|
|
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 England, Wales and Scotland. 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; Omni Studio - Cardiff; EPIC - Norwich) current ITV studios (The Manchester Studios; The Leeds Studios) independent studios (Endemol West - Bristol; Dragon International Studios - Cardiff; Barcud Derwen - Caernarfon; Web Studios and The Pie Factory - Salford Old BBC regional production studios (Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle, Southampton) Current BBC studios (Llandaff - Cardiff; Roath Basin - 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 (Meridian), Nottingham (Central), Norwich (Anglia), Southampton (Meridian), Albert Dock Liverpool (Granada) and Gillingham (TVS).
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...
Independent regional studios
Paintworks, Bristol
One relatively recent development on the regional studios front is 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 the past few years they have steadily been converting parts of the old factory into no less than seven multicamera studios, controlled by four production gallery suites.
These are now busy making various 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. The studios transmit eight hours of live television every day. The operation here employs between 80 and 300 staff, depending on the work in hand. The loss of work to existing studios in the rest of the UK by all these programmes being made here must be considerable. The studios have TV floors but only basic scaffold or trussing lighting grids. They don't need anything more flexible as they are used for shows with standing sets which, once lit, can stay in position for weeks, months or in the case of Deal or No Deal - years. The building Endemol West occupies - 'Paintworks' - 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.' It sounds a very nice place to work.
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.
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...
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 site - the future is far from clear but frankly the chances of it ever becoming a film or TV studio centre now seem remote.
Barcud Derwen - North Wales Based in Caernarfon, Barcud have established themselves as the leading provider of OB facilities in Wales. They also have a couple of very nicely equipped studios that arguably put some better-known facilities to shame. Studio 1 is 88ft x 72 ft (6,300 sq ft) and has pull-out audience seating on one wall for up to 250 people. It has a saturated lighting rig with motorised bars and 450 dimmers. The gallery is equipped to support up to 12 cameras. Although SD at present, Barcud do own HD OB units so making shows here in HD is relatively straightforward. Studio 2 has a simple scaffold grid and is 52ft x 31 ft. The two studios share one gallery suite. The studios mostly make programmes for the Welsh market but clearly hope to attract a wider clientele. They have made one series I know of to date that was not purely for Wales - Captain Mack for CITV.
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 is now apparently in the process of swinging 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 at present. It has to be said there is one other thing that attracts programme makers away from London - it is often much 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 in a new studio centre being planned and constructed in the fashionable and trendy area of Salford Quays. This won't be open for a few years yet but in the meantime a couple of enterprising companies have opened studios near the new media centre. One is the Pie Factory - see below - but before them was Web Studios...
MediaCityUK - Salford Quays With a name as grand as this you know that they must be planning something big. Well - they are. 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...
Despite the size of the whole project, the planned number of medium/large TV studios is only four, the BBC's TV Centre in White City of course having eight. Some people have compared this development with TV Centre but this is misleading. Nevertheless, when it opens in 2011/2012, 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 planning to move several departments here from London including Radio Five Live, BBC Children's Department and BBC Sport. All of these are currently based at Television Centre in White City. However, none of these departments make 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 is used by the Sport department at TVC. Children's department occasionally book one other small studio for Blue Peter - and that's it. The development is being built 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 experience so far 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. MediaCity consists of several buildings - one of which will be taken over by the BBC. However, the main studio block is separate and it had until recently been 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 will be three small studios on the first floor of the studio building that will be for the use of CBBC. One is 49 x 33 ft wall to wall and the other two are both 41 x 24 ft wall to wall. The plans indicate an area marked '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. Incidentally - there is no studio in the studio block earmarked for the BBC Sport department. I gather that they will have facilities in the BBC's own building.
Negotiations and discussions between Peel Group and ITV (the main owners of 3sixtymedia) continued throughout 2008 and into 2009. The detailed planning and design for these studios has also been developing since the original planning application. 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 hoists or a monopole grid. I was told that the project team were in detailed discussion regarding the studios' design. I was pleased to be asked and gave my view - like almost every other working LD I know, I much prefer monopoles as it happens. The last I heard was that the decision had been taken to fit bars instead. Oh well. Rather surprisingly, there are several things about the drawings on the Council's website that don't seem to make much sense to someone like me who has worked for many years in a large number of TV studios. Other people with a lot of studio experience I have spoken to are equally surprised at some of the things the plans appear to indicate. However, I can only assume that these drawings are early drafts and that by the time the actual studios are built the architects will have corrected all the obvious errors and shortcomings. What is certainly clear is that these studio will cost a huge amount to equip ready for operation. Obviously they will have to be be HD and with 5.1 sound - and since TVC's TC6 and the new Sky studios will be 1080/50p, one assumes that these studios will have to be fitted out to this latest standard too. The sheer cost of equipping all four studios (seven if you include the three small CBBC ones) must be phenomenal.
The studios were intended to open in 2011/2012 and ITV would then close its studios in Quay Street. A site for a new building opposite MediaCity had been earmarked for ITV 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:
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 mind. This was hardly surprising as it was essential that someone with TV production experience would be running the operation of the studios. In fact, I wrote to the Peel Group on two occasions in March and April to ask for a simple statement regarding their current intentions for the studios following the ITV withdrawal. In May I was contacted by a senior member of the MediaCity team and told that he would be 'bringing me up to speed' regarding the studios in the near future. I have yet to receive a statement but towards the end of June there was an interesting press release in which The Peel Group announced that they are in 'exclusive talks' with Ascent Media over awarding the contract for the running of the studios. This company recently established a presence in Wardour St and Stephen St in the heart of Soho and are world leaders in the distribution of data enabling the rapid and secure movement of large files, essential for efficient TV and film post production. Ascent are a multinational company based in Burbank, California and describe themselves thus: 'The worlds largest provider of integrated global services for the creation, management and distribution of media content. We serve major film studios, independent producers, broadcast networks, cable channels, advertising agencies, and other content producers and aggregators from more than 70 facilities worldwide.' Clearly this is a company that has the wherewithal to equip, market and operate the studios here in a way that is bound to affect bookings in other studios throughout the UK. In other words, despite this project appearing to wobble a bit for a few months early in 2009 it is now on track to open in 2011 as planned. Which does beg the question - what will become of 3sixtymedia and the old ITV/Granada studios? It is hard to see how the area will be able to support two multicamera TV studio centres, when the existing centre is seldom very busy. Maybe ITV will eventually be moving to MediaCity after all.
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.
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 C 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.
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.
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.
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 1970s led to colour programmes being made in Studio A from 1972 in conjunction with the West regions 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 1976. 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 1980s 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 Bristols 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...
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 Cardiff in 2011 - a very unpopular move with many people. 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.
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 it is said 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. (How could the same company that produced the first working electronic TV camera in the UK and several more world-beating monochrome cameras followed by the the EMI 2001, the best colour camera of the late '60s and '70s, go on to produce this pile of poo? I assume the man who knew how it all worked eventually had to retire. However, if you worked for EMI at the time I'd love to hear your version of the story!) 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. 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, A Question of Pop, That's Showbusiness with Mike Smith, Bob Monkhouse's gameshow Wipeout, and Children's Saturday Morning show The 08.15 from Manchester. Its most famous sitcom was probably Red Dwarf but one of its other shows - A Question of Sport - is still going strong, now being made at Granada (3sixtymedia) or sometimes at TV Centre. 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 has since been used for shooting several single-camera dramas including both series of Life On Mars and Channel 4's Longford. There is also a 2,500 sq ft studio B at Oxford Road which is still used for local news and sport. Apparently, there is or 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 whole Oxford Road building is due to close in 2011 and all the operations here will move into the BBC's new HQ at MediaCity in Salford Quays. (More programmes made in Manchester would be great to hear please!) thanks to Mike Emery for much of the above info.
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.
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
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.
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 here. Casualty is to move from its current home in Bristol and join the other drama series and single plays in a new HQ in Roath Basin, Cardiff Bay. As yet, there are no firm plans to close Llandaff but its current activities may also be housed in this new BBC Wales centre in due course, enabling the BBC to dispose of this site.
Roath Basin - Cardiff Not much yet to report but watch this space. Dr Who and spin-offs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures are currently made in converted factory buildings on an industrial site in Treforest, near Pontypridd. The BBC has leased these buildings since the summer of 2006. This operation is due to move to the new Roath Basin site in Cardiff Bay around 2011. It will have to be a large complex - the Dr Who base at Treforest currently provides space for workshops, video editing suites, no less than six sound stages and a large props store. It is said to be ten times the size of BBC Llandaff. If Casualty and other dramas are to be made here too then one assumes that at least 8 stages will be required. That's quite a big studio centre! There is also talk of the BBC's longest running soap, Pobol Y Cym eventually moving here from Llandaff. This is currently shot using multicamera techniques so it may be that a fully equippped TV studio will also be needed, although Birmingham's Doctors has shown how a daily soap can be shot with high production values using single camera techniques so this possibly seems more likely. The site is expected to house commercial broadcasters, facilities houses and media training bodies. It is also 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 in a few years there will be pressure to move the remaining activities at that site to Roath Basin too. However, 'according to sources' that is not likely to happen before 2014.
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. Today the same OB scanner is now equipped entirely with widescreen digital technology including Thomson/Philips LDK200 cameras, a 32-input DD30 vision mixer and 36-channel sound mixer. It is the principal unit used to provide technical and control room facilities for the studio. 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 such as Patrick Kielty Almost Live, Question Time and parts of Children in Need. It has retractable audience seating for 290 and is said to be the largest studio in Ireland. Can you confirm this??? I would also 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 and sport and studio 1, a 2,000 sq ft four-waller. thanks to Mike Emery for much of the above technical info.
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.
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.
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 ITV 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.) 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 days'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. 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 included Get 100 (a CBBC gameshow), The National Lottery 1 vs 100, Who Dares Wins and In It To Win It, daytime gameshow A Question of Genius and sitcoms The Old Guys and Life of Riley. 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 show 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...
She added...
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...
Anne Robinson's reaction to the move was not recorded. Jana Bennet continued...
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 the shows.
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. 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.
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.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||