular occupant of studio 8. University Challenge is the other regular user of this studio. I should of course mention that Coronation Street is made here - although not in any of the studios mentioned above. The popular soap has two dedicated studios to the side of the Quay Street site - Stage 1 and Stage 2 along with the exterior set of the Street. Stage 2 was previously occupied by part of the Granada Studios Tour, which ran from 1988-1999.
The threat of closure has been hanging over the Quay Street studios for a number of years. Indeed, it was a not very well-kept secret that the studios would be closing around 2011 and the operation would move to three almost identically-sized studios at MediaCity in Salford Quays. However, ITV made a surprise announcement in March 2009. It seems that the developer had 'dramatically scaled back' its financial commitment to the ITV element of the project. An ITV spokesman stated that "as a result, ITV will remain at its Quay Street base for the foreseeable future." Interestingly, the staff were told that the focus would now be on ensuring that the Quay St building was fit for purpose. However, it was clear that the area could not support two studio centres within a few miles of each other, particularly when they had three studios almost identical in size. When the senior managers of ITV were replaced they reopened the negotiations with Peel. These lasted through most of 2010 until an announcement was made on 16th December that the move would indeed take place. The office staff will move into an existing building close to the new MediaCity development and Coronation Street will occupy some land on the other side of the Ship Canal. Studios in the main block will be rented as and when required although it is assumed that they will more or less take over studio HQ4 - the same size as studio 8 at Granada - for shows such as Countdown, Jeremy Kyle and University Challenge. This move was almost inevitable, despite the apparent intention in 2009 to remain at Quay Street. In November 2011 the 3sixtymedia staff were told that they would be offered jobs at MediaCity 'working on ITV programmes'. Whether they will also be allowed to work on other shows is not yet known. ITV plan to dispose of the Quay Street site by early 2013. Thus (who'd have thought it), the only large TV studios owned by ITV outside London will be the old Yorkshire TV ones in Leeds. Of which, see below...
The Leeds Studios (aka Kirkstall Road, Yorkshire TV)
Across the Pennines are the Leeds Studios, which are owned by ITV. They opened in 1968, when Yorkshire TV began its new franchise for the north-east. The centre was constructed in Kirkstall Road on slum-clearance land and was said to be the first purpose-built colour television production centre in Europe. The building opened with these studios... studio 1/1A - two small presentation studios sharing facilities studio 2 - 1,225 sq ft studio 3 - 4,430 sq ft These three original studios were equipped with Marconi Mk VII colour cameras. In 1969 EMI 2001 cameras were purchased for the last studio to open... studio 4 - 7,650 sq ft Around 1976 Philips LDK 25 cameras replaced the Marconis in studio 3. The studio centre - still referred to by most people in the industry as 'Yorkshire TV' - is the base for the northern transmission area for ITV. Of the original four, only studios 3 and 4 remained in use during the first decade of the 21st century. Studio 3 had been the home of Countdown since 1982 when Channel 4 began broadcasting. Studio 4 had in recent years been mostly used as a 4-waller for dramas including Heartbeat, Where The Heart Is, The Royal, A Touch of Frost, Fat Friends, Bodies and Wire In The Blood, but was also used occasionally for multicamera work with Bruce's Price is Right ('95 - '01), My Parents Are Aliens, Question Time, Emmerdale, Bullseye and Win My Wage. In March and April 2006 Mastermind was recorded here as ITV's Manchester studios were closed due to asbestos contamination. Also a celebrity edition of the snooker show Pot Black was made for Sport Relief in May 2006. Sadly, The Royal and Heartbeat were axed by ITV in 2008, with A Touch of Frost ending in 2009. Once ITV's Manchester Studios were fully operational again the old YTV studios had very few bookings during 2008/9 so their long-term future became doubtful. Countdown was the only regular occupant of studio 3, with 4 being empty for much of the time.
As many had feared, on 4th March 2009 Michael Grade announced that the main studios would indeed be closing and Countdown would move to Manchester. Emmerdale's production offices, post production work and interior set shooting would continue to be based in the buildings adjoining the centre (with exterior filming continuing at the programme's purpose built facilities in Harewood) and the local ITV news programme Calender would also continue to be based in its existing facilities at the site. Incidentally, I noted that Michael Grade referred to the programme as 'Emmerdale Farm' in his interview on Radio 4. It hasn't been called that since 1989 so I'm sure that will have gone down well with the production team. One assumes he isn't a regular viewer himself. When asked about the Leeds Studios closure Mr Grade dismissed the question by simply replying - "We move on." With those blunt and rather tactless words he appeared to end 41 years of television from these studios. ITV said that the studios would be 'mothballed' although the likelihood of them being brought back into operation by ITV looked slim. For a while there remained a chance that the studios might be run by an independent company with support from Screen Yorkshire and/or Yorkshire Forward, offering facilities to independent production companies. However, in May 2009 Yorkshire Forward announced that they had ruled out making a rescue bid. The last edition of Countdown was recorded on 22nd April 2009. The show is now recorded in Manchester's old Granada studios operated by 3sixtymedia.
In December 2009 there was a dramatic change of fortune for the studios! Rumours that had been circulating for about six months were confirmed. The studios received a £5.2m refit during 2010/2011 which includes the latest HD tapeless facilities. The work was completed in summer 2011 and Emmerdale moved its interior sets, post production facilities and production offices into the building. These were previously housed in an old car showroom and were in need of updating. The refit has been considerable to say the least. The building was radically changed internally and includes no less than six studios. The two existing studios were completely refurbished and were joined by two converted from service dock areas and one in the former joinery workshop. They have been acoustically treated and have TV resin floors and lighting grids. A sixth new studio space was created for internal shots of police stations and hospitals. Two new gallery suites were also constructed along with a number of dressing rooms, prop stores, make-up areas and other facilities. This is all quite a contrast to the bad news announced by Michael Grade. Thus the future of the studios is, after all, secure. At least, for as long as Emmerdale continues to run. (Don't mention The Bill.)
The exteriors for Emmerdale have been shot since 1998 on a purpose-built set on the Harewood estate near Leeds. The houses in the 'village' at Harewood are timber framed structures covered in stone cladding. The set is built on green belt land so all the buildings were originally classed as 'temporary structures' with a requirement to be demolished within ten years. However, further planning permission was granted and the set is effectively permanent, at least one assumes for as long as the programme continues to run.
Incidentally, along the road from the YTV studios is an independent centre called Studio 81. As well as production offices, workshops and other facilities it has a warehouse-type 16,000 sq ft stage, 230ft x 70ft. It opened in 2006 and has been used for several single camera dramas including Lost in Austin, Wuthering Heights and Red Riding.
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Independent regional studios
Endemol West/BBC S&PP at Paintworks, Bristol
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part of the Paintworks complex. with thanks to the Paintworks website |
One relatively recent development on the regional studios front was the move of Endemol to Bristol, thus creating Endemol West. This happened in 2004 when they moved into an old paint factory in the centre of the city. Endemol is a giant media business that owns several TV production companies, mostly specialising in gameshows, quiz shows and comedy. They decided that for the kind of programmes they mostly make - long-running gameshows and quiz shows that take up a great deal of studio time - it would make sense to own their own studios rather than hire them. Thus over a few years they steadily converted parts of the old factory into no less than seven multicamera studios, controlled by four production gallery suites.
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A typical studio space in the Paintworks building with thanks to the Paintworks website |
The studios have TV floors but only basic scaffold or trussing lighting grids. Endemol didn't need anything more flexible as they were used for shows with standing sets which, once lit, could stay in position for weeks, months or in the case of Deal or No Deal - years. The buildings Endemol West occupied are part of the 'Paintworks' development. This is a large, attractive, Victorian industrial complex that contains a number of other media companies and some very small businesses such as artists and designers. It includes an art gallery, bars and restaurants and is described as 'Bristol's new arts and media quarter.'
Between 2004 and 2009 these studios were busy making a number of Endemol shows including Brainteaser for Five, Efourum for E4, Art School for BBC2, Gala Bingo for Gala TV, The Restaurant for BBC2 and C4's huge hit Deal or No Deal which began in October 2005. At their busiest, the studios transmitted eight hours of live television every day. The operation here employed between 80 and 300 staff, depending on the work in hand. However, I gather that Endemol's operation here was scaled back during the early part of 2010 and for much of that year Deal or No Deal was the only show being made here.
In a surprise development that frankly very few people would have seen coming, in October 2010 it was announced that BBC Studios and Post Production (S&PP) had taken over the management and operation of these studios for at least two years, working for and with Endemol. Deal or No Deal is continuing but other shows are likely to be made here too. (Post production for that show has continued at The Farm). Since S&PP is the business that runs BBC TV Centre, it is not obvious what is in it for them. However, it is unlikely that this was seen as a possible site to 'move' Television Centre to if those studios were lost. This contract is almost certainly simply a way of increasing revenue for the S&PP business.
Paintworks is owned by London-based firm Verve Properties. They are hoping to expand the Paintworks site - this time to include new buildings as well as converting existing properties. The building containing the studios is apparently due to remain as it is for the medium term, but the plans indicate that it could be replaced with a larger purpose-built construction in time.
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Verve were also in negotiation during 2009/2010 to buy the old HTV Bristol studios from ITV, which are situated nearby on the Bath Road in Arnos Vale. These have been unused for some years, except as a base for the local ITV Westcountry news, although some office space has also been let to a few media and software companies. The local council have apparently stipulated that the site must be used for entertainment purposes so it can't simply be sold off for offices or housing. Having said that, in fact the main studio was converted to offices some years ago. A 125 year lease was begun in 1958 with the then ITV company TWW so there are still many years yet to run. However, it seems that ITV failed to sell the property to Verve.
The Bristol studios as built for TWW consisted of Studio 1 (90ft x 65ft) and Studio 2 (30ft x 20ft). Intriguingly, the main studio (which was a very useful size anyway) also had a 'back projection tunnel' which added another 1,100 sq ft. This was an extension to the studio enabling a projector to have sufficient throw to display a large image onto the back of a cyclorama. To my knowledge, this ingenious design is inique in all the UK's TV Studios (although the HTV Cardiff studio also has an extention about 15 feet deep on one wall which is sometimes used as an audience area so perhaps this could have partly been its original purpose.) As well as adding some extra useful floor area at other times this BP area could also apparently be used as a small studio in its own right.
In the early 1970s the studios were refurbished by HTV and a new studio (53ft x 33ft) built for the local news operation. This was apparently a temporary conversion of part of the vehicle garage. The studios were also renumbered so the original large studio became Studio 5 and the new studio was called Studio 7. Studio 5 was probably closed around the late 1990s. (Do you know the actual year it ceased operation?) Mark Elliott has written to me describing a visit to the studios a few years ago. He says that the current news studio is geographically in the position of the original back projection tunnel. The large studio (1 or 5) is now open plan offices and has a skylight knocked into its roof. What a waste. With ITV looking at various ways of saving money, it is hard to see them remaining in this building for much longer.
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Dragon International Studios
For nearly the whole of the first decade of the 21st century, various evolving plans were announced for an ambitious studio development in south Wales. This was the Dragon International Studios site not far from Cardiff - nicknamed 'Valleywood.' The complex was to be based at Llanilid which is just off junction 35 of the M4 near Bridgend. The scheme was a £330m film studio and 'media city' with Richard Attenborough as its chairman.
When first announced in 2001, the plans included twelve sound stages, five silent stages and two fully equipped TV studios of 8,000sq ft and 12,000sq ft respectively. If it had been completed as originally planned, the complex would have been bigger than any other UK film studio.
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the site of Dragon International Studios. It occupies an astonishing 1,800 acres and was previously an open-cast coal mine. The M4 is in the foreground - the site is near junction 35 but it was hoped that a new junction connecting directly to the site would eventually be built. The drawing below shows how it might have looked upon completion. |
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When completed, the site was planned to include hotels, housing ('for actors to rent' - really?), office blocks, post production suites, training facilities and even a theme park. It was hoped that other supporting industries would be attracted to the area, providing local employment. As seen above, it was to be given its own new junction from the M4 when it had reached a large enough size.
Sadly, the project encountered many problems and its target date for opening was for ever being postponed. In fact, that passed in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Early problems were caused by a lack of support from the Welsh Assembly which was later secured. Then came delays in obtaining funding, which threatened a move to another site. In January 2004 Lord Attenborough announced that work was about to begin but as luck would have it some rare dormice were found living on the site in September which delayed work until 2005. (I'm not making this up.) The next delay was caused by issues surrounding permits for sewerage works. Nothing happened until October 2005. Bad weather then stopped the work (during a Welsh winter? - surely not) and construction was due to start in March 2006. As far as I can discover, it did not happen after all.
In October 2006 it was announced that the first phase of five silent stages (described rather tactlessly by a local councillor as 'posh warehouses') would at last begin construction soon. These were planned to open in 2007 but once again, it seems that construction did not happen. At the time these stages were said to be aimed at 'TV drama and low budget feature film' production.
However, at last there was some progress. Judy Wasdell, the studio coordinator, wrote to me in January 2008 with some exciting news...
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'We started construction in August 2007 on phase one of the development which consists of four sound stages (1 x 20,000sq ft and 3 x 10,000sq ft), each with adjoining production offices. We anticipate the first of these will be completed by the spring with the final stage ready by the summer. We hope to be submitting a detailed planning application shortly for phase two of the studios which will consist of a number of workshops and a studio village with further production/post-production space, a preview theatre and commissary.' We originally planned phase one of our project to consist of a number of silent stages but have since upgraded the spec on these so they are now soundproofed. We may have TV stages within a later phase but we won't have any stages specifically designed to TV immediately.'
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Unfortunately, even this relatively modest development became another victim of the banking crisis. Yet another setback occurred in March 2008 when the development was put on hold and the administrators were called in. According to Broadcast magazine on 14th October 2008...
'The scheme, financed through a mix of private and public money and chaired by Richard Attenborough, apparently ran out of funding at a time when investors were starting to tighten up on property development money. However, administrator Rob Lewis, a partner at accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, hasn't yet ruled out the possibility of finding alternative means of finance. "The preferred option would be to see studios completed and films being made there, or to mothball the site until something else comes along," he says.'
For a while it looked as though these studios might yet have been saved - by the BBC no less. In November 2008 the Corporation announced that they were looking at various sites to set up a new production centre. Wales is planned to become a 'creative hub' for drama - with Casualty crossing the Severn estuary from Bristol in 2011. The four almost-complete sound stages here were briefly considered as a possible base but in the end the attractions of Cardiff Bay won out and the BBC announced in 2009 that they would set up their new drama HQ at Roath Basin. There seems to be a fascination for building studios next to water - have you noticed?
As for the Dragon International studios - they have actually now been used to make a movie! Hurrah!!! In 2009/2010 the film Ironclad, starring Paul Giamatti, Brian Cox and Derek Jacobi was made here. The four sound stages were used for interiors and a replica of Rochester Castle was built on the lot (plenty of space for that!). I have not yet heard of any further films or TV dramas being made here - do let me know if you have any info. Certainly, the studios seem ideal for a movie that needs the privacy of a site all to itself and with 4 sound stages, plenty of space on the lot and spectacular countryside all around it should not be too difficult to find suitable clients. The studios are still in administration and being managed by PricewaterhouseCoopers who are keen to sell the site as working film studios. Hopefully the success of the first film to be made there will help find a purchaser.
Barcud Derwen - North Wales
Based in Caernarfon, for a number of years Barcud established themselves as the leading provider of OB facilities in Wales. Merging with Derwen in 1992 to form Barcud Derwen they set about building a couple of studios.
Studio 1 was 88ft x 72 ft (6,300 sq ft) and had pull-out audience seating on one wall for up to 250 people. It had a saturated lighting rig with motorised bars and 450 dimmers. The gallery was equipped to support up to 12 cameras. Studio 2 had a simple scaffold grid and was 52ft x 31 ft. The two studios shared one gallery suite.
The studios mostly made programmes for the Welsh market but did make one series I know of that was not purely for Wales - Captain Mack for CITV.
Sadly, in June 2010 it was announced that Barcud Derwen had got into financial difficulties due to cash-flow and entered administration. The administrators immediately closed the Caernarfon facility with the loss of 30 jobs. Sadly no buyer was found for these facilities and during the summer of 2010 much of the technical equipment was sold on eBay, the studio's Galaxy lighting console being bought by Riverside TV.
Web Studios and The Pie Factory - Salford
Now in case you hadn't noticed, in the past few years there has been a slow realisation that almost all the programmes made in television studios and shown on the UK's main broadcast channels are made in London. The reasons for this can be argued, but the fact is that both ITV and the BBC spent the 1990s closing down almost all of their regional production studios - so it's hardly surprising. Simply put, they were not attracting sufficient work to enable them to pay their way.
However, the pendulum has swung back and it has become the aim of the BBC, ITV and C4 to make a greater proportion of programmes outside the M25. This is mostly of course due to pressure from Ofcom for the TV companies to represent the culture of the whole country rather better than previously. It has to be said there is one other thing that attracts programme makers away from London - it can be cheaper to hire studio space and other facilities, even taking into account the cost of most of the cast and key members of the crew travelling up from the south.
As will be explained below, Manchester has been recognised as a centre of creative talent in music, drama and comedy that has been poorly served over the past decade or so. As a result, a number of programmes are being made there now with a desire to increase that proportion when possible. This has resulted of course in a new studio centre being constructed in the fashionable and trendy area of Salford Quays. These MediaCity studios opened in 2011 but whilst they were being planned and constructed a few enterprising companies opened studios not far from the new media centre. The most recent is The Sharp Project, another is the Pie Factory - see below - but before them was Web Studios...
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Web Studios are an offshoot of Web Lighting - a hire company who decided that they could offer studio facilities that didn't seem to be readily available in the area. They presently have three sound stages of 5000sq ft, 18,850sq ft and 19,250 sq ft. The largest 'C' stage was recently built and is described as a 'state of the art' soundstage. It even contains a tank. Amongst several other shows, the drama New Street Law, the sci-fi comedy series Hyperdrive and Avalon/BBC's comedy opera series Kombat Opera were recently made in these studios. Commercials and pop promos form a large part of their work. The stages currently have no multicamera television facilities and are used purely for single camera work.
Early in 2007 a new facility opened next door to the MediaCity site in Salford Quays called The Pie Factory. This is a studio complex that was originally a pie factory. No really. It has three 'studios' (I would prefer to call them stages) curiously named after northern towns. 'Salford Studio' is 3,000 sq ft, 'Leeds Studio' is 5,500 sq ft and the largest 'Manchester Studio' is 6,800 sq ft. They have already made a number of single camera TV productions including The Visit, Cold Blood, Drop Dead Gorgeous and Boy A. The Pie Factory is part owned by the Peel Group, the company that built the huge MediaCity complex. It was thought that by opening these studios a clientele of production companies would build up over the years leading to the opening of the four main multicamera studios in the new building in 2011. The Pie Factory has remained in business even after the MediaCity studios opened, providing complimentary single camera facilities.
Early in 2010 The Sharp Project, located in Newton Heath, East Manchester, was handed £6.3 million pounds by the Northwest Regional Development Agency and the European Regional Development Fund helping them to turn the former Sharp electronics factory into a 'digital production complex' that will provide a range of sound stages, scenery storage areas, office and production space. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2010. It is not clear how many sound stages are involved or their sizes as the square footage figures quoted include areas such as dressing rooms, production offices etc. Can you help??? The first TV programme shot here was Casualty 1909, for BBC1 in 2009, whilst a CBBC series - My Genius Idea, was made here by production company Shine in the summer of 2010.
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MediaCityUK - Salford Quays
With a name as grand as this you know that they must have been planning something big. Well - they were. Since we are on the subject allow me to quote their website...
'MediaCity is all about connections: connections with people, places, emotions, audiences and technologies. It will ultimately represent - and redefine - a new era of global media communications'
You get the picture. In fact, here is a picture...
Beauty is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder. The collection of buildings seen above that make up MediaCity is apparently not exactly admired in the world of architecture. MediaCity won the 'Ugliest Building in the UK' award of 2011 in Building Design magazine's annual Carbuncle Cup contest. Amongst many unflattering remarks, the editor commented 'Quite how the BBC has stooped this low is hard to fathom.' Ah well. No Grade II listing with special status imminent here I suspect.
Despite the size of the whole project, the number of medium/large TV studios is only four, (of which one is only 4,550 sq ft - the BBC's TV Centre in White City of course having eight, five of which are between 8,000 and 11,000 sq ft.) Some people have compared this development with TV Centre but this is misleading. Nevertheless, when it is fully open it will be the base for several thousand people working in television, radio and other media and will certainly affect the industry in various ways.
Many people assume that this is a BBC development. Not so. Well, only partly so. The BBC are of course in the process of moving several departments here from London including Radio Five Live, BBC Children's Department and BBC Sport. All of these are or were based at Television Centre in White City. However, none of these departments have made significant use of the five largest production studios at the Centre so the move north will not affect bookings in them. In fact, only one small studio has been used by the Sport department at TVC. Children's department occasionally booked one other small studio for Blue Peter - and that's it.
The timetable for the move is as follows: Blue Peter moved in the summer of 2011 - with the offices of other shows such as Question of Sport and Dragon's Den moving here from BBC Manchester in Oxford Road between May and July. Many CBBC and CBeebies staff also moved up from London in this first wave. Between August and October 2011 was 'wave 2' which included Newsround and CBBC drama. 'Wave 3' is from October 2011 into early 2012 and finishes off most of the move although BBC Breakfast will not move until Easter 2012.
The BBC Breakfast move is particularly controversial as the show currently makes use of many actors, filmstars, musicians, celebs and politicians who just pop into the studio at TV Centre at the beginning of the day. Few are likely to make a special trip to Salford if they are performing in or visiting London so the range of guests is bound to diminish significantly. Also, the programme is news-based and BBC News is moving to brand new studios at Broadcasting House in the centre of London - which is where many people expected the Breakfast show to be based. It is hard to fathom the logic in moving this of all shows up to Salford. Apparently two of the regular presenters have refused to move as have just over half of the staff working on the show - only 46% officially deciding to relocate. The programme will share the Northwest Tonight regional news studio, which is in one of the BBC blocks rather than the main studio building.
In February 2011 it was announced that the completion of the move of BBC Sport would be delayed by five months, bringing it to February 2012. Since this date is only a short time before the Olympics it does draw attention once again to the logic of making such a move at a time when common sense would surely suggest that most sports journalists would wish to be in the thick of all that is going on, rather than having to move house and learn how to make brand new facilities work two hundred miles away.
The development has been built (not by the BBC - did I mention that?) by the Peel Group, who describe themselves as a leading property and transport organisation. They began in textiles in the 1920s in Lancashire. As the textile industry declined, they moved into retail warehousing and property development. Later they acquired the Manchester Ship Canal and its port facilities. The Trafford Centre was completed by them in 1998. They own several airports in the north of England and in 2003 acquired Clydeport, Scotland's main sea port. In 2005 they took over Mersey Docks, making them the largest owner of dockyards in the UK. In 2007 they gained ownership of about a quarter of UK Coal plc. So - an impressive portfolio of businesses in the world of ports, airports, property development, retailing and even coal mining. However, no previous experience in the world of television - unless they have chosen not to state that on their website. They have however created a new division - Peel Media - to administer this development. Interestingly, in the summer of 2011 Peel expanded their influence in the world of media by purchasing Pinewood-Shepperton. Make of that what you will.
MediaCity consists of several buildings - two of which are occupied by the BBC. However, the main studio block is separate and for a while it was assumed that the TV studios here would be operated by 3sixtymedia, the company that runs ITV's old Granada studios. More on this later.
There are three small studios on the first floor of the studio building that were built for the use of CBBC and CBeebies. Studio HQ7 is 49 x 33 ft wall to wall and studios HQ5 and HQ6 are both 41 x 24 ft wall to wall. HQ5 and HQ6 are the homes of CBeebies presentation and CBBC presentation and Newsround. HQ7 is the new Blue Peter studio and is roughly half the size of TC2 - the small studio they had been using at TV Centre for the previous few years. No room for marching bands or elephants in here sadly. No room for much at all in fact. There is also an area designated 'Blue Peter Garden' - but this is on a roof, so not quite what we have been used to. No more burying of time capsules, one assumes. I gather some rehearsals have been done on the roof and it proved to be quite windy. Who'd have imagined?
BBC Sport has its production offices with editing and communications facilities in one of the BBC buildings. Many of their programmes will now be done on location at OBs - but some programmes are now using studio 3, the smallest of the main four studios.
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So, to summarise the facilities... The studio block has three small studios on the first floor (HQ5, HQ6 and HQ7) - and on the ground floor, four medium to large TV studios (HQ 1-4) and two audio studios, one of which is the home of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Three of the TV studios are similar in size and shape to studios 6, 8 and 12 at Granada's Quay Street building. (4,550 sq ft, 6,300 sq ft and 7,650 sq ft respectively.) The reason for this may in some way relate to the non-competition agreement made by the BBC and ITV when they formed 3sixtymedia back in 2000. Or of course it may be that they simply copied what they already had because nobody had a better idea. (Do you know the real reason? If so, do let me know!) Of particular interest is Studio HQ1 - a very large room officially stated to be 12,543 sq ft. Its dimensions are slightly less than 130 ft x 97 ft wall to wall. That's about the same width as TC1 or Fountain but about 20 feet longer than TC1 and 10 feet shorter than Fountain. Who this was intended for is anyone's guess. Since Studio 12 at Granada currently sits empty for much of the year there isn't an obvious demand for very large TV studios in Manchester. I have heard that the BBC asked for a large studio to be included when they thought that TV Centre would be closing. Apparently, a senior producer in the Entertainment department requested a studio at least as big as TC1 for shows like Strictly Come Dancing if TV Centre was no longer to be available. However, the 2011 series of Strictly did not move into this studio as expected by many but remained in TC1 at Television Centre in London. Quite a coup for TVC. It is also probable that the BBC needed to be sure that they would have access to a large studio for the coverage of general elections/Children in Need/Comic Relief etc after the closure of TV Centre. Of course, things have since moved on. Television Centre will now continue in use until at least 2013, probably with some of its studios remaining operational under the new owners of the building after that date. In any case, as previously mentioned the BBC have no direct connection with these studios but are simply clients like any other company. Well - not quite. My understanding is that in the early stages of planning this project the BBC signed an agreement with Peel that commits them to renting a certain amount of studio time over 10 years. I have heard that the figure they must spend with Peel over the period is £10m but I can't confirm that. In January 2011, studio HQ2 was the first to be fitted out. However, the first transmittable TV production to be made here was the gameshow Don't Scare The Hare. It was recorded in the same month in studio HQ1 - which was still in an unfinished state. There was no lighting rig or any means of suspension installed so the whole studio had to be equipped with temporary trussing and the gallery suite of HQ2 was used. A Question of Sport was the first show to be made in HQ2 in February. HQ3 (68 x 52 feet within firelanes) is the smallest of the main studios and has been fully fitted out. It is being used for some BBC Sport programmes. The first Match of the Day came from here on Nov 5th 2011. Its gallery suite is also used to drive HQ7, the Blue Peter studio, as that studio's galleries remain unequipped. In fact, disappointingly, only two of the main studios have been fully completed. The flagship studio HQ1 remains an empty shell with no cameras, no lighting hoists and with its gallery suite unequipped. Sports Personality of the Year came from here in December 2011 and all the lights had to be mounted on hired-in trussing. If programmes are made in HQ1 then the gallery suite of HQ2 is used along with its cameras - meaning of course that it can't be used at the same time. HQ4 (6,300 sq ft) is similarly unequipped and currently remains a shell. One assumes that when ITV move to Salford from Quay St in 2013 then this studio will be completed but when HQ1 will be equipped is not yet clear. Maybe it never will and will simply remain a basic 4-waller - effectively a film stage. HQ4 has been used for some shows using hired-in flyaway kit and rented cameras. The lights were hung from trusses and ladder beams. CBeebies series Justin's House was one of the first bookings. In case you are wondering - 'HQ' apparently stands for 'Harbour Quay.' Fancy that.
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Back to the history...
Negotiations and discussions between Peel Group and ITV (the main owners of 3sixtymedia) continued throughout 2008 and into 2009.
As it happens, I was contacted by a senior ITV manager in October 2008 and asked my opinion on whether the studios should have motorised lighting bars (boats) or a monopole grid. I was told that the project team were in detailed discussion regarding the fitting out of the studios. I was pleased to be asked and gave my view - like almost every other working LD I know, I much prefer monopoles. In fact, the decision was taken to fit bars instead. Oh well.
I would genuinely love to be able to say that these are the best studios in the country - after all the hype one might have expected them to be so. In fact, the MediaCity website claims that these are 'the most advanced HD facilities in Europe.'
Unfortunately, there are several things about the interior of the studio building that are frankly surprising considering that its design comes after fifty years' experience of existing studio centres, good and bad. What genuinely astonishes me is how many basic things appear to have been so poorly thought through. I have in the past listed here some of the most annoying things but frankly it just sounds as though I am being unnnecessarily negative. Several productions have now been made here so dozens of people from the production and technical sides of the industry have drawn their own conclusions and spread the word to their colleagues. In other words, I need not spell it all out here.
I invite anyone involved in the early days of this project to offer some sort of explanation of what happened and how the studio building ended up with this particular design. I would be more than happy to publish the inside story - no names need be mentioned of course.
Then of course the money ran out thanks to the banking crisis of 2008 so what should have been flagship studios with all the latest kit had to be finished as economically as possible. In fact of course not all the studios have actually been finished. What a sad story for all those involved. Quite a contrast to the new Sky Studios centre in Isleworth which also opened in 2011 and are well designed and packed with technology. (Of course, the Sky staff directly involved in programme-making were closely involved in the design and fitting out of those studios.) The irony is that Television Centre still remains the best designed studio building in the country and since all its main studios have recently been upgraded with the latest HD kit it is also amongst the best equipped.
At the time ITV were involved in planning the MediaCity studios, they were intended to open in 2011 and Granada would then close its studios in Quay Street. A site for a new building opposite MediaCity had been earmarked for them to move into so that the Quay Street offices could also be sold off. However, on 11th March 2009 there was a surprising development. ITV issued the following press release:
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'ITV’s long-mooted move of its Manchester production base to Salford is not going to happen – meaning that the former Granada site at Quay Street will continue to be home to Coronation Street and other shows. Discussions have taken place over several years about ITV joining the BBC at the massive new MediaCity development in Salford. But Chief Operating Officer John Cresswell announced to Manchester staff today, during a visit to Quay Street, that negotiations with MediaCity developer the Peel Group have broken down. In a statement, ITV said: "ITV can confirm that negotiations with the Peel Group over the possible move of the broadcaster's Manchester operation to MediaCity in Salford broke down this week after the developer dramatically scaled back its financial commitment to the ITV element of the project." "As a result, ITV will remain at its Quay Street base for the foreseeable future." John told Manchester staff that the focus would now be on ensuring that the Quay St building is fit for purpose.' |
This decision initially appeared to leave the opening of the studios in some doubt. If ITV/3sixtymedia were no longer involved and with the Peel Group apparently scaling back its investment then would the studios be equipped at all? The BBC would not be able to take them over as they are minority shareholders in 3sixtymedia and these studios would be in direct competition.
According to press reports, in April 2009 the Peel Group were said to be trying to persuade ITV to change their minds. This was hardly surprising as to make running the studios financially viable Peel would need regular bookings from them. Throughout the following months rumours began to circulate that ITV might leave Quay St after all.
In March 2010 Peel announced that they had appointed Andy Waters as Head of Studios. Andy has a great deal of experience as a resource manager at BBC TV Centre. If anyone can make things run smoothly here, he can. He also has a long list of industry contacts so will no doubt be trying to persuade many of them to make their shows here rather than in London. Within a few months several other resource managers from TVC joined him - possibly the uncertain future of TV Centre helped in this decision.
Meanwhile, in November 2010 SIS (part of which used to be BBC OBs) was given a 10 year contract to supply the studios with camera, sound and engineering crews. They currently operate the studio at the BBC Media Village in White City that produces The One Show. In fact the MediaCity website now describes the studios as a joint venture between Peel Media and SIS.
On 16th December 2010 it was confirmed that ITV would indeed be moving to MediaCity, after many months of discussions and negotiations. The office staff and local news will occupy an existing building near the new development which will be refurbished for them. On the other side of the water a 7.7 acre site next to the Imperial War Museum will be used as the base for Coronation Street. Two TV studios and a larger exterior set than currently used are being built, along with all the necessary production facilities. The studios in the main Peel block will be used for ITV's other productions (eg Jeremy Kyle, Countdown, University Challenge), which of course was the intention when the centre was originally designed. Effectively ITV will have a block booking of studio 4. In November, 3sixtymedia staff were told that they would be transferred to MediaCity to work on ITV productions there.
What this does mean is that at least three of the four main TV studios will now have regular bookings from ITV and BBC North. This places the operation of the centre on a much more secure foundation and Andy Waters has predicted that the centre will be running at 'full capacity' by 2013. This (according to Broadcast) represents utilisation of 50%-60% which is the best he believes can be practically achieved.
Old BBC production studios outside London
It wasn't that long ago - well, the early 1990s - that the BBC had a medium sized production studio in three regional centres in England. Five if you include the somewhat smaller one in Newcastle and even smaller studio in Southampton. The rest were in Bristol, Manchester and the one that everyone over 30 remembers - Pebble Mill in Birmingham. Who could forget Pebble Mill at One? Even if you never saw it you'd heard of it. In point of fact, it came from the foyer of the building, not its main studio but who cares? It ran from 1973-1986 - with Donny McCloud, Marion Foster, Bob Langley, Jan Leeming, Judi Spiers, Peter Seabrook and a dozen or so other presenters who came and went. Well, they've all gone now, the building is a pile of dust and the BBC's Birmingham operation is from somewhere called the Mailbox - although there is no production studio there, just a small regional newsroom. That's progress.
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Pebble Mill R.I.P. |
Birmingham's studio A was the home of dozens of popular dramas - All Creatures Great and Small, Howards Way, Juliet Bravo, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, Bird of Prey, and A Very Peculiar Practice are some examples - but many light entertainment shows were made here too including Pot Black, Beadle's About, Call My Bluff, Telly Addicts, Can't Cook Won't Cook, The Basil Brush Show and (who could forget?) Emu's Broadcasting Corporation. Of course, there was also Saturday Night at the Mill and the unimaginatively named Pebble Mill - the show that took over from Pebble Mill at One (I hope you're following all this.) High/low point of that series was undoubtedly Paul Shane's rendering of 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling' in 1996. A quick visit to YouTube is highly recommended.
The studio opened in 1971 and was 74ft x 64ft within firelanes, so quite a bit smaller than the medium/large studios at TV Centre. It opened with four EMI 2001 cameras which were replaced in 1983 with five Link 125s. In 1992 Pebble Mill bought four Sony BVP-370 studio cameras and two BVP-70 portable cameras. In November 1997 work began on a major refurbishment of the studio. It included a new production control room complete with 36-channel vision mixer, new lighting/vision control room and re-equipped sound control room with new Calrec Q-series 60-channel desk. This £2.2 million upgrade took nine weeks and Studio A re-opened by the end of February 1998 as a fully digital widescreen facility complete with new Sony BVP-500 and BVP-550 cameras.
Despite this huge investment it was announced only two years later at the end of 2000 by Greg Dyke, the then Director General of the BBC, that the main studio at Pebble Mill would close. (Quite a different philosophy from that now in fashion where programmes are being moved from London to the nations and regions.) Staff at Pebble Mill are said to have protested most strongly and suggested 'mothballing' the studio for a year in anticipation of the CBBC department needing a studio. Despite their best efforts and the very recent £2.2 million refit and upgrade the BBC chose to close Studio A for good. It's perhaps worth noting that a year later the Corporation spent £1.7 million upgrading studio D at Elstree for CBBC. So 'rationalisation' got under way at Pebble Mill and the next year Studio A was de-commissioned.
The following little tale will possibly come as no surprise. It seems that the week after Studio A had closed, Country File had a massive story which required studio space. Despite the fact that Studio A was at that time still fully equipped, the studio was prohibited from being used as it was 'officially closed'. The production team therefore had to hire in an OB unit and use the 'conservatory studio' once used by Anne and Nick for their daytime show.
Incidentally - one claim to fame for studio A is that it was the home of a new kind of floor paint. For many years all studio floors had been painted with water-based paint, with disastrous consequences if any liquid was spilled on it! Before a new colour or pattern could be applied, the floor had to be washed and dried with special machines. This wasted valuable time during studio turn-arounds. At Pebble Mill they developed 'Pebble Mill Peelable' paint, which did what it said on the can. This enabled the next floor to be painted on top of the old one, layer after layer, until it grew so thick that the cameras were bumping over the irregularities, at which time it was simply peeled off. Brilliant. Job done.
As with all the regional 'Network Production Centres', Pebble Mill also had a studio B for local news and sport. This one was 40 x 25ft.
The Pebble Mill studios were originally intended to have a third 'drama' studio - studio C - but this was never built. The foyer became the third studio instead, releasing studio A to make popular dramas. At first the foyer borrowed the galleries of studios A and B but in 1983 'gallery C' was commissioned.
Pebble Mill at One ended in 1986 but in 1988, Daytime Live was launched. Essentially the same as Pebble Mill at One, it started at a different time and therefore had a different name. This show also came from the foyer - now officially called 'studio C' - and was joined in 1992 by Good Morning with Anne and Nick which used a small area of this same studio. Needing a bit more elbow room, it wasn't long before the construction of a conservatory studio within the courtyard area was completed and Anne and Nick moved in. Both programmes were controlled from Gallery C.
The daytime drama series Doctors was also made at Pebble Mill between 2000 and 2004. Despite the fact that there was a perfectly good television studio sitting empty, they weren't allowed to use it, so the windows of the foyer (studio C) were blacked out and that became the studio - with all its limitations. A decision such as this clearly makes perfect sense if you are a very senior BBC manager. Doctors also used an additional space - radio Studio 1. This was 62 x 44ft wall to wall.
Studio 1 began as the main audio/music studio at Pebble Mill with enough space to accommodate a full symphony orchestra. Initially, it was used for sound recording sessions plus the twice weekly live broadcasts for Radio 3's lunchtime concerts. However, as well as radio this studio was equipped with a basic lighting grid and was used in its early years for the occasional television programme. The studio lighting became controlled from gallery 'C' from the summer of 1983.
However, John Birt's 'Producer Choice' agenda in the early 1990's forced Pebble Mill to charge unrealistic rental rates for the studio and thus ensured that Studio 1 became too expensive for radio use. Therefore Radio 3 moved out to Adrian Boult Hall in the centre of the city, with the newly developed BBC Resources turning Studio 1 into a full-time TV studio. A scene dock door was added together with the installation of a more comprehensive lighting grid.
Soon after, Studio 1 was in daily use for the live transmission of The Really Useful Show. This lasted for three series, but I'm told that the long acoustic reverberation characteristics of the studio were not idea for TV sound. Programmes to originate from Studio 1 included Daily Live, Anything You Can Cook and Front Room. As mentioned above, in its final years Studio 1 was used as a sound stage for Doctors, although the associated radio cubicle continued to be used to produce Radio 4's Farming Today until the closure of Pebble Mill as a whole (in May 2004).
With the main TV studio closed and the orchestra having moved out it wasn't long before somebody decided that they might as well close the whole place down. Local news and radio went to a building in the city centre called the Mailbox (or 'shoebox' as apparently the staff call it) and Doctors is now filmed at the 'BBC Drama Village' on the University of Birmingham campus at Selly Oak.
Pebble Mill opened in 1971, made its last broadcast from studio B in May 2004 and was demolished in 2005.
thanks to Mike Emery for much of the above info.
Postscript: Just when you thought it was all over... in October 2011 the BBC announced that as part of their 'Delivering Quality First' cuts they were planning to move factual programming away from Birmingham to Bristol by the end of 2012. At one time it looked as though Doctors would be moving too but that now seems relatively secure. Thus, no peaktime network programming will be based in England's second biggest city.
Bristol's studio A was the home of Tony Hart's various art-based series as well as Animal Magic, The Really Wild Show, Why Don't You... and several other popular shows made by the Children's and Schools departments.
Mike Emery has written to inform me that the advent of colour in the region at the start of the 1970’s led to colour programmes being made in Studio A from 1972 in conjunction with the West region’s CMCR3 OB scanner. Also designated SW4 the scanner provided the necessary colour control room facilities together with its Philips PC-60 (LDK-3) cameras, which could always be recognised by their rich, warm tones.
However, this was not an ideal operation. The OB scanner would be on the road at the weekend often covering sporting events in the region, but on a Monday morning the kit was re-rigged in Studio A to provide the output from the studio - at least until the studio was eventually refurbished in 1979/80. This included the commissioning of a colour capable control room suite and four Link 110 cameras. A second smaller OB unit equipped with three Link 120P cameras was brought into service around 1977/8. This was often used for the Antiques Roadshow amongst other things, and allowed the use of the Link 120P cameras in Studio A on an ad hoc basis, albeit generally in place of a Link 110. In the early 1980’s Ikegami HL-79D cameras replaced the Link 120Ps in the OB unit, and again were occasionally used in Studio A.
In 1985/6 Studio A was completely refurbished, although the Link cameras remained. The work included a raised roof and new grid with new lighting hoists and new sound and communications, together with a new three machine VTR edit suite with four machine capability. The studio re-opened in June '86.
Unfortunately, in a bid to save £25 million, in 1991 the BBC announced a studio closure programme and Bristol’s Studio A was one of six studios around the country that was to close, although much of the technical equipment was in fact left in situ. Apparently for a while it was used to house some animals from Bristol Zoo. No, I don't believe it either but that is what I am told. Can you confirm this???
Thereafter Studio A pretty much remained dark until 1996 when another redevelopment of the site led to part of the studio becoming the home of the regional news programme Points West which had previously originated from the tiny 480 sqft Studio B.
David Croxson has written to inform me that...
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'...By 1996, the BBC mooted the idea of merging radio and TV news operations and Bristol was chosen as the place to try it as both TV and radio production facilities at the centre were in desperate need of refurbishment. So what was the scenery workshop became the bi-media newsroom and Radio studios and what was Studio A became: a 'new' TV studio, a production gallery, multi-format tape dubbing and TX area, a presentation studio and graphics area. The old Studio A was partitioned with a stud-wall to create the new gallery and production areas, but the grid remained intact. To this day, the studio is mainly lit with dual-source luminaires hanging from the 1986 refit barrels. In fact it's still possible to see the full size of the old Studio A by climbing the catwalk. Many of the barrels above what is now graphics and edit suites are still in situ, though obviously they're disabled. The floor-level hoist and barrel control panels have the corresponding bits covered up. It's still referred to as Studio A and the old scene dock doors and studio audience entrance are still in use.' David continues... 'In 2005 when I last explored, the old galleries were still there, though the technical equipment had long been stripped out and they were used for storage (mainly of junk). When Points West moved into Studio A, Studio B closed and has since been demolished. The area where it used to be is now a part of the car park.'
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I have never visited myself, but I gather that parts of the BBC Bristol complex could be described as rather quaint as it is essentially a couple of streets' worth of attractive Victorian mansions all knocked together. These old houses are to the right of the 1980s building shown in the photo above. I am told that it has a genteel but rather higgledy piggledy feel as you walk from one house to the next, with grand staircases rising every so often to offices above. Studio A is in what was once the back gardens of the two houses at the junction of the Tyndalls Park and Whiteladies Roads. It had a scene dock and scenery workshop next door and a couple of quite cramped gallery control rooms in the 1st floor of these houses. Studio B was a much smaller space and was used for the local news programme Points West and sport.
Of course Casualty has been based in Bristol since 1987 (the first series was recorded at TV Centre.) However, it is not made in these studios but in a converted industrial unit elsewhere in the city. The BBC have announced that it will move to the new BBC Wales Drama Centre in Cardiff in the autumn of 2011 - a very unpopular move with many people.
Manchester's Oxford Road studio A opened in 1976 with four EMI 2005 cameras - the only BBC studio to have the misfortune to be equipped with them. Actually, not quite. Stephen Neil has informed me that BBC Norwich had to suffer them too. When an Ikegami HL-79D portable camera complemented the EMI 2005s in 1980 I am told that the pictures from it were such good quality they had to be downgraded by the vision engineers so they would match the rather dubious images produced by the EMIs. However, I have been contacted by Mike Renshall who worked with these cameras and doesn't remember it like this. He reckons the 2005s were pretty good - just like 2001s but with 3 tubes rather than 4. Certainly no worse than the Link 110 which was mechanically poorly manufactured. Well - maybe. The view I have heard mostly expressed is that the 2005 produced soft, muddy pictures and one would have expected it to be an improvement on the 2001, not a backwards step.
The studio was only 66 x 53 feet within firelanes so quite a bit smaller than Pebble Mill's studio A. The small size of the studio proved to a be a problem - limiting the range of shows that could be made here. In 1989 an 18 month project was begun to lengthen the studio. The area under construction extended into what had previously been part of the car park and increased the length of the studio by nearly 40ft. As well as increasing the floor area the height of the studio was raised too, increasing its volume by some 80%. A new 28ft high cyc rail was installed in the newly constructed end of the studio enabling wide camera angles to be used without shooting off the top of the cyclorama. Once complete, Oxford Road Studio A became the largest BBC studio outside London, at 94 x 66ft within firelanes.
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Whilst the refurbishment was going on, productions moved to a temporary studio at Brunswick Dock in Liverpool where they made two series of the kids show On The Waterfront, the BAFTA Craft Awards for 1988 and a few sequences for Red Dwarf, amongst other things. |
The £6 million re-build and refurbishment was completed by May 1991. The old EMIs were replaced by four new Ikegami HK-355 studio cameras and three HK-355P lightweights.
For many years the studio specialised in entertainment and comedy. It was the home of Michael Rodd's Screen Test, some series of Record Breakers, yoof programme The Oxford Road Show, The Travel Show, Cheggers Plays Pop, Open Air, Fax, Jossy's Giants, A Question of Pop, That's Showbusiness with Mike Smith ('91-'96) and The Sunday Show ('95-'97). Bob Monkhouse's gameshow Wipeout came from studio A before moving to Granada's Quay St studios and the first series of Pass the Buck was also made here in 1998. Its most famous sitcom was probably Red Dwarf but one of its other shows - A Question of Sport - is still going strong, having subsequently been made at Granada (3sixtymedia) or sometimes at TV Centre then becoming one of the first shows to be recorded in the new MediaCity studios in Salford.
Unfortunately studio A was another victim of the accountant's red pen and it closed in 2000. The BBC and ITV formed a new company - 3sixtymedia - to run studio operations in Manchester, with ITV having an 80% stake and the BBC 20%. The BBC's studio staff, or some of them at least, found themselves walking up the road to the great rival Granada to become part of the new business.
The studio closed completely for a few years but in 2005 it became part of 3sixytmedia's portfolio, albeit as a 4-waller. It was then used for shooting several single-camera dramas including both series of Life On Mars and Channel 4's Longford.
Studio B at Oxford Road was 2,500 sq ft and was used for local news and sport.
Apparently, there was also a Studio D, which was situated in the scene dock area between Studios A and B. It was quite small, at 24 x 16 ft. The studio was used through to 2004 as the home for The Heaven and Earth Show broadcast live on Sunday mornings. In the early 1990s it was used for a series of the Children's programme The 08.15 from Manchester. When this was produced here the scenery in the scene dock was shifted into Studio B on a Friday night, then moved back out again later on the Sunday. Quite how the BBC got away with using this extra studio after 3sixtymedia had been created in 2000 is a bit of a mystery. Maybe it was so small that it was not seen to be in direct competition with that business.
The last programme came from Oxford Road on Friday 25th November 2011. It was an edition of North-West Tonight. Almost all staff have now left the building and moved to MediaCity. Oxford Road is now for sale.
thanks to Mike Emery for much of the above info.
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BBC Newcastle photo by Gary Richardson |
Newcastle's studio centre was built in the mid 1980s, with the main TV studio A eventually opening in 1988. The local BBC team moved to these very smart premises from less than perfect facilities in a very old building in the city centre. The new base was nicknamed the 'Pink Palace' (see photo above) and contains a production studio of about 65 x 40ft (2,600 sq ft) that was intended to be used for some networked programmes as well as local shows.
Rather than use a TV flooring specialist company, a local contractor was used. Strange as it may seem, none of the cameramen knew just how flat the floor should be in the new studio as they had only been used to the old studio that had ancient floorboards under the lino. They could tell the new floor was flat...but was it flat enough??? They decided to call for a cameraman from Television Centre to come up and test the floor. Unfortunately, every decent cameraman was busy so they looked around for someone who wasn't doing much and sent me. No really.
The year was 1985 and the concrete and asphalt base had just been laid. It had to be perfectly level so that when the lino was laid on top there would be no disturbance to the picture when the cameras tracked across it. When I arrived at the building site I expected to meet just a couple of BBC suits but what seemed like the whole of BBC Newcastle plus a dozen or so managers and engineers from the construction companies were there to meet me. Highly embarrassed, I felt like the man from Del Monte as I slowly tracked a camera ped back and forth across the whole surface, looking for bumps. Not as easy as it sounds, I can assure you. It only took a couple of hours but I was emotionally drained by the time we finished. I did find a few little ridges and holes which I think justified my trip. Funny old world.
The studio, with its perfectly flat floor, went on to specialise in Children's programmes including Jackanory and, of course, Byker Grove. To think that Ant and Dec (or 'PJ and Duncan' as they were then) trod the floor I had checked. It doesn't get much better than that.
Local man Gary Richardson has informed me that other network shows made in the early days of studio A included the children's gameshow Knock Knock, the regional contributions to Children In Need, daytime request show Happy Memories with Cliff Mitchelmore, and the revival of Juke Box Jury with Jools Holland complete with studio audience. Jools of course was no stranger to Newcastle having famously presented The Tube down the road at Tyne Tees Television on City Road in the 1980's.
During this period, the studio was also used for the regional magazine programme Look North when network shows weren't booked. When A was unavailable, Look North decamped to studio B - a much smaller space that was designed for the daily regional news bulletins. It is large enough for two presenters complete with a scaled down version of the news desk
Around the turn of the millennium, the studio ceased any pretentions of being able to make programmes for network TV and was handed over to Look North on a permanent basis. This saved it from closure. It had the curious advantage of not being too big - so it could be used for a programme like this. If it had been larger like the studios 'A' in Manchester or Birmingham it would almost certainly have been closed down for good like they were. On Sundays the studio is also used for the regional version of the Politics Show. Go to this web address to see a 360 degree image of the studio with its Look North set...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/in_pictures/360_panoramas/look_north/
Southampton
David Croxson has pointed out to me that like Newcastle, BBC Southampton also contains what could be described as a production studio. The centre was built slightly later than Newcastle - opening in 1991 - but by the same contractors and within the same BBC climate of wanting to be able to produce more networked programmes from around the UK.
Southampton studio A is slightly smaller than Newcastle's studio at about 1,900 sq ft. The working area is 50 x 36 feet with some additional space near the scene dock door. It is apparently audience capable, has a large scene dock and store, separate lamp store and three dressing rooms. The lighting grid has 60 motorised hoist pantographs on tracks which are also motorised for moving along the grid (that's clever) with mainly dual-source lanterns. Again like Newcastle, there is a studio B which was the original home of the Oxford sub-opt when it started in 2000 but its cameras went to Oxford when the sub-opt moved there in 2005. These days studio B is apparently used once or twice a year when A has its grid safety inspections, but otherwise is used as a meeting room.
Unlike Newcastle, by the time the studio was commissioned, the idea of producing programmes from smaller centres was out of favour and only one networked programme ever came from Southampton - The Midnight Hour - (unless you know differently!!!). Since then though, thanks to yet another BBC management idea that after a few years was quietly forgotten, they've been blessed with an excellent and somewhat over-specified news studio.
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A corner of Studio A, BBC Southampton. Smart floor! |
Of course, the BBC still have regional newsrooms in many major towns in the country but as far as production studios go there are none outside London apart from those in Cardiff and Glasgow, with a 4-waller in Belfast. Cardiff's studio A still makes programmes for BBC Wales but hardly ever are any made for the UK versions of BBC1 or BBC2. However, Scotland is emerging as a new centre for programme making in the UK. The old BBC Glasgow studios closed in 2007 and a brand new 'state of the art' HD studio centre opened in a trendy location in Pacific Quay. This is intended not just to become a programme making centre for Scotland but also to make comedies and entertainment shows for the whole of the UK.
There is incidentally a misunderstanding with some people that the BBC will be opening new studios at Salford Quays in Manchester in 2011. There is of course a huge new media centre opening there but the studios are not owned or operated by the BBC - however they have signed an agreement to use some of them for a number of days each year for the next few years. The Corporation will of course be occupying a great deal of office space there and several departments are moving to Salford from London and the old Manchester centre.
Current BBC production studios outside London
BBC Cardiff
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Broadcasting House, Llandaff image thanks to BBC Wales website |
BBC Wales moved into its purpose-built TV and radio centre in Llandaff in 1966. The building contains several radio studios, one of which is large enough to house the BBC Symphony Orchestra of Wales. This orchestra moved its home to the BBC Hoddinott Hall at the Wales Millennium Centre in January 2009. There is also a small television studio used for news and sport programmes.
The main production TV studio, C1, opened several years later - probably in 1974. It is 80 x 62 metric feet within firelanes, making the studio about 6,500 sq ft overall. The grid has 88 motorised lighting bars with the usual BBC dual-source lanterns on them. The production galleries are spacious and well equipped and from my experience of working there on a couple of shows it is a very nice place to make programmes.
Since 1974, the main programme recorded here has been Pobol y Cym (People of the Valley) - making it the BBC's longest-running soap. Located at the back of the building is an exterior set of a street with some house and shop fronts but all the interiors are shot in the studio. For many years the programme used the studio on alternate weeks, allowing other shows to use it then. In recent months it has been semi-permanently based in the studio.
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The Pobol y Cym set. It is built between two office blocks at the back of the main Broadcasting House building. |
Studio C1 has been home to several popular series over the years. Most of these have been for transmission on BBC1 Wales or S4C but highly regarded drama The Life and Times of David Lloyd George was made here in 1981, drama series District Nurse ('84-'87) with Nerys Huges, Tiger Bay ('96-'97) and one series of Terry and June was famously recorded here when no studio was available at TV Centre. Mastermind is now occasionally recorded here for transmission on BBC1. Other series made in English for BBC1 Wales have included the popular sitcom High Hopes ('02-'08) and musical gameshow The Lyrics Game ('03).
Of course, several dramas have been made for BBC1 by BBC Wales - including Dr Who and Torchwood - but these have not used the studios here in Llandaff. Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes and Merlin were also made by independent production companies in Wales but again, they were made on location and/or on film stages.
In the autumn of 2008 Jana Bennett announced the BBC's intention to move production of Crimewatch to Cardiff and to increase the amount of drama made in the city. Casualty has moved from its current home in Bristol to join other drama series and single plays in the new HQ in Roath Lock, Cardiff Bay. Pobol y Cym is also due to move to Roath Lock in the autumn of 2011. Crimewatch will then come from C1, ensuring that it remains open at least for a while. The programme moved from TV Centre to Llandaff early in 2011 but had to use the recently vacated orchestra studio A for several months. Once the soap moves to the new drama centre I understand that Crimewatch will transfer to studio C1.
Roath Lock - Cardiff
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No - not the entrance to a theme park or seaside amusement arcade, this is Roath Lock, the BBC's brand new Drama Centre. |
In July 2010 work began on the construction of the new BBC Wales Drama Production Centre. Occupying the last piece of undeveloped land in the Cardiff Bay area this 170,000 sq ft site will, by 2012, house a number of popular BBC drama series. Originally called 'Roath Basin', it changed its name to 'Roath Lock' early in 2011 following consultation with staff. You may draw your own conclusions.
All credit due, the first shots were recorded only 14 months after construction of the studios began - an extraordinarily speedy process.
Casualty, a genuine casualty of the BBC's drive to move programme making around the UK, transferred from its base across the water in Bristol to these studios during the summer of 2011, the first filming beginning on 16th September. Some of the actors and crew have moved house - a minibus brings the others daily from Bristol. Pobol y Cym, the long-running soap, is due to move here towards the end of November from its current base at the BBC Wales HQ on the other side of Cardiff in Llandaff. It will have a larger exterior set and a permanent studio.
Dr Who is currently made in Upper Boat Studios - converted factory buildings on an industrial site at Treforest, near Pontypridd. The BBC has leased those buildings since the summer of 2006. That operation is due to move to the Roath Lock site in 2012 when the whole Drama Centre will be complete. The Dr Who base at Upper Boat currently provides space for workshops, video editing suites, six sound stages and a large props store. It is said to be ten times the size of BBC Llandaff. Spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures was also made at Upper Boat and was due to transfer to Roath Lock but following the sad death of Elizabeth Sladen in April 2011 the decision was taken not to make any more. Early series of Torchwood were also made at Upper Boat but the fourth series, Miracle Day, was mostly filmed in the United States.
With Dr Who, Casualty, Pobol y Cym and other dramas such as Merlin, Being Human, Sherlock and Upstairs Downstairs being made here too, it is not surprising that the centre will have no less than 9 sound stages. This makes it comparable with some of the leading film studio sites in the UK. Some of the stages have flexible lighting grids enabling quick relighting of sets, rather than the basic open grids found in most film stages.
Roath Lock has the largest green screen stage in Europe at 20 x 12 metres main screen. The ceiling return is 20 x 5m and the two wrap arounds are 10 x 12 metres each. This is primarily intended for Dr Who but will be available for other productions to hire at a competitive rate.
The site is also expected to house 'creative media firms.' It is reported that local independent production companies such as Indus and Presentable are in discussions about moving here.
With so much production and the orchestra having moved from Llandaff it is inevitable that there will be pressure to transfer the remaining activities at that site to Roath Lock too. However, 'according to sources' that is not likely to happen before 2014.
The BBC has committed to a 20 year lease costing £1.35m per year. The construction cost was shared between the Welsh government, Cardiff council and the development company, Igloo.
Blackstaff - Belfast
In 1989 the BBC announced plans to develop ‘Blackstaff’ near Broadcasting House in Belfast into a 6,500 sqft studio with work starting in February 1990. The facility also with accommodation for production departments and support staff was completed by the end of 1991 and replaced ageing facilities at Balmoral Hall. Development costs were kept down by purchasing second hand lighting, mechanical equipment and audience seating. Further cost savings were made as dedicated control rooms were not built (apart from a lighting gallery), with technical facilities provided by an OB vehicle when required.
When it originally opened the Type 6 OB in operation was equipped with Thomson 1531 and 1624 cameras, although the portable tube cameras were were replaced by 1647 CCD cameras around 1992. These cameras were all replaced in the OB unit around 1997 by widescreen capable 1657 camera heads.
Later the same OB scanner was equipped entirely with widescreen digital technology including Thomson/Philips LDK200 cameras, a 32-input DD30 vision mixer and 36-channel sound mixer. It was the principal unit used to provide technical and control room facilities for the studio. In late 2011 this scanner was replaced with a refurbished one with HD facilities.
Blackstaff is the home of many locally transmitted shows such as Nolan Live and the Blackstaff Sessions. It has also been used to make several UK network programmmes including Patrick Kielty Almost Live, Frank Skinner's Opinionated, Ask Rhod Gilbert and Question Time. It has retractable audience seating for 290. A new floor was laid in 2011.
I would appreciate any more info on other programmes made for network TV. The studio may well get further network use with the increase in programmes commissioned by 'The Nations' under the new BBC scheme of things.
In Broadcasting House, Ormeau Avenue, the BBC also have studio B - a 2,000 sq ft studio used for local news, current affairs and sport, and studio C - a small unattended studio with a single camera. Studio One is an old radio concert studio across the road from BH and has been used for a few programmes including Sunday Morning Live and Sesame Tree. There is also a small studio in the parliament building at Stormont.
thanks to Mike Emery for much of the above technical info.
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UTV - the independent TV company serving Northern Ireland - has a studio centre in Belfast but no large production studios. It does have a 1,600 sq ft (149 sq m) studio that in 2010 was given an infinity cyc that can be used for green screen recordings (or blue or white if required.) (Teddington's studio 3 was similarly equipped in 2010, although that studio is somewhat larger). UTV's main studio (studio 1) is used for their daily UTV Live programme. Meanwhile, Northern Ireland Screen have been renting The Paint Hall Studio from Harland and Wolff shipyard since 2007 for use as four sound stages. The building consists of four16,000 sq ft 'cells' within a huge structure, each with enormous doors to the outside world. The roof height is an impressive 90 ft and each stage contains a lighting truss grid that can be raised or lowered. Season 1 of Game of Thrones is being made here for HBO and Sky Atlantic. Feature films have included City of Ember in 2007 and Your Highness in 2009. The largest sound stage in the Republic of Ireland is at Ardmore Studios in Bray, County Wicklow and is Stage D. It is 15,000 sq ft and is where the popular drama The Tudors is filmed. The centre has five stages and has been busy for many years making movies and TV productions. Another recent TV drama was The Old Curiosity Shop with Derek Jacobi made for ITV.
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Pacific Quay - Glasgow
Pacific Quay, formerly known as Prince's Dock, formed an important part of Glasgow's once thriving industrial docklands, being the first dock in the city to install the full range of cranes capable of lifting the heavy engines and boilers so important in establishing Glasgow's industrial influence across the world. The cargo docks existed for more than 100 years before closing in the 1970s. The site was subsequently chosen for the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988 but when that closed it remained largely redundant until its rebirth as Pacific Quay in the early 1990s. It covers 28 hectares and comprises a 500,000 square feet mixed-use development incorporating offices, residential, hotel, leisure and other supporting businesses. The 10-acre Festival Park, to the south of the new development area, remains as a permanent reminder of the success of the flower festival.
The BBC's new HQ is a glass-fronted rectangular block, six stories high. (Confusingly, actually five plus a mezzanine floor.) The building is clad with a triple-glazed system, which I have read provides a natural air-conditioning system. The interior of the building is far more interesting than the somewhat bland exterior. Within the structure is a huge staircase, known as the 'street', that rises throughout the entire length of the design, housing the studios underneath and providing break-out spaces and informal meeting areas on top. This is clearly what the architect was mostly interested in when he sat down with his blank sheet of paper.
Making one's way from the studio to the cafeteria which is on the top floor is therefore not quite as straightforward as it is in most studio centres. To be fair, there are of course lifts to the top floor although the complicated security pass system does mean that you might get trapped the wrong side of the door if you're not careful.
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The 'street'. This photo was taken on the first floor (actually the second floor as the first floor is called the 'mezzanine') so it doesn't show the entire height. The interior reminds me of the turbine hall in Tate Modern - it's on a similar scale. However, instead of a huge spider or giant trumpet, there is a massive staircase rising from the entrance on the ground floor to the cafeteria on the sixth. Or fifth, as it says in the lifts.
The materials were apparently chosen to represent the history of the area - I'm told that the sandstone is the same as was used for the old dockside tenement buildings, the chromed metal represents the local ship building yards and the grey concrete blocks represent something else I've forgotten. Sorry. |
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The view from the top level. Extraordinary. The offices on each floor open out with no fire doors or other barriers to be seen. I gather that initially there were rules about what could be left on desks so the place didn't look untidy but from what I have seen, that rule has quite sensibly already been quietly forgotten. |
It's not only BBC Scotland that has moved to this area - Scottish Television (formally SMG), the company that provides the ITV service to Scotland, is also based at Pacific Quay next door but one to the Corporation's building. However, STV have no production studios in their complex, just small news studios. They vacated their central Glasgow studio centre which included a 6,200 sq ft studio but decided that it was not cost-effective to replace it. That old Scottish Television studio had opened in 1974 and was demolished in 2007 shortly after STV moved here. It does on reflection seem extraordinary that a nation with such a strong sense of identity as Scotland should have not even one large independent production TV studio to make programmes for its own market.
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Just a quick note to record that from 1957 when they were created, Scottish Television occupied the Theatre Royal in Hope Street, which they used as a studio. Some of the programmes made there were also shown south of the border. In 1974 they moved next door to new purpose-built studios, which in turn were demolished in 2007, as mentioned above. The theatre was then purchased by Scottish Opera. I'm told by Leigh Mulpeter that... '...The rear of the domed ceiling still opens up to reveal a second FOH lighting position put in place for the studio work. This, when I last toured there, still had the Strand Patt 793 2Kw profiles in place as they were far too big and heavy for the crew to manhandle out of the roof space. The roof opening is operated by a still beautifully intact and operational wooden block and pulley system with some very old counterweights.' Well fancy that! |
Since STV no longer have any studios, the BBC are hoping that they will book studio space in their building from time to time as well as independent production companies. This is not such a strange idea - programmes have been made at BBC TV Centre in London for ITV and C4 for many years. In fact one or two shows have indeed been made here for STV but sadly not anything like the number that ought to be if STV took their responsibilities to the Scottish nation seriously. Why isn't there a regular Scots gameshow or quiz show, some music shows and a sitcom or two with Scottish scripts and actors? If they were well made they would pull in the ratings and generate advertising revenue and some of these shows could be shown over the UK ITV network too. That's what STV should be doing in Scotland - as should the BBC of course. (end of rant number 1.) OK - STV are now making one quiz show - Postcode Challenge - in studio B at PQ. It's a start.
I have been told a story that cannot possibly be true. As everyone knows, PQ was designed as a 'tapeless' studio centre. Except of course, it isn't and all programmes made in studio A are recorded on videotape like in every other studio. It seems that early in its existence, a runner was sent to deliver the day's recorded tapes to the STV building 'next door' where they were going to be edited. She duly handed them into reception and went home. Next day there was a flap on as STV hadn't received the tapes. It seems that the runner had obeyed her instructions to the letter. Unfortunately, the building literally next door is owned by the Scottish judiciary. STV is next door but one. The gameshow tapes had been taken in and included as evidence in an on-going legal case and could not now be released without permission from the judge, which would take several weeks to obtain. I have yet to establish whether the runner was employed again. More likely she was promoted and is now a producer of a Saturday night talent show.
The BBC's building here contains three studios, of which one is is relatively large - at something over 8,000 sq ft. It is 90 x 70 metric feet within firelanes so pretty well identical in size to studios TC3, TC4, TC6 and TC8 at TV Centre. One might think it was booked solid making shows for Scotland - to be shown on BBC1 Scotland and STV but sadly this isn't the case. The way British TV is organised, the good people of Scotland mostly have to watch the same as the rest of the UK. No wonder so many Scots want independence!
The main studio - studio A - is in fact occupied for much of the time with programmes being made for the UK versions of BBC1 or BBC2. Since opening in the summer of 2007, several shows have been brought to the studio that might otherwise have been made in London. These have included Get 100 and Copycats (CBBC gameshows), The National Lottery 1 vs 100, Who Dares Wins and In It To Win It, daytime gameshow A Question of Genius, sitcoms The Old Guys and Life of Riley and song and dance show Tonight's the Night. Almost all of these had the production teams, directors, actors/presenters and various heads of craft departments flown up from London. I am very pleased to report that the studio staff were very friendly and helpful to those who travelled up to work with them - I'm not sure I would have been in the circumstances! I have certainly found this to be the case on the several shows I have lit in these studios. The local staffers must find it a bit galling to have a bunch of Englishmen coming up to tell them how to do things that they probably consider they are quite capable of doing themselves but they certainly don't show it and could not be more accommodating.
Studio B is much smaller - smaller than TC2, say, at TV Centre. In 2008/9 it was decided that daytime shows The Weakest Link and Eggheads would also move to Scotland and be made in this studio. Weakest Link was being made in a large studio in Pinewood and was completely unsuitable to be transferred to such a small room. However, despite the size of the Scottish studio being marked out on the floor of TV-One at Pinewood so all could appreciate the problem, certain BBC managers and producers apparently insisted that it would have to be made to fit. After several months of discussions it was eventually decided to make the show in Studio A at PQ. Eggheads, however, was made to fit in Studio B. By chance, the set could just about squeeze into the tiny space with a little trimming but the 'question room' - previously an area just behind the set in the same studio - literally had to become another room in the building.
The BBC is plainly keen to see these studios used as much as possible and to try to get more programmes made outside London. However, I'm not sure that making a couple of sitcoms in Glasgow that from their scripts are plainly supposed to be set in the south-east of England is quite the way to achieve that. Similarly, I wonder if making existing gameshows in Glasgow that have worked well in London is really helping to promote Scottish culture and identity throughout the UK. I wonder how many Scots even realise that these shows are now 'Scottish?' Nevertheless, in October 2008 Jana Bennett (Director, BBC Vision) announced that...
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'...Network spend [in Scotland] is planned to at least meet the population level by 2016, increasing from 3.3% currently to around 9%.' |
She added...
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'...We will double the amount of comedy from the Nations by 2012....Scotland will focus on five genres, in all of which it already has great strengths – and those are Children's, Comedy, Entertainment, Drama and Factual.' |
I wonder, is it possible to 'focus' on quite so many areas of TV - that's almost all of it isn't it? Oh yes - I almost forgot the Arts. But apparently, Newsnight Review (now called The Review Show) and Alan Yentob's Imagine have moved here too. Anyway, there was more...
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'...Scotland's in-house Entertainment business will be reinforced by the move of key returning strands. We will be making at least one Saturday night Lottery show in Pacific Quay as well as one from the independent sector. To bolster the in-house entertainment department we are planning to move Weakest Link to Scotland.' |
Anne Robinson's reaction to the move was not recorded. Jana Bennet continued...
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'...Question Time, one of the BBC's leading political programmes, will be based in Scotland from 2010. We are planning to commission a National Lottery show from an independent in Scotland in addition to one made in-house.' |
Now, pretty obviously Question Time is a show that travels the country so will not be made in these studios - except perhaps when the show visits Glasgow. As for the Lotto shows - it seems that the intention now is that all the BBC's lottery shows will be made here.
What does seem odd and downright wasteful to many is that so many shows are being made in these studios that were previously made in London - but without any obvious benefit to Scotland or indeed to the BBC. It must be costing far more, since so many of the key people involved are travelling up here from their homes around London and being put up in hotels for the duration. The sets and hired lighting equipment too have to be trucked all the way up the country. Local BBC staff cameramen, sound crews, electricians and scene shifters are of course employed on the shows - which is nice for them but tough on the freelance crews who originally worked on them.
It's easy to be cynical about these things but in principal the BBC is trying to do the right thing. It can't seem right to many people all over the UK that so much of the country's television seems to be focused on London. However, the essential problem will not go away - as has been discovered time and again; most writers and performers working in the worlds of theatre, comedy, music, film and television tend to gravitate towards London, wherever they were born and brought up. London is arguably the cultural capital of the world, not just the UK. There will of course always be individuals who fight that urge and decide to work in their local town or city but for most creative people the magnetic force of London cannot be resisted any more than people in similar professions in the US gravitate to Hollywood or New York.
That applies too to producers, studio directors and the various craft departments - set design, lighting, sound, cameras, vision mixing, costume, make-up, graphics, visual effects and so on - it's simply because they work on so many shows of all types that they learn how to do their jobs and are able to work quickly and efficiently to world-class standards. If all that is fragmented then arguably the industry as a whole will suffer.
My guess (and I promise that this rant will be over soon) is that the important thing to most viewers is who the people are that they are watching on their TVs - and where the programme appears to be set - not where the programme has actually been made. The Liver Birds and Bread had a few locations filmed in Liverpool but the majority of the running time was shot at TV Centre in London. So what? Those comedies could not have been more Liverpudlian. Two Pints of Lager is firmly set in Runcorn with a northern cast but apart from a few location scenes it too is recorded at TV Centre. Does that matter? Surely what really matters is that the culture of people who are not from the south-east of England is properly represented.
Rant over.
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Anyway - back to the studios. As previously mentioned, there are three - A, B and C. A is a little over 8,000 sq ft (90ft x 70ft within firelanes), B is 2,600 sq ft (53.3ft x 37ft within firelanes) and C is just under 2,000 sq ft. (The 'within firelanes' measures are metric feet - i.e. 30cm.) Only A and C have fully equipped galleries. B is basically a four-waller and uses an OB scanner as a production gallery although it does have a lighting and vision gallery. C is used for local news and sport and A, as mentioned, mostly for entertainment and comedy shows. A is equipped with eight Sony HDC-1500 high def cameras and C with five. The studios are truly state of the art and were designed to be 'tapeless' - in other words, all material would be recorded straight onto hard drives where it could easily be edited. In fact all shows still record onto tape. The galleries in A are large and well laid-out, although perversely located at upper gantry level rather than at ground level which would have made much more sense. The walk to and from the studio floor is thus longer than in any other studio I know of - apart from the new ones at MediaCity in Salford. Who has been telling the architects of these new studios that we'd like to be as far away from the studio floor as possible please? I'd like to meet him!!! At first glance, studio A appears to be almost a carbon copy of studios TC3 or TC4 at TV Centre. It is almost exactly the same size and has widely-spaced long lighting bars so looks very similar. I suppose this is a compliment to the team who built TV Centre 50 years ago. Even now, the basic design can't be improved upon. Lighting here is controlled by a very sophisticated data network (ACN - 'the new DMX' - if you're interested) which as originally planned, enables 64 universes of data to control the three studios, presentation, reception and local areas. Thus it is possible for a show using any gallery to control the lighting in any other studio as well as its own. Sounds a bit scary to me! In fact, following one or two data glitches (surprise surprise) the studios are now on isolated networks. Phew! The lights are suspended from motorised bars in A rather than monopoles (which is a bit of a shame if you ask me) and are controlled by ETC Congo desks. The dimmers are on the lighting bars, rather than in a separate dimmer room so access for fault finding or resetting trips can be complicated. Everything is linked to a complex data network which can make even the simplest thing - like feeding a socket with mains - rather time-consuming and occasionally prone to network faults. The lighting and scenery hoists are controlled by a complex computerised panel which reassuringly has two buttons to actually control the motion. These were clearly manufactured specifically for this studio. See below...
Studio B has a basic scaffold grid with bars about 3ft 6ins apart. Rigging is via step ladders and Genie lifts. (No quick relights in here then!) There is a mix of new lights and the Colortran dual sources from the old BBC Glasgow studios. Access to studio A is via two scene dock doors with clear access to the outside world for loading/unloading and there is plenty of space for storage. This aspect of the building's design is excellent. (Interesting to compare these studios in this respect with the new ones at Salford Quays, which are of course not being built by the BBC.)
There is no doubt that these are well designed studios and have benefited from a great deal of input from the BBC staff who moved from the old studios in Queen Margaret Drive. They also called upon some very experienced consultants for advice and naturally didn't quite get all that they wanted but in the words of Joe Breslin, resident LD, "I aimed high, asked for everything and got about 70%" Good for him, I say. At least they bothered to ask him. The BBC are of course very proud of this new studio centre and are often to be heard boasting of its superior state of the art facilities. Without in any way wishing to appear churlish, it is perhaps worth pointing out that the main studio here is by no means particularly large. (I have even read one enthusiastic report that claims it is the largest HD studio in Europe!) As TV studios go studio A is roughly the same size as about seven other studios in London and two in Manchester. In fact six others - TC1, Teddington 1, TLS studio 1, Maidstone studio 5, MediaCity HQ1 and of course Fountain are all substantially larger. All of those studios are either fully or partially HD equipped too. This is a very nice studio but frankly so are all those others. BBC Scotland are rightly proud of their new facility but studio A is simply one of many well-designed and well-equipped TV studios in the UK - most of which are just as 'state of the art' having had HD refits over the past few years.
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So these excellent studios will no doubt be made to succeed - they can't be allowed to fail. I genuinely wish them every success. What I would truly like to see however are plenty of shows made here by the Scots for Scotland. It would also be good if some of them are shown on UK network TV too - but they should be 'Scottish' shows, not London shows brought up to occupy the studio in order to artificially satisfy a quota.