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 An unreliable and wholly unofficial history

of BBC Television Centre...

...with grateful thanks to several current and ex BBC staffers who have passed some fascinating documents and other information to me.

 

contents of this web page...

overview

early plans

stage 1 (scenery block)

stage 2 (restaurant block and TC9)

stage 3 (TC2, TC3, TC4, TC5)

videotape and telerecording

presentation area

puppet studio/video effects workshop

opening TC1, TC6, TC7

(a potted history of early colour cameras)

stage 4 (the spur including TC8, TC10, TC11)

the television rehearsal rooms

stage 5 (including TC0 and TC12)

stage 6 (including the studio that never was)

programmes

studio summary

the future

 

 

An Overview

The original plan for TVC dated around 1960.  TC8 was the only one of the planned three studios along the spur that was eventually constructed.

Of all the TV studio centres in the UK, Television Centre (TVC) is by far the largest.  With eight medium to large production studios, five small ones and a further number of news and weather studios it continues to dominate the industry.  The building itself is huge; it is only seven stories high, apart from the tall East Tower, but the area it covers is considerable.  As well as the studios, scenery block and restaurant block there are countless hundreds of offices.  When they ran out of space in the 1980s they built even more offices on the roof of the scenery runway that encircles the main block.  Thousands of people work there every day - most not having a clue what everyone else does.  The waitress service restaurant is no more but there are still two cafeterias and many snack bars, coffee bars, delis and tea bars all over the building, not to mention the BBC Club.  The Centre contains a travel agent, a hairdresser, a dry cleaner, a florist (called 'Auntie's Blooms') and even a branch of WH Smith.

Its statistics are pretty extraordinary.  The main block is 500 feet in diameter and at basement level covers three and a half acres.  In the studios nearest the railway line the walls are 2ft 3ins thick to provide sound insulation.  When opened, the building contained 85 dressing rooms, sufficient for 613 artists.  There were originally 43 lifts plus 2 escalators to the basement level.  (These have not worked for at least the past two decades, apart from a very brief period in the '90s when the new offices for 'TSPR' opened in the hub.)  The ventilation system was the largest non-industrial system in Europe with 19 air-conditioning plants, 22 ventilating plants, 8 extract plants and 2 'absorbtion refrigerating machines'.  Gosh.

It was originally supplied with 2 separate feeds from the national grid, in case one went down.  Later, one of these was withdrawn by the electricity supplier when Battersea Power Station was closed and the one remaining feed has indeed failed on at least three occasions to my knowledge.  To cope with this, emergency generators have been installed and the power plant that originally only heated the water was some years ago replaced with two gas turbines that can generate electricity as well as providing hot water and cooled air as a by-product.  This system is known as 'combined heat and power' or CHP.  (Their rumoured history of unreliability, however, is probably the subject of another book to be told elsewhere!)  On this very subject I have been contacted by Andrew Prince...

'Problem was they tried to be too clever and tried to extract the heat from either the main or the reserve generator.  Point of interest, I was tasked with testing them once overnight.  We advised the occupants of TVC that we were doing this and they should switch off PCs etc overnight just in case.  Come the night we powered the CHP up, disconnected TVC from the mains and tried to load the generator up.  I went around all the studios and put on all the studio lights we could and surprise  -  we cound not create the load we wanted.  Just goes to show what power is wasted overnight by things being left on. 

Footnote, when it came to re connect TVC to the national grid, the breaker would not go in.  It took several attempts before it held.  Phew, there were a few white faced people there that night.'

 

Despite best intentions, not all the original design choices were good ones.  The official 1960 BBC book about the building proudly states that the roofs of the studios were covered in asbestos tiles and that the trusses supporting the studio grids were 'fire-proofed, their members being covered with sprayed-on asbestos fibre.'  Guess what.  In 1988 asbestos was unexpectedly 'discovered' in TVC's studios and they were all shut down for examination.  Perhaps the BBC managers should have read the BBC's own 1960 book and they would have known some time before.  Anyway - each studio was closed for detailed examination and after a few weeks depending on the seriousness of the risk was brought back into service.  In the case of some, the asbestos was removed and with others it was encapsulated, with an intention to remove it at some later time.  

The removal or containment programmes for each studio lasted for many months or in the case of TC1 - years. 

Almost inevitably, this problem re-emerged in 2006.  It was then announced that further work would be necessary on three of the studios - TC2, TC3 and TC5.  This was subsequently carried out, one studio at a time, beginning with TC2 from late summer 2006.  The studio reopened after a very expensive process of removal early in 2007 when work on TC5 began.  This was complete by the summer of 2007 and TC3 was closed, reopening early in 2008.  Now this process is complete - seven of the main studios have had their original soundproofing stripped to the brick walls and new panels installed - making them look like new studios.  Only TC8 remains as it was built since no asbestos was used in its construction.  As far as can be determined, all eight of the main studios are now free of asbestos, or any that remains has been well encapsulated.

Rumours still persist however that the building remains contaminated.  How much truth there is in this is hard to determine.  Certainly, huge amounts of work have been done in the studios at vast expense over the years and they are constantly monitored for any trace of contamination.  My guess is that they are probably now amongst the 'cleanest' studios in the country.

It's hard to say for certain how other studios in London have been affected.  Any built before the late '60s are likely to have asbestos somewhere in their walls or insulation.  Within the TV industry, it appears that only the BBC have really tackled this issue seriously and spent literally millions of pounds removing or encapsulating the asbestos in this building.

 

Construction and alterations have never ceased since building commenced in 1951.  The sound of distant drilling has disturbed countless transmissions and recordings over the decades.  In fact, it is such an extraordinary building that there literally can't be a person alive that has been in every part of it.  I was based there for 26 years and still often work there but probably have only ever seen a fraction of the building.  Its unique circular design means that many people, myself included, often exit a door onto a corridor and have to pause for a second to work out the best route to where they are going.  Many is the time I have said goodbye to someone as we go off in different directions only to meet them again a minute or two later, slightly embarrassed as we bump into each other - having taken completely different routes to arrive at the same place.  It happens so often that people barely remark on it.  Or perhaps it's just me.

I wrote at the beginning of this project that TV studios were factories.  That rather trite description probably applies to this building even more than most.  (Indeed, the then head of BBC Television described it as such on the day it opened.)  The sheer scale of its operation makes this inevitable.  However, it is also a corporate headquarters and a news centre and anyone entering the reception area that faces Wood Lane would be hard pushed to get any sense that this building contains television studios.  Compare it with the reception area in ITV's headquarters on the south bank, or Teddington or Fountain or Pinewood TV.  It's almost as though the BBC is slightly embarrassed at the fact that inside this building are studios actually still making television.  You can certainly tell who was director general when that part of the Centre was designed. 

This marvellous cutaway drawing was sent to me by Bernie Davis.  The original print was found in a skip by John Rossetti who had it scanned.  It had crease marks and stains but thanks to Bernie spending a few hours in Photoshop it is now here for us all to enjoy - and wonder at.

It reminds me of those drawings that the Eagle used to print of classic British inventions like the Spitfire or the Forth Bridge.  And quite right too.  This drawing truly indicates what an astonishing feat of design and architecture the Centre is.  There is no other building like it anywhere in the UK - and probably in the world.  If you were ever in any doubt that it should be listed and preserved (as a working studio centre) then just take a close look at this.

I can't help but compare it with the on-line plans for the new studios at Salford Quays.  I don't know whether to laugh or weep.

The plan is dated 23rd July 1958 and it shows how the building was expected to look when it was completed.  In fact there were several small changes.  There is no East Tower on the foreground 'works block'.  That was built in 1964 as something of an afterthought.  Studios 8, 9 and 10 are indicated running down the spur, but only TC8 was actually built.   TC1 has the tank in its floor - complete with ladder, enabling people to climb in and out (for a swim?).  The roof alongside the two presentation studios was apparently intended to be used as an outdoor studio area.  There are several other little interesting features too within the building - like a papier mache workshop - but what does strike one is how little has actually changed from this drawing to how the building is used now.  The basic design was spot on and enables the studios to still be used efficiently some 50 years later.

Click on the plan to view it in all its glory.

 

Of course, some things do change and at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man I would have to say that many aspects of the Centre are now nothing like it was when I began to work there in the late 1970s.  In those days the offices in the main circular block were taken up with the various departments of make-up, wardrobe, cameras, sound and lighting.  Above them were the production offices of the drama department and the light entertainment department.  The design department occupied the upper floors of the scenery block at the back of the building and dozens of designers and assistants had their offices there.  All production was in-house - nothing was made by independent companies or freelancers so these departments were considerable and employed many of the top people in the country in their respective fields.

Now of course, between a quarter and a half of the BBC's output is made by independent companies.  The BBC no longer has make-up, wardrobe or design departments.  All were made redundant in the mid nineties and these people are now freelance.  The camera, sound, electrical and lighting departments are staffed to a minimal level and employ freelancers like myself on a daily basis.  Following a round of voluntary redundancies in 2009, there are now even fewer staffers on the books.  Some shows are now crewed entirely by freelancers whilst most have a mix of staffers and freelancers on the camera and sound crews.  Many independent production companies book studios at TV Centre to make their programmes for the BBC.  Also, some companies use TV Centre to make shows for other channels - in particular Channel 4.

Over the last twenty years - and this is the most significant difference to the nature of the building - the kind of programmes made in television studios have radically changed.  In the '60s, '70s and well into the '80s the studios were full of drama - series, serials and single plays.  Entertainment was variety-based with big showbiz music and comedy spectaculars occupying studios on a regular basis. 

Even sitcoms have now dwindled to a handful each year.  In 2004 the BBC only made four sitcom series at TVC.  (Ab Fab, The Crouches, Eyes Down and Two Pints of Lager.)  In 2006 I believe Grownups and Two Pints... were the only sitcom series made here.  2007 fortunately saw a slight increase with yet more Two Pints..., Grownups back for a second series, After You've Gone series 2 being made here instead of Teddington and new series Labrats being made in TC8.  All the other sitcoms shown on BBC TV are made at Teddington or Pinewood or shot on location as 'comedy dramas'.  To be fair, sketch shows like Little Britain, Armstrong and Miller and Mitchell and Webb have become very popular in recent years - and these were made at TVC.  Fortunately, the studio sitcom is itself now back in fashion - thank goodness - so the number of series made here is beginning to increase.

So what is made here?  Well - sitcoms and sketch shows (as discussed), various gameshows - although some of these like In It To Win It, Hole In The Wall and Who Dares Wins now have to be made in Glasgow for political reasons -  chatshows like Jonathan Ross and Piers Morgan, panel game shows like 8 out of 10 Cats, Buzzcocks and Mock the Week, daytime magazine programmes like Alan Titchmarsh, sport programmes, news, weather, kids shows, music shows like Later With Jools and Maestro, entertainment shows like Maria/Joseph/Nancy, Strictly Come Dancing, The Two of Us, Let Me Entertain You, Last Choir Standing etc. etc., features programmes like Crimewatch and ...well, you get the idea.  That's almost it - but TC1 is a very large studio and is ideally suited not only to Saturday night spectaculars but also the big one-off events such as Children in Need, Comic Relief, The Soap Awards and of course every four years or so - the general election!  It's worth pointing out that six of the main production studios are busy for most of the year making programmes that are not sport, news or children's programmes so will be unaffected by the disappearance of these departments in a year or two.

There is little likelihood of drama returning to the studios, which in my view is a great shame.  For many years the BBC used to record a television version of successful West End productions under the Play of the Month or Performance banner.  This gave millions the opportunity to see top theatre productions that they could not have otherwise, due to cost or where they lived.  There is no reason why this could not be done again and there are certainly the crews and directors with the experience and talent to make such programmes.  These are the kind of 'public service' programmes that only the BBC could make - and would clearly be of very high quality.

Variety is always 'about to make a comeback' and the occasional nostalgic music show is still made from time to time.  However, in my view we won't see the return of a popular variety show until some truly charismatic performers like Morcambe and Wise or The Two Ronnies come along around whom such a show can be built.  Ant and Dec are probably the closest to this we have now but of course, they are contracted to ITV and their shows are based more on gameshows than music and comedy.

Despite my possibly appearing to be dwelling on the past - TVC still has a certain something about it.  Its studios are the best designed and equipped in the industry.  It remains busy for most of the year and its history too is unique, as is its design which I shall attempt to summarise here...

Early Plans

As soon as the war was over the BBC knew they would need to build a 'television centre'.  They acquired Lime Grove Studios and shortly afterwards the Shepherds Bush Empire (Television Theatre) and Riverside Studios but these were stop-gaps and the intention was to move all television production into this new purpose built centre.  A site of 13 acres, previously occupied by part of the Franco-British Exhibition was bought shortly after the war.  This 140 acre exhibition had consisted of several highly ornate pavilions all faced in white which came to give this area of London just north of Shepherds Bush the name 'White City.'

Following the original exhibition and - let us not forget! - the 1908 Olympic Games, the buildings hosted several other exhibitions and expositions.  (What's the difference?)  The last time the site was employed for its original purpose was for the British Industries Fair in 1929 although some areas were used for 'textile fairs' until 1937.   During the war some of the buildings were commandeered for the manufacture of parachutes.  In 1936 much of the site was taken over by Hammersmith council who built the South Africa Estate of flats surrounding the stadium. 

(Incidentally, the only remaining buildings dating from the exhibition were demolished as recently as 2004, when the site on the other side of Wood Lane was cleared prior to construction of a huge new retail park.)

By 1949 the remainder of the site was derelict and the BBC purchased 13 acres originally occupied by the 'court of honour' - although several councillors objected strongly and thought that the land should have been used for housing.  The only thing that remains of this extraordinary, spectacular exhibition site is a 2m square of terracotta tiles on the ground outside TC1.

The original White City.  Part of the 'Court of Honour' in the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition.   This picture shows a fraction of this extraordinary development of palaces and pavilions.  It's hard to believe that Television Centre now occupies this land.

The story of how architect Graham Dawbarn came up with the design is well documented but I'll repeat it anyway.  Given a fifty-page brief he retreated to a pub for inspiration and with a plan of the oddly-shaped site in his head he pondered on the problem.  How to fit eight to ten studios in this area - giving easy access to scenery and separately to artists, crew and audiences.  Gazing at it for a few seconds he doodled a question mark on an envelope and the penny dropped.  The shape was perfect.

The famous back-of-an envelope doodle that started it all.  Note the year on the postmark.

He would build most of the studios around a circular hub containing video recorders in the basement - so cable lengths to each studio were minimized.  Around that would be dressing rooms in the basement and on ground floor level.  The studios would be spread outside a circular corridor on the ground floor in a large/small alternate pattern, enabling crush bars or 'assembly areas' to occupy some of the space next to the smaller studios.  On first floor level above the dressing rooms and assembly areas would be the studio control rooms and apparatus rooms - all with easy access to each other. 

The fan of studios would create wedges between them where other areas could be fitted - camera stores, prop stores, dimmer rooms and even a small puppet studio.  A larger wedge between two of the studios would contain a wide access route between the front and back of the studios on the ground floor whilst above this would be the transmission suites, presentation studios, telecine areas and central apparatus room.  Outside the studios would be a covered road or 'runway' enabling scenery to move between studios and to and from the scenery block - a large construction connecting the main block at the rear of the building.  Outside the scenery runway would be a road enabling vehicles to move easily round the site.  The circle of studios would extend along a spur that could be built in phases with more studios as and when required over the years.  The spur would connect with the scenery runway at the back and the artists' corridor at the front.

A concept plan was drawn up, a model made, and in 1951 construction began on the first building - the scenery block.  However, the foundation stone for the main block was not in fact laid until 1956.  There was a pause of a few years before building could commence on the studios.  The government was going through financially straitened times following the war and they could not afford the huge capital investment that was required to be borrowed.  As it transpired, the delay was to the good as the plans could be further developed and refined.

The original plans had some of the studios rather different from the way they ended up.  TC2, 5 and 7 were eventually built as originally conceived.  However, TC1 and 6 were going to be the same size as each other - a very long and relatively narrow 75 x 120ft wall to wall with a grid height of 45ft.  More interestingly, TC3 and TC4 were initially both planned to be a similar 75 ft wide and 120 ft long but the end 40ft was to have a grid height of 60ft enabling scenery to be flown as in a theatre.  (These dimensions are taken from a magazine article dated 27th May 1950.)  The enforced pause before building commenced brought about a squaring-off of the studios, an early plan to make TC6 divisible into two and a realisation that TC1 could lengthen to occupy the scenery runway space and widen by 25ft without ruining the concept of the whole building.

The model of the original concept.  Note that it indicates that 10 production studios were originally planned and that TC6 was going to be the same way round as the other studios.  TC3 and TC4 both have scenery fly towers in this model.  Note also how much of the site is occupied by the scenery building.  The part of the scenery block on the far right did not end up this shape and in fact this area became occupied by the paint frame and later the 'EBX' building and offices. 

Of course, other differences include the absence of the East Tower, which was constructed in 1964 on top of the 'works' building shown just above the scenery block here, and the multistorey car park which was built in the 1980s on the other side of the Hammersmith and City railway viaduct.  On the lower left is the restaurant block.  The interesting construction that occupies the far left of the garden was never built but the single storey one at the right hand end of the garden became TC9 - from the mid '90s for a decade this was the CBBC continuity studio.

The building was intended to be constructed in phases or 'stages'.  This highly confusing term is still in use at TVC today.  Thus you will see signs indicating 'Stage 5' or 'Stage 6.'  Most people in the industry would naturally assume these to direct the observer to a studio, given the nature of the building.  But no.  Stages 5 and 6 were construction  phases and have come to refer to parts of the building.

Another BBC term that is often taken for granted is the naming of studios.  To avoid confusion every BBC studio in the country was given a unique name with prefix letters relating to its building.  Thus 'TC1' is Television Centre studio 1.  Allegedly, a few years ago the newly appointed head of BBC Resources decided that this was misleading as visitors might think that TC1 was a telecine suite, not a studio.  Thus all the hundreds of signs around the building now read 'studio x'.  Nevertheless, everyone in the industry still refers to them as 'TC whatever' so I shall here.  Apparently, it would appear that he did not think that signs directing people to 'stage 5' or 'stage 6' were confusing at all.

The back of the scenery block in 1954.  This all looks very different today.  The protruding section of the building is the scenic artists' studio or 'paint frame'.  This is now completely hidden by - you guessed it - offices, and satellite dishes now occupy much of this area.  Note the wonderful old cars!  You certainly can't park there any more.

 

Stage 1 was the construction of the scenery block (officially called the design block) which was completed in 1953.  At the back of the building a scenic artists studio was constructed enabling backcloths to be painted.  This extraordinary construction is 65ft from basement floor to roof beams.  A platform half way up the room enabled the artists to paint massive cloths 30ft high and to reach all the parts of the cloth simply by raising or lowering the canvasses which passed through a slot between the platform and the wall.  When finished, the cloth could be rolled up and stored in the basement or slid through a slot in the wall into the ground floor area.

This space still remains, hidden behind a locked door, and is occasionally rented out.  There is a small dirty window between a staircase and the platform area which I discovered early in 2006.  A few small flats were leaning against the wall but there was no sign of any cloths having been painted recently.  Large flexible tubes now hang from the roof - one assumes to improve the ventilation and draw the paint fumes out.

The paint frame.  This elevation drawing taken from the 'Architect and Building News' shows the scale of the building.  As you can see - canvasses can be painted on all sides of the platform as they slide up or down at the touch of a button.  The control panel for the hoist motors in the centre of the platform was affectionately known as the 'Dalek.'

On the ground floor is an area originally used to manufacture and store scenery.  A carpentry and machine shop created the sets which were then assembled in the setting space before being disassembled and stacked on trucks to be towed round the scenery runway to the studio.  The scenery would then be brought back and taken down in a huge lift to be stored in the basement or repainted and adapted for use in another programme.  In another part of the basement was a large prop store where items for dressing sets were kept.

Props are now stored in the area on the ground floor of the East Tower building.  The old prop store in the basement of the Design Building has now been rebuilt as a climate-controlled secure storeroom for what looks like orchestral scores (not that I've been snooping about or anything) - the rest of the basement is being used for general storage.  Geoff Posner (for it is he) recalls that the oddly named 'Movement Control' used to be on the ground floor of the Design Block.  He also recalls that the prop store...

'...had thirteen artificial legs in the Artificial Legs section, not to say M******t Q***t.  Now M******t's job was simply to book the musical instruments needed for all the shows in TC.  Nothing else.  Needless to say she went home at 3.30 most days.'

I probably ought to make it clear that such practices ended many, many years ago!  I have protected the lady's name to avoid any possible embarrassment.  No doubt her manager was fully aware what time she went home.  I'm sure the 1970s camera managers in my department were equally aware that when a six-man camera crew was scheduled to a studio with only four cameras, one or two of us usually went home after the morning rig.  I can imagine how this reads to most people who thought that this was the sort of thing confined to British Leyland - yes I am now just as appalled as you are at what went on in those days but I wonder how many other British companies turned a blind eye to similar practices.

 

Scenery is currently stored in a large open-sided shelter that runs around the outside of the ring road surrounding the main building.  Nowadays all scenery is made by private companies and nothing is manufactured here any longer.  The only scenery stored on site is for shows whilst they have a regular booking in a studio.  Sets are destroyed when they are no longer needed, whereas before the changes imposed in the 1990s, flats and other items would be saved if they could be, repainted and used on many different programmes.  Thus, rather than 'the BBC' owning the scenery, it is now bought or hired by each individual programme which naturally does not have the budget to store it afterwards unless there is definitely going to be another series of the same show.  This was one of the many changes brought in by John Birt.

Actually, there is one exception to this.  Paul Hayes has informed me that the original Dr Who Tardis fell apart in the 1970s and was replaced with another that was used until the final Sylvester McCoy episode in 1989.  Despite the official policy of not storing scenery, this Tardis was never destroyed but over the years was quietly moved from place to place and hidden around the building.  I suppose nobody could quite bring themselves to give the order to load it onto a truck for disposal.  After all, it hardly takes up much room.  (At least, on the outside.)  Of course, the new 2004 series was made in Wales with its own new 'machine' but the original (extremely tatty) Tardis was still on site in 2005 and was used for a spoof opening to Jet Set on the day in April when the new Dr Who was first transmitted.  I had the dubious honour of lighting this sequence.  Spookily - I also lit the same thing in 2006, with Eamonn Holmes exiting the Tardis in the Blue Peter Garden on the day the next Dr Who series began.  Curiously, a while after this website revealed the fact that it still existed, it was dug out of its hiding place, the dust blown off it and for a couple of years was proudly displayed outside the audience foyer entrance.  (See below.)  I'm not claiming any credit for this but I'm certainly glad to see that someone had the sense to make the best use of it.

It's not there now of course.  It has been replaced with a 'newer' version.  The original one's whereabouts are once again a mystery.  My spies tell me that it is safe 'as it belongs to the BBC drama department'.  Some mistake there, surely.

A familiar object to all.

I think the furniture castors spoil the effect a bit, personally.

 

with thanks to Ian Hillson

The photo below shows the interior of the scenery block.  Adam Tandy has written to let me know that he understood that the original Dr Who production designer (Peter Brachacki) got the idea for the treatment of the interior of the Tardis walls from this roof.  I see what he means.  In fact, I think even the current 'Welsh' version has an echo of it.  (This unique design, incidentally, impressed English Heritage so much that they recommended a grade 2 listing for the building in 2008.)

The ground floor of the scenery block.  (Actually, technically the first floor - as the basement that is accessed at the back of the building is in fact the ground floor.  Do you care? Neither do I.)

The plan dates back to 1953.  The photograph must have been taken just after completion and just before the scenery moved in.  The photographer is standing by the 'G' of 'Paper and Painting' on the plan drawing.

The carpentry and machine shop is now occupied by the technical stores and half the setting space is now the lighting store.  This moved from an area in Stage 5 in the early 1990s when scenery construction was abandoned here.

 

 

For the first thirty-five years of the Centre, above the scenery workshop were the drawing rooms (no, not that sort of 'drawing room') and offices where all the designers used to work  It was very handy for lighting directors, costume designers, producers and directors to be able to pop over one of the bridges and meet them informally, look at the plans, drawings and samples of materials to be used and discuss the progress of the set design for a programme.  Nowadays this is is mostly done on the phone or via email which isn't quite the same.

Geoff Posner recalls 'the track down the corridor of designers and their assistants with numerous bottles of wine balanced precariously on the tilted drawing boards...' amongst many other happy memories of the good old bad old days.

As soon as the building was complete it was used to construct scenery which was then loaded onto lorries and transported to the studios in Lime Grove, Television Theatre and Riverside Studios.  The offices were occupied by the team designing and constructing the main block and the head of the television service was also based here.

In 1955, the same year that ITV was launched, the BBC held a glamorous showbiz ball one afternoon in the main scene dock of the scenery block of all places.  This was technically, therefore, the first television programme made at TV Centre.  Hundreds of celebs were invited and in fact those that weren't came anyway.  No less than 2,500 turned up and shuffled round the dance floor.  Two top bands played and the whole thing was televised by an OB unit.  (Sadly of course, this was live and no recording exists.)  The idea was partly to launch the new afternoon service of BBCtv but also obviously to prove to this new upstart ITV that the BBC still had the loyalty of all the top performers in the country.  However, some things never change.  The celebs were simply there for a bit of publicity and within a few weeks many of them were appearing on ITV shows. 

The design block now has no designers in it - nor is any scenery built in it.  It is now officially called the 'drama building' as apparently it contains the offices of the drama department.  I guarantee that if you ask almost anybody working at TV Centre where the drama building is they wouldn't have a clue.  Ask where the scenery block is and quite a few would certainly know where you mean.

 

Stage 2 followed on straight away and was the building of the restaurant block.  This overlooked a small area of grass and shrubs that soon would become the famous Blue Peter Garden. 

The building was completed in 1955 and at first was used as rehearsal rooms and office space.  It began its intended use as a restaurant block in June 1960, with cafeteria-style seating on the first and third floors and waitress service on the second floor.  The kitchens are on the ground floor and connect with the main block via a tunnel and lifts, enabling food to be brought on trollies to the sixth floor hospitality suite.  They thought of everything!

The waitress service floor closed in the mid-nineties, the top cafeteria reduced in size and some of the block has now reverted to office space as eating in the 'BBC canteen' is far less popular than it used to be.   (Countless references to the canteen in comedy shows over the years probably didn't help.)  In fact, so much so that late in 2008 it closed at weekends.  Food is now also available via bars and delis spread around the building - but at weekends when all the office staff have gone home and the only people there are actually making programmes there is only one tea bar open for some of the time.

Incidentally - in November 2006, the old 2nd floor restaurant (what used to be called the 'waitress service') was turned into a huge hairdressing salon studio with hidden cameras for BBC Three's Celebrity Scissorhands - a live reality show that somehow raised money for Children in Need.  Apparently the 'celebrity' trainees were: 'Eighties pop icon, Steve Strange;  winner of The Apprentice, Michelle Dewberry;  Radio 1 DJ, Scott Mills;  actress and Dynasty star, Emma Samms;  Right Said Fred frontman Richard Fairbrass;  TV presenter Sarah Cawood;  singer Rowetta (Happy Mondays, X Factor);  actor and TV presenter Ortis Deeley (Kidulthood, Live and Kicking);  and TV personality Darren Day'  it says here.  I'm afraid I missed it.

Geoff Posner suggested a very sensible use for part of this building in 2007.  As a seasoned producer/director of many comedies over the years - and still very much at it - he pointed out how hard it is to find rehearsal space these days.  The old BBC rehearsal rooms in Acton are no more so sitcoms mostly use draughty, cold and smelly church halls around London.  He suggested turning a floor in this building back into a rehearsal room for the next few years until the BBC decide what they are going to do with it.  Blow me down, but that's exactly what has happened, and some BBC Comedy shows do now use the old 'Waitress Service' floor to rehearse sketch shows and sitcoms.  Glory Be!

(More on the rehearsal room saga a little below.  Be patient!)

The first floor canteen in 1960 with the waitress service restaurant overlooking it.  Possibly the idea was that those who could afford to eat there could literally look down on those who couldn't.  The balcony has now been blocked off.

 

 

Around 2001/2 plans were drawn up to convert the lower two floors into studios and continuity areas dedicated to the children's department.  These designs reached quite an advanced stage but many problems were being encountered - in particular with lighting and air conditioning.  The head of Children's Department wanted the studios to open out into the Blue Peter garden with huge windows and doors overlooking it.  He wanted to be able to shoot from inside looking out and outside looking in - even in high summer.  The plan was that presenters should be able to begin talking to camera indoors and wander outdoors or vice versa on the same hand-held shot.  There was even to be a glazed conservatory area.  The problem was that this area faces south so coping with sunlight would have been something of an issue to say the least.

(This had been achieved to an extent in TC9 which occupies part of this area but the door is relatively small, does not face south and there are no windows so we never see indoors to the studio whilst a presenter is outdoors.  If they walk from one area to the other the camera is 'racked' the several stops necessary to cope with the different light level.) 

I was asked to comment on the plans at one point and invited to oversee the project from the lighting point of view but I made some excuse and declined taking on this responsibility.  Frankly, I thought it would have been hugely problematic operationally and a considerable frustration to the programme makers.  It would have been a massive undertaking - the studios would have had to be lit to an incredibly bright level to compensate for the daylight.  At the same time, the producers apparently wanted to preserve the colourful mood and atmosphere of typical kids programmes, in particular X-change - the daily magazine programme which was coming from the nicely controlled environment of TC2 around that time.  Indeed, the set of X-change included plywood pillars that would match the real ones in the new studio, anticipating a move within a few months.  (A move that kept being postponed.)

Another issue was the changing nature of daylight in the late afternoon when childrens programmes are on.  You might start a show with the studio lit to the same level as the outside but by the time you were off the air it would be dark outside.  These conflicting requirements and 'technical' issues were not, it seems, understood by those who were keen to see the studio built.  Apparently, the problems 'were being exaggerated by technicians who were stuck in the old ways of doing things and did not understand the new blue-sky thinking.'

One idea mooted by the production types as a solution was to have one bright half of the main studio matching the daylight somehow divided from a darker 'moody' half, but how you went from one to the other was never resolved.  Meanwhile, the size and cost of the new studio's ventilation plant continued rising.  As it happened, whilst decisions on the project were nearing a crisis the head of CBBC moved on to greater things as controller of ITV1 and the whole idea was quietly dropped.

A further irony is that by the end of 2006, the whole idea of in-vision presenters linking children's TV had gone out of fashion.  TC9 is no longer in use.  The programme X-change which drove all these plans is also no more.

 

 

Before leaving stage 2, I should mention a small studio that was established there in 1996.

TC9 was created in a single storey building overlooking the Blue Peter Garden.  This area, extending from the restaurant block, was originally designed as a 'foyer lounge' - hence the glass brick wall.  It probably never had this use, being used initially as a builders' canteen, then becoming a store for the make-up department.  This department was closed in 1995 and the studio was subsequently created to be used by the Children's department for continuity links and other short programmes. 

TC9 is an irregular shape, about 30 x 30ft average dimensions with a very low grid.  It also has a corridor and small seating area which can be used for interviews.  It was fitted with Thomson 1647 sportcams which had been in use in Pres A for a year or so.  These could have the head separated from most of the electronics by an umbilical cable so that a very small camera was actually carried by the cameraman, enabling a great deal of movement. 

This freedom from fixed shots was seen as very exciting by the young directors of the links transmitted live from here, who often could not understand why this introduced lighting problems.  Since the LD was also the console operator and had only one electrician for assistance, relighting between sequences could be very exciting to say the least.  Because of the way the links were shot, quite substantial relights were usually necessary.  It has to be said that not every sequence that went out from this studio over the years demonstrated perfect portraiture and subtle balance of foreground and background from the lighting point of view.  In fact, on occasions the fact that the presenter had any light on them at all was something of a miracle.  And I speak from some experience.

In 2004 the studio ceased linking children's programmes on the main broadcast channels and became the continuity studio just for the CBBC channel.  From late 2006 it was decided that links between children's programmes would be much shorter - often with no presenter in vision and the studio would no longer be required.

TC9 was still under a 'service level agreement' between BBC Studios and the Children's department so it could not be used for general programming.  It remained empty for about nine months but in September 2007 it became the home of two regular programmes - TMi, the Saturday morning show that had previously come from MTV's studio in Leicester Square, and SMart.  (Yes, that really is how it's spelt.)  The latter programme was presented by Kirsten O'Brien, who in a way returned home as she was for a long while one of the regular CBBC continuity presenters.

The studio was mothballed once again in Jan 2008 as the cameras had become old and unreliable but it was brought back into use again in the autumn and again in 2009 for further series of TMi, using TC2's old Thomson cameras.

The studio is likely to be 'owned' by Children's department until they move to Salford in 2011.

 

The site in 1957.  The scenery block and restaurant blocks are complete and the foundations are being laid for the main block.  The ground slab for TC1 is the only visible studio.

 

Stage 3 involved the most complex construction and took four years before the Centre became operational.  It consisted of the main circular building and the completion of studios 1 - 7.  Four studios would initially be brought into service within the first few months - 2, 3, 4 and 5.  The design of these was based on experience gained from working at Lime Grove and in particular Riverside, where various experiments involving gallery layout and lighting systems were tried out.  The Centre officially opened with TC3 operational on 29th June 1960.  TC4, 5 and 2 opened over the following few months.  The shells of  TC1, TC6 and TC7 were constructed around the same time but they were not fitted out until a few years later.

Arthur Askey - diminutive and popular entertainer of the '50s and '60s - standing in the newly completed TC3.  The studio was considered 'massive' at the time and of course, compared with those at Riverside and Lime Grove, it was.

Incidentally, the large window slightly protruding into the studio on top left of the picure is the viewing gallery.  Every studio has one of these (even control room suites did originally.)  The idea was that visitors could be brought round to see 'their' BBC in action without disturbing what was going on.

This still goes on believe it or not.  More than once I have been standing in the middle of an empty studio set waiting for the sparks to return from lunch whilst picking my nose and scratching my balls - only to idly look up and focus on a window with 20 bemused members of the Women's Institute gazing down at me.

TC2 and TC5 are both 60 x 40 metric feet within firelanes and TC3 and TC4 are about 70 x 90 metric feet within firelanes. 

TC2 soon became the home of the new wave of satirical comedy shows such as That Was the Week That Was.  TC5 was the home of schools broadcasting and according to a 1970 BBC booklet 'adjacent to studio 5 is an area specially designed and serviced for schools programmes.'  I must admit I can't think to what this might be referring, unless the area originally intended as the puppet studio became taken over as some sort of preparation area.  Other programmes such as panel game shows were also made here but for various reasons, most likely because no schools could afford colour televisions in the early 1970s, TC5 was converted to colour long after the other studios - probably in 1973.

Of the larger two original studios, TC3 was earmarked as a drama studio and TC4 for light entertainment.  The difference was in the acoustic treatment of the walls - TC3 had a shorter reverberation period so was more suited to speech.  I have to say that I have never been aware of this - having worked on many occasions in both studios so possibly any acoustic difference was altered in later years.  (Both studios now in any case have new acoustic wall panels following the removal of asbestos - TC4 in 1988 and TC3 in 2007.)  Anyway, during the early years at least, TC3 was the preferred studio for drama.

TC4 also had a variable acoustic system involving microphones and speakers around the roof and walls.  This was called 'ambiophony'.  The system is said to have worked quite well, but according to a sound supervisor of the time it had the disadvantage that the delays to the different speakers would only be correct for one position within the orchestra.  That (and probably the scarcity of such programmes) meant that it fell into disuse.  It was soon overtaken by artificial electronic reverberation systems, although interestingly, a similar system was included in Limehouse studio1 when that was built in 1982.

This was the inlay desk in TC4.  Captain Mainwaring at the controls.  The picture is dated January 1961.  Now you don't see sports jackets like that very much these days - more's the pity, I'd say.

The desk was placed in the production gallery.  All the BBC's main studios had one of these.  They enabled clever wipes to be used or an early form of overlay using a luminance key.  The device seen to the right of the operator here is a camera looking down at an illuminated screen.  You could place a piece of black card in the shape of, say, a flower and that could be used as a key for an effect in a dance routine.  All kinds of wipes were tried out.  A particularly messy one was to cover the screen with tealeaves and blow them off on cue.  You couldn't do that one again in a hurry.

Later, as the studios were colourised the inlay desks became more sophisticated to include up to three layers of CSO (colour separation overlay).  DVEs (digital video effects) were added as soon as they became available in the 1980s.  The BBC research department came up with an early version but this was soon superceded by boxes manufactured by companies like Quantel.  Top of the Pops usually tried these devices out first but within a few months every show was plagued with zooming, flipping and tumbling pictures for no good reason.

Nowadays wipes and overlay tricks are done by the studio's vision mixer (switcher) but extra boxes of tricks like DVEs are brought in and plugged up as and when required.  Most complex video trickery is now done in post production rather than in the studio at the time of recording.  Sadly. there's no place any more for the 'blowing the tealeaves across the screen' wipe.

 

TC3 and 4 were both originally equipped with black and white cameras but the Centre had been planned with colour in mind.  These two studios were re-equipped in 1969 and 1970 respectively with EMI 2001 colour cameras.  Both studios now have very swish gallery suites, TC3 looks very smart with its new black studio wall panels and TC4 was fully equipped for high definition in the summer of 2008.

Back in 1960 the original camera choice was interesting.  No doubt in a desire to support both major British camera manufacturers, half the studios - TC2, 3 and 7 - were equipped with Marconi MkIV cameras and the other half - TC1, 4 and 5 with EMI 201 cameras. 

I have been given an interesting recollection by a cameraman of the period.  He informs me that the EMI lens turret was designed for 5 lenses (although only four were fitted) and apparently was slower in changing lenses than the Marconi - particularly when going between the ones that involved crossing the blank plate.  Apparently, for LE this was seldom an issue but for drama it could be crucial.  In a scene with two cameras taking over-shoulder 2-shots until the crucial dramatic moment when a close-up was called for, there might only be one second when the vision mixer cut to the other camera for the reaction shot before cutting back for the close-up.  If the turret was still turning then the cut would be forced to be late.  There was at least one drama director of the day who allegedly refused to work in the studio with the slower turret because it compromised his shooting style.  His plays or episodes of drama series had upwards of 500 shots in half an hour. 

The EMI 203 four and a half inch image-orthicon black and white camera.  These were installed in TC1, TC4 and TC5.  Most were fitted with turret lenses as shown but some had early zoom lenses.  It wasn't until colour cameras came along in 1967 that every camera was fitted with a zoom lens.

(Thanks to Bernie Newnham for the image - for it is he - and a fine looking corduroy jacket it is too.)

 

Studios 3 and 4 are almost mirror images of each other although oddly, TC4 is actually 1 foot wider than TC3 at 71 metric feet within firelanes.  This may be because the walls of TC3 are thicker in order to keep out the noise of the Hammersmith and City railway line.

The studios were equipped with the same design of long lighting bars as had been tried out in Riverside.  Each was initially fitted with two 2kW fresnel lanterns and two multi-bulbed fill lights although this was adapted for each production.  The lighting bars also at first had a parallel bar hanging a few feet beneath although quite how these were intended to be used remains a mystery!  The bars were spaced the same as in Riverside - 2 feet from end to end and six feet apart.  This wide spacing has frequently caused many a headache to lighting directors!  Although the bars were replaced with a new design in the 1980s the wide separation remained the same.  (In monopole studios like Teddington or TLS the tracks are only 18 inches or 2 feet apart which enables lights to be positioned much closer to where the LD needs them to be.)

Above is the original lighting installation in  TC4.  The rest of the first batch of studios were fitted with the same long bars.  The lamps were simply hung on the bar rather than on rolling 'trolleys' and pantographs as they are today.  Of course, this is before the standard rig of two dual-source fixtures per bar was adopted.

Below is TC3 rigged for a typical gameshow in 2005.  We have almost gone full circle as hardly a single dual-source lantern is to be seen.  Nearly all have been derigged for this show (In It To Win It) which is lit almost entirely with automated lights.

 

These new studios adopted the dimming and lighting control systems that had been tried out at Riverside - Strand C-type consoles connected to variable resistor and auto-transformer dimmers, remotely controlled by an electro-magnetic clutch system.  The heat generated by hundreds of these dimmers must have been phenomenal.  Apparently, TV Centre was the first place to adopt normal mains voltage in the studios.  Previously a voltage of 130 volts (why?) had been used.  The BBC were also terribly proud of the fact that the lights in these new studios were 'remote controlled.' 

For someone who has become used to using automated lights like Vari*lites and Macs on various entertainment shows I found this claim somewhat surprising until I eventually found out what they meant.  It seems that these were the first BBC studios equipped with luminaires that had attachments enabling an electrician to adjust pan, tilt, and spot and flood using a pole.  Previously, every lamp had been adjusted by an electrician working off a set of ladders.  I would hardly describe this as 'remote control' but seriously, this was a significant advance.  I can work with an experienced pole operator to set 100 lamps and be finished in two or three hours.  To do this using ladders would probably triple this time if not more.

This picture shows a 'lighting supervisor' operating a Strand type C console.  (On Sundays he played the church organ.)  The white diagram on the wall is the geographic mimic which indicates to the operator which luminaires in the studio are lit.  Small bulbs are fed directly from the dimmers and glow in proportional brightness depending on the dimmer level.

All the studios were fitted with one of these mimics but only TC1 still has one.  The other studios now have a VDU fed from the console, not the dimmers, that is nothing like as clear to read.  It must have cost a fortune to connect around 1000 tiny lightbulbs for the mimic in TC1 - one to each dimmer.

Judging by the shape of the plan - this must be TC3.

One great advantage all the studios at TVC have over London's other TV studios is in the provision of motorised scenery hoists.  In monopole studios a few motorised hoists are sometimes available but these have to be carried into position and placed where needed in the grid.  Most scenery is therefore supported using hemp ropes and hauled up by hand.  At TV Centre this is hardly ever necessary.  Every studio has dozens of scene hoists that can be tracked into position and raised or lowered at the push of a button.  The hook is attached to a steel line that is fixed to the flattage or ceiling piece that needs to be supported.   This makes scene setting here much quicker, simpler and probably safer - and arguably gives designers more flexibility with their sets.  In TC3 and 4 each hoist was initially only trackable within a span of about 10 feet but during the major refurbs of the 1980s more were installed and they can now track across the whole studio between the lighting bars.  This improved system was originally installed in TC1, 6 and 8.  TC1 has even more hoists, some capable of supporting immense loads.

 

During the '60s, '70s and '80s, the Centre contained some extraordinary facilities, many of which most people working there probably had no idea existed.  For example - Tim Dorney, engineer in News dept, has written to inform me that during the 1970s he discoved that there was a room at the base of the South Hall where grand pianos were stored.  The door was never locked and he tells me that he passed many a lunch hour practising on one of several beautiful instruments, all of which were always in perfect tune.

Videotape and Telerecording

The Centre was designed with the basement or 'hub' being set aside for the new technology of videotape recording.  The BBC called it 'VT' - everybody else called it 'VTR'.  (When giving a cue for a pre-recorded insert, BBC directors learnt to say 'run VT' - meanwhile, ITV directors said 'roll VTR'.  I've no idea why the difference.)

By placing the VT department in the hub, the cable runs to each studio were kept as short as possible.  (Mind you, programmes at Television Theatre, half a mile down the road, were also recorded here in later years.  Indeed, when all the machines here were busy, some shows were recorded at TVI, five miles away in Soho, so long cable runs were perhaps not quite as crucial as was originally thought.  Try telling that to home cinema geeks who think a £100 ten-metre scart lead can't possibly provide acceptable pictures.  One hi-fi shop once actually refused to sell me one for that reason!  Anyway...)  

The 2-inch 'quad' Ampex machines were very much new technology and were phenomenally expensive to buy.  In 1960 the BBC was paying around £30,000 per machine.  Bear in mind that around that time the cost of the average house was only £3,000.  By comparison, in November 2008 an average house cost £224,000.  That would put the price of a VT machine today at £2.24m!  You can actually pick up a reconditioned second hand one today for about £20,000.  (I can't find a 'new' price on the internet.)

Tape too was horrendously costly - around £120 per hour.  Another quick search of the internet will find today's popular format of Digital Betacam available at less than £12 for one hour's recording.  Then take into account inflation over the past 50 years and the difference in price is obvious. That's why so many '60s and '70s programmes were wiped and the tape used again.

Apparently, the videotape area in the basement was not ready when TC3 opened and a couple of machines were installed temporarily in the shell of Pres B.  Even when complete there were initially only four, then seven more videotape recorders in the basement for the first few years. 

By comparison, these days each studio has its own VT machines - sometimes as many as eight or more may be in use to record the main output of the studio, a back-up copy and a number of 'iso' recordings.  These are isolated feeds of individual cameras, enabling the programme to be edited more slickly at a later date.  The Post Production area in Stage 5 now of course has well over a hundred more machines.  It seems astonishing that for the first few years the whole of TV Centre had only eleven VTRs in total for recording and editing programmes.  Even by 1970 there were only 16 VT booths - which was the maximum allowed for in the original design of the area.

 

Of course, many programmes were recorded - but not necessarily on tape.  Beneath TC6 was a large area set aside for the telerecording department.  Telerecording on film was a well-established means of saving programmes for archive purposes or for export.  When the Centre opened, most film telerecording was still carried out down the road at Lime Grove.  Garth Nicholson wrote to me in December 2008 with more info - and a comment on an astonishing recording of Dad's Army that had its colour restored from an original black and white film recording...

'As with telecine operators we originally had one or two working machines in TV Centre and these were initially staffed as an outpost of Lime Grove depending on our workload.  Finally the 16mm facilities became fully operational to be followed by the 35mm machines at TV Centre so we all decamped to TV Centre.

We worked there for some years (a quick recall would say right up to the early '70s) but of course apart from selling 16mm recordings overseas and finally back-up work for videotape the days of the somewhat crude technique of film recording were numbered. 

As a matter of interest we did carry out some colour experimental work where we produced 3 negatives (R,G & B) using 3 separate passes on the same machine. These were sent away to the processing laboratory for combining using the Technicolor process but we were fighting a losing battle against the colour VTR machine. 

When I saw yesterday's rebroadcast of a 16mm Dad's Army from which they have recovered colour information I was totally amazed.  Remember in the early VTR days it was never thought that they would be accurate enough to even run colour and as for editing then it took several hours to make an acceptable cut between two takes which had to be done by going down to black at the end and the beginning of the edit. How things move on!'

 

It is perhaps worth pointing out that programmes recorded on film were of poor quality compared with the live picture.  Most engineers considered that the pictures, particularly in the early years, were barely broadcast quality.  From 1946 to the mid '50s the BBC did not transmit telerecorded programmes unless they absolutely had to.  Even a play with a repeat broadcast later in the week was perfomed live again.  The reason we have those old BBC telerecordings is that the programmes were exported in that form to Commonwealth countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. 

Research into improving the quality of the image did produce some results as the years went by and by the mid '50s more programmes were being recorded and transmitted on film.  In fact, according to BBC handbooks - in 1959 the BBC telerecorded 1,300 programmes and re-transmitted 600.  In other words, more were archived for possible export but 600 is still quite a sizeable number of TV programmes (on only one channel, don't forget) that were recorded on film for later transmission.

 

The telerecording area under TC6 became the BBC's very well-used and highly respected research library during the 1970s.  This provided invaluable support to all kinds of programmes for the next two decades.  In the mid 1990s under the new Thatcherite/Birtian commercial way of working it was declared unable to 'pay its way' (Heaven help us from small-minded accountants!!!) so it was closed.  It even made the national papers when someone leaked that the record library was having to charge more to lend a disc to a production for an hour or two than for them to buy a new copy.  The area is now a videotape archive.

When the VT department moved to Stage 5 in 1992 the hub area of the basement was transformed into open-plan offices with a huge glass roof.  Goodness knows how much that must have cost.  This became the HQ for 'TSPR' - the original trading name with ancient Roman imperial overtones, for the newly commercial BBC Studios business.  Latin scholars are invited here to come up with a suitable acronym.  (It actually stood for Television Studios Production Resources - how boring is that?)

I have hardly done the VT and telerecording departments justice here.  For much more information and many old photos I recommend visiting the ex-BBC VT engineers' website on www.vtoldboys.com.

 

The presentation area

As well as the main studios there were several other smaller areas completed at this time.  On the fourth floor in the central wedge between TC3 and TC4 was the main network control area for what was then called BBCtv and the planned second channel.  A corridor led from the lifts towards the back of the building and on either side were the control rooms, apparatus rooms, voice-over booths and from 1963 a small room containing the 'noddy' camera that could be remotely tilted up to look at the revolving globe logo and down to look at a clock.

Incidentally, perhaps not surprisingly, there was also a 'Big Ears' - a twin magazine caption scanner.

The noddy camera for BBC2.  The graphics are from the black and white years so the photo must have been taken some time between 1964 and 1967.  (Thanks to Gareth Dubai for pointing this out.)

Note the beautifully finished woodwork!  These days (if such things existed) it would be made of MDF with a lick of black paint if you were lucky.

At the end of the corridor was another control room on each side that looked into a pair of studios, side by side.  These were presentation studios and were known by all as Pres A and Pres B.  They had been designed for continuity announcers such as Michael Aspel, Kenneth Kendall, Judith Chalmers and Nan Winton but within a few years the BBC decided to adopt out-of-vision announcers.  Thus the studios became available for other uses.  They were quite small - at 32 x 22 metric feet wall to wall with a firelane crossing the middle.  This could never be obstructed!  It's not quite clear when in-vision announcements ended but there was a new intake including Meryl O'Keefe in 1963.

Pres A was the first to open in 1960 - Pres B opened in about 1963/4 with EMI 201 vidicon cameras.  It was then converted to colour in 1966 and became the home of  Late Night Line-Up - a daily arts and topical discussion programme.  This studio thus became the home of the BBC's colour camera tests.  It is likely that the tests in studio H at Lime Grove ended around this time. 

The colour camera tests in 1966 initially involved three Peto-Scott (Philips) PC60s.  These were the cameras that had been chosen to equip the BBC's first colour OB units.  Later, a three-way test was undertaken using a prototype EMI 2001 (then called the 2000), a Marconi MkVII and a Peto-Scott PC60.  In order that the tests were fair, two of the cameras had a cue dot superimposed in the top left or right of the frame.  These were changed every night so the engineers watching at home did not know which camera was which.  They recorded their opinions and the results were later compiled.

This story has been confirmed to me as being accurate by an engineer who was involved and by the studio director who worked on the experiments at the time.  He later went on to direct the first colour shows in TC6 - themselves still very much an experiment.

The camera chosen to equip TC6 and TC8 in 1967 was the Marconi MkVII.  The reason for this choice is arguable and is discussed later on this web page.  (See 'A Potted History of early colour cameras.')

Pres A was converted to colour in 1968 (with Marconi Mk VIIs) and became the weather studio.  Between forecasts it was used to make trailers involving captions and slides with a voice-over actor in a nearby sound booth.  VT clips were played in and the people in the presentation department who made these trails became adept at producing very slick and professional-looking 'ads' for BBC programmes.  This was one thing ITV took many years to get right.  The ITV companies did not have an equivalent department or dedicated staff so their trails were much simpler - often nothing more than a caption voiced over by the continuity presenter.

The presentation area in the central wedge on the fourth floor in 1960.  None of this exists today.  As can be seen, the rooms on the left were opened first, those on the right were for the planned second channel.  Pres A is the room top left, Pres B on the right.  All the cueing and cutting from one programme to the next was done in the network control room on this floor.

Before the days of computers it was possible for the network producer to be quite creative in the way they went from one show to the next.  For instance, there was one individual who liked to do a slow mix from the BBC1 globe into the star field at the beginning of Star Trek Raphael Szynowski has written to me to let me know that the creative person in question was called Ken Laing.  Or at least, he told Raphael that he was.

Although the BBC soon went to out-of-vision announcers they did restore them for children's TV in the 1980s.  The tiny area used for this became known as the 'broom cupboard'.  After the great storm of October 1987 all power to TV Centre was lost except for the emergency generator that supplied this area.  Therefore, BBC1 was kept on air with the news coming from the broom cupboard - a very serious looking newsreader backed by a brightly painted wall and the remains of children's paintings that had been sent in to Philip Schofield and his puppet Gordon the gopher.

The exact location of the broom cupboard has been pointed out to me by Ian Trill, ace vision mixer and now director who used to work in Pres during the 1980s.  He has reminded me that the network control rooms were moved to the areas at the bottom of the plan below, previously occupied by the sub control and international control.  The right hand room was for BBC1 and the area to its right was walled in to create the room where the voice-over continuity announcer sat.  There was a window between him and the main control room.  The announcer had a small mixer in front of him so that he could cut up captions etc as he spoke.  It was this tiny room that had a camera bolted onto the wall so that the Children's TV continuity announcers could be seen in vision. 

The Pres area a few years later when both studios and all control suites were operational.  Click on the image to see it in higher resolution.  The control rooms and other areas were moved about and reconfigured several times during the life of this vital part of the BBC.

Now this area is completely unrecognisable.  Note the thickness of the wall dividing the studios.  Even this has been removed.

 

One of the trickiest jobs as a young and inexperienced cameraman was doing the 'weather pan'.  One camera had a locked-off shot looking at the Atlantic chart.  The weather man - Jack Scott, Michael Fish, Ian McCaskill etc. - then moved to a smaller chart showing today's weather.  This was being framed by another camera.  At some point he would take three or four paces right to the next chart showing tonight's weather.  Since there was no script and it was unrehearsed you had to take your own cue when to pan.  It sounds simple but was highly nerve-racking as there were many false moves as he might take a pace camera-right and stretch across the chart to indicate East Anglia or the weather in the North Sea.  Some individuals would move very briskly and if you were not careful he would leave you behind.  Of course, if you incorrectly started to pan too soon then you either had to continue and leave him behind or stop and pan back in a rather pathetic manner.  This, of course, is when he would notice that you had begun the move and as you panned back to the left he would leave the frame on the right.  You can imagine the various cock-ups possible on this, the simplest of camera moves.  At some point they all must have happened although never of course by me.  No really.  Honestly.

Jack Scott in front of the Atlantic chart.  The charts were made of painted steel so that the magnetic symbols would stick to them.  (Sometimes, of course, they fell off.)  The isobars on the Atlantic chart were specially made by The Magnetic Rubber Company of Sheffield.  I kid you not.  They also manufactured the rubberised strips used to seal fridge doors.  Now there's a fact to impress your friends at parties.

With thanks to Geoff Hawkes and the tech-ops website.

 

According to a couple of sources, the floor of Pres B was used to house the first VT machines at the Centre when it opened in 1960.  Apparently, the videotape area was not ready to accept them.  By the time Pres B opened around 1964 the machines had long departed for the basement.

Pres B was used for a variety of simple shows over the years including The Sky at Night, Points of View and Barry Norman's Film '72 (and onwards) seriesIn fact, David Scott-Cowan has written to me to point out that a separate programme department was created to devise programmes that would fit into this tiny studio.  It was based in the 'temporary' wooden building - originally the builders' site offices - that sat in front of TVC along Wood Lane during the '60s, '70s and '80s.  The programmes included The Book Programme with Robert Robinson and Did You See? with Ludovic Kennedy.

As mentioned above, around 1968 these studios were equipped with three Marconi Mk VII colour cameras each, which had previously been in use for a few months in TC6.  These were very, very long.  About five feet long in fact.  Add a cameraman standing behind each one and there wasn't much studio left.  All the more astonishing then that Pres B was the original home of the Old Grey Whistle Test.  It began in 1971 and occupied the studio one night a week instead of Late Night Line-Up.  If you ever wondered why they used bare studio walls as a set and the cameras never moved then just picture the scene:  A live band plus three enormous cameras squeezed into a space about the size of someone's living room.  It's a wonder there was space for whispering Bob Harris on his stool in the corner.

In the early '90s the weather moved to a purpose-built suite containing several studios elsewhere in TV Centre.  Pres A was then taken over by CBBC and used as a continuity studio - its original purpose.  In 1995 the BBC1 and BBC2 transmission suites moved two floors down to the old telecine area following that department's move to the post-production area in stage 5.  The old control rooms on the fourth floor were converted into continuity suites for the BBC's new digital channels.

Once Studio 9 was opened next to the Blue Peter Garden around 1996, Pres A was closed.  It seems very likely that Pres B also closed towards the end of 1996.  Alan Brett has written to me.  He works for a hospital TV studio and informs me that he was invited to go and help himself to anything useful from the old network control rooms.  Whilst there he looked in the Pres studios and on the wall was a setting plan for Barry Norman's Film '96.  It was dated 18th November 1996.  My guess is that this was the last programme made in the studio - unless, of course, you know different!

 

The network control for the two main channels moved down to the second floor, occupying the area previously home to telecine.  The old studio control rooms and associated areas were later converted into new digital continuity areas for BBC1 and BBC2.  Pres A and B remained as empty shells until 1999, when they were rebuilt with a mezzanine floor and converted into more transmission suites and technical areas, coming into service in 2000.

However, even this is no more and early in 2005 the whole playout department for all the BBC and UKTV channels moved to a highly secure and sophisticated purpose-built area in the new media village at White City, just down Wood Lane.  That operation is no longer run by the BBC but by a private company - 'Red Bee' - which was formed in late 2005. 

As far as I know, this suite of rooms was unoccupied throughout 2006 and into 2007.  In Jan 2007 I explored the area and found that it had been completely transformed from the way the old control rooms and studios were originally laid out.  Even the wall dividing the two studios had been demolished - with only a couple of pillars remaining.  That must have been quite a job.  There are now a number of  rooms - one or two quite large - with smart carpet, glazed partitions and hardwood doors.  The only clue as to what used to be there is the area up the new stairs at the back onto the mezzanine floor that was built within the space occupied by the two studios.  Although this is now an empty office with suspended ceiling and carpeted floor, the shape and size of the old Pres studios can still be made out.  They seem very small.

 

As mentioned above, during the late '90s the transmission suites for BBC1 and BBC2 were situated two floors down from their original location.  Matt Phelps has written to me about his memories of this period...

'It was a 2 person suite - the Network Director and the Announcer, who sat in a glass booth off the left of this suite facing back towards you.  The big green digital countdown in the middle of the stack was the 'weather counter' which was fired from this position and could also be seen in the 'self op' weather studio.  If it went wrong, or you forgot to set it before a weather report, it usually sent the weather people into a fury! This room always stank of diesel fumes - especially in the Continuity booths - for reason that we never quite got to the bottom of during my 6 years there!'

Network control for BBC1 in 1998.  Sue Barker, reporting from Wimbledon, can be seen on the preview monitor.  The green 'weather counter' can be seen to the right of the clock.  The large handle on the right of the mixer is a fade-to-black control.  This was apparently known by all as the 'f**k fader' since its use by the Network Director would only be in dire circumstances and usually accompanied by that expletive.

With thanks to Matt Phelps.

 

TC4A and the puppet studio

The main phase of construction of TV Centre also included a couple of other interesting areas.  In the corner of TC4 was a soundproof door leading to a studio about 20 feet square called TC4A.  It had no equipment of its own but did have wall boxes with sound sockets connected to TC4's mixer.  It was intended as a small band room and was occasionally used for this purpose in the early years.  It could also be used as a stand-alone studio for simple single-camera interviews but although it was soundproofed it had no fixed production lighting facilities.  When the studio was last refurbished it was reduced in size and converted into a kitchen and food prep area for TC4.

Through a door in the opposite corner of TC4 was another small wedge-shaped studio - although somewhat larger than TC4A and quite a bit higher.  This was the puppet studio and it had connecting doors to the studios either side so cameras could be wheeled in to make recordings.  It had no sound or vision facilities of its own.  It did have a simple scaffold grid with lamps on pantographs but how they were controlled I have no idea.  It was intended to replace the old puppet theatre tin shed in the yard at the back of Lime Grove but was only used for a few years.

This picture shows Gordon Murray and assistants in the new TVC puppet studio, making an episode of Rubovian Legends named Bees and Bellows.  It was filmed somewhere around the beginning of 1962, although it was not transmitted until October of that year.

Roy Skelton was one of the voice-over artists.  He later went on to become the voice of Zippy and George in Thames TV's Rainbow and, most impressively, the voice of the Daleks!

with thanks to Alastair Roxburgh and www.rubovia.org

 

Gordon Murray was the head of the BBC's Children's department and also produced their puppet programmes but by the time the new studio was opened he was beginning to become somewhat disillusioned.  He apparently didn't think the BBC really appreciated what he was doing for them.  He probably made around fifteen Rubovian Legends programmes in the new TVC studio. 

He was keen to move on from this method of filming as he was also becoming frustrated by the limitations of using puppets with strings.  He produced a pilot called The Minute Men (minute men - geddit?) using stop frame techniques rather than strings but his bosses in the BBC were not impressed.  Other short films met a similar reaction.  Rather depressed at this, he left the BBC in 1964 and set up his own studio in Albert Mansions, near the Albert Hall.  The Children's Department was closed at his departure and the puppet studio was never used for this purpose again.

Two years later Gordon Murray went on to have huge success with his own company making Camberwick Green and then Trumpton.  One assumes that the senior manager who had driven him from the BBC did the decent thing and shut himself in a locked room with a loaded revolver.  Well - somehow I doubt it.

Meanwhile, Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate created Smallfims and sold such classics to the BBC as The Clangers and Noggin the Nog.  The days of stringed puppets seemed to be over.  Well, at the BBC they were.  Sylvia and Gerry Anderson of course had other ideas and kept the technique alive - ultimately producing such 'Supermarionation' classics as Stingray, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet at their APF studios in Slough for ATV.

 

As mentioned above, the puppet studio probably became assigned to the schools television department around 1964 although what they used it for is not yet known.  (Can you help???)  TC5 was the home of schools broadcasting and the puppet studio had good access via a large door to this studio as well as TC4.

Around 1983 this little studio became the video effects workshop where post production work was done on shows like Dr Who and various other dramas using BBC-developed multi-level overlay and early digital video processors.  In the workshop there was space for a camera and a small blue screen as well as VT machines and a complex video mixing desk with loads of bolt-on toys.  However - its creation had been a long time coming...

Back in the mid 1970s a very small department of experts - who came to be called 'Electronic Effects Operators' had been formed - consisting of  Dave Chapman, Dave Jervis and Mitch Mitchell - under the management of Bob Wright.  They were used primarily to operate the inlay and overlay desks in studio galleries during the recording of shows.  However - they realised that some effects were best achieved after the recording.  In fact, you might say 'post-production' - although nobody called it that back then.

Previously, any video effects would have been done in the gallery at the time of recording.  Editing was simply that - making a final cut of the show.  Such things as colour grading for video material or any kind of video post production were almost unheard of back then.  Mitch describes how a typical effect was created...

'The Blake's 7 teleport effect with the white line was a hand drawn matte for instance so could only be applied to a pre-filmed sequence or after the video was layed down to tape.  These things were only possible after the availability of the video frame brought about by 1"C format and frame stores of which Quantel were the main UK protagonists.'

These complex effects were done in ordinary studio galleries whilst the studio floor was being used for a set and light day.  However, this wasn't ideal to say the least.  Mitch thought that it was 'nuts' to be using expensive studio galleries for this kind of work.  Also - some were better equipped than others.  He pressed hard to have a dedicated area created for this expanding area of TV production. 

The requirement was for a room containing vision mixing and video effect facilities, some VT machines and a camera with a small area of blue screen and space to shoot models and miniatures.  The old puppet theatre was the perfect place but despite management promises that it was about to happen it was many years before it did.  As well as the obvious issue of the cost of setting it up there is little doubt that the union had serious concerns about these individuals apparently doing the work of several separate specialists.  Remember that in the 1970s the unions in Britain were not known for their flexibility and willingness to embrace change!  In fact, Mitch and the others were all union members, had all been cameramen and were already in some ways doing the work of vision mixers. 

Anyway - sadly, after much frustration Mitch moved on in 1980 to do this kind of work for a newly created independent post-production company.  A few years after he left, the video effects workshop was eventually opened. 

A few other EEOs were created to join the two Daves - Robin Lobb, Adam McInnes, Nick Moore, Danny Popkin and Ian Simpson.  The work done in this little studio was ground-breaking for its day and it was used not just for sc-fi programmes but also to paint backgrounds onto wideshots in dramas, add snow or other weather effects - in fact much of the kind of work done by very sophisticated CGI today.

Despite the success of the workshop, by the end of the 1980s things had moved on and video effects work was being done in post production suites either in the new stage 5 at TVC or independently by companies in Soho, so the workshop was closed. 

From 1991 this studio became part of the sport graphics area associated with TC5.  One wonders what it will be used for when Sport leave the building in 2011.  Mind you, call me an old cynic but with the Olympics in 2012 I have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps not quite all of the Sport dept will be making the move north only a few months before the greatest sporting event in the UK for decades comes to London.

 

 

Completing the main block

The final part of this phase of the construction of  Television Centre was the completion and fitting out of studios 7, 1, and 6 - in that order.  This would finish the building as it was initially designed.  Further expansion along the spur was in the concept phase only and no detailed plans existed at that time. 

TC7 is almost exactly the same design as TC2 and TC5 (and also with long lighting bars) although it is a couple of feet longer.  Sources differ as to when it opened but it was probably in 1962.  According to the 1963 BBC Handbook (Jan 1963) it opened in 1962 but an IEE publication, 'The BBC Television Centre and its Technical Facilities', dated May 1962, states that 'TC7, as well as TC1 and TC6, will be gradually equipped and brought into service during 1963 and 1964.'  TC6 was a long way from being brought into service so maybe they were wrong about TC7 too.  Possibly they decided to postpone TC6 and wait for colour so TC7 came into service ahead of schedule.  Do let me know if you can add any evidence to confirm the date please.

Its design was very similar to the first four studios and the equipment fit was also along the same lines.  It originally had black and white Marconi MkIV cameras but was colourised with EMI 2001s in July 1968.  Play School was based in this studio for many years, providing excellent training opportunities for young cameramen and boom ops and not so young trainee lighting directors.  I still have in my garage a set of colour filters dating from the late 1980s that I carefully cut out and stapled together to create a very interesting underwater effect around the cyclorama end of the studio.  The director said she was very impressed but I think she was just being kind.

TC7 was used in later years for The Late Show, after it moved from Lime Grove, although of course dozens of other relatively small scale shows including panel games like Call My Bluff, cookery programmes with the likes of Delia Smith and childrens programmes such as Bodger and Badger were made in this studio.  The original three series of Vic and Bob's Shooting Stars from 1995 to1997 also came from here.  In 2002 it moved to TC1, which was quite a contrast.

From 1976, each Saturday TC7 was given over to live kids' TV - starting with Multi-Coloured Swap Shop until 1982 when it was succeeded by Saturday Superstore, then Going Live and finally Live and Kicking.  After a couple of series L&K moved to TC6 in 1997 - officially only occupying the same floor area as TC7 but, surprise surprise, the set gradually stretched over the years until it almost filled that studio!

A typical production gallery in the late '60s - in this case TC7.  PA on the left, then director, then vision mixer.  Confusingly, the vision mixer is also the name of the equipment he or she operates.

Until the 1980s all TVC's studios had the BBC-designed 2-bank system with 8 inputs - each with a fader and button beneath.  This was a totally different operating philosophy from the commercially designed mixers (switchers) in use everywhere else in the world.

Nowadays, all BBC studios use the same vision mixers as in other studios - usually made by Grass Valley, Sony or Thomson.

I have been sent an anecdote by Mike Renshall relating to BBC vision mixers, similar to the one above.  They could generate fancy 'wipes' by using a plug-in module - these were kept in a small flight case by the studio engineers.  The pattern of the wipe was illustrated on the cartridge that you plugged in for the desired effect.  Mike was a trainee engineer, working in TC5, when...

'...one day a vision mixer lady came into the back room and asked me (a young trainee on my own) for the 'box of 100 wipes'.  I of course didn't know then that this referred to the plug-in wipe modules for the BBC EP5/512 vision mixer (the one with the two quadrant faders on the mixer top and the 'clunk click' channel buttons) so offered her.. er.. a box of Kimwipes.  How embarrassing!'

 

 

Back in the early '60s the 'works block' was also finished on the east side of the site.  This was topped with a 13-storey office block - the East Tower - which was completed in 1964.  Although built at the same time as the rest of the main block it was not part of the original design and does not appear on any of the early models or drawings.  It seems like an afterthought and looks quite out of place with the rest of the site.  Its materials do not match those used on the other buildings and its design is typical of the type of bland office block of the period which seems surprising, given the unique nature and high quality of the design of the rest of TV Centre.  Not surprisingly, given its age and poor quality construction, it is now looking pretty tatty and in need of renovation.  If and when TV Centre is sold by the BBC in a few years' time it is hard to imagine this tower surviving for long afterwards, even if the main block facing Wood Lane is retained for planning reasons.

The LWT tower on the South Bank, albeit several stories higher, was built eight years later and is a much better design - nicely integrated into the rest of the LWT studio centre.  Indeed, it is its defining feature and still looks very good even today.  It is really disappointing that the East Tower did not achieve a similar effect at TVC. 

 

TC1 opened on 15th April 1964. (I'm sure I remember watching a Blue Peter special on the day.)  It was of course equipped with monochrome cameras and would have to wait until 1968 before it was colourised using EMI 2001 cameras.  It was said to be the largest television studio in Europe although actually studio 5 at Wembley was and is much larger when it has its dividing doors open at 14,000 sq ft gross.  TC1 is 11,000 sq ft gross or 100 x 90 metric feet between firelanes and its size has proved immensely useful for all kinds of productions.  These used to be major dramas and operas or variety shows like Morcambe and Wise or The Black and White Minstrel Show.  In the last few years it has come into its own with popular shows like Strictly Come Dancing, 'Maria', 'Joseph' and 'Nancy', Let Me Entertain You, Last Choir Standing and Maestro.  These big spectacular productions simply won't fit into any other London studio except for Fountain and have enabled the BBC to present shows that are visually second to none.

Originally it was going to have a section of the floor that could have been lowered with motors.  The official BBC book about the Centre published in 1960 states 'A pit is provided, fifty feet long by thirty feet wide which can be filled with water and will have above it a sectional floor that can descend to a maximum depth of 7 ft 6 ins.'  The idea went away before it was built but that part of the studio apparently still has a different maximum weight loading from the rest.  I can't think what kind of television production would safely be able to make use of a tank containing thousands of gallons of water and in the event I suppose others couldn't either.  I imagine that the problem of how to make the join in the floor so perfect that cameras could track over it without any disturbance to the picture also proved to be a bit of a headache.  It does indicate though that at the time of designing the building, cost was almost irrelevant and all they wanted were the best possible studios with the best possible facilities. 

One of the most celebrated programmes to come out of TC1 - I Claudius.  This picture was taken in 1976.  I can be fairly certain of that as I am the cablebasher on the far right of the frame.  (And that was a serious cable to bash, I can tell you.)  This series was the first I worked on when joining the BBC and I assumed at the time that the rest of my career would be spent working on programmes just like this one.  Ah well.

The others in the photo are Patrick Stewart as Sejanus, Ian Perry on the camera and in the white T-shirt - Herby Wise, the director.

Note the panning handle on the camera is angled up at 90 degrees.  This was a technique used by Jim Atkinson, senior cameraman of crew 5, and it enabled the camera to be controlled more easily when crabbing and panning.  This technique of fluid camerawork with the ped always on the move and operating on a wide lens close to the action was pioneered by Jim.  It was very similar to today's fashionable use of hand-held or steadycam mounted cameras and was arguably 30 years ahead of its time.

 

TC6 is an interesting case.  At the time the shell of the studio was built it was intended to install dividing doors and two sets of galleries.  It is therefore rotated through 90 degrees compared with all the other studios and has its long wall running along the scenery runway. The idea of being able to split it was abandoned before the studio was fitted out.  The lighting bars in TC6 are slightly further apart along the centre line because the grid was designed to make allowance for the doors that were never fitted.  Because this studio is 'sideways on' people occasionally describe it as being long and narrow.  In fact it is the same width as TC3 at 70 metric feet and only two feet longer than the other medium studios at 92 metric feet.

The opening of TC6 was delayed until 1967 so that it could become the BBC's first colour studio.  BBC2 officially went colour in July of that year.  The first production was Once More With Felix starring Julie Felix.  (Remember her?  Just me then.)

Once More With Felix.  The first programme made in colour in TC6.  Looks fab doesn't it.  In those days they used fairy lights rather than Varilites.  (Sorry.)  You can actually see these lights in action on a clip of Leonard Cohen (who was a guest on this show) on YouTube.  Don't watch if you can't take too much excitement.

Note the cardboard lens hoods.  The real ones had not yet arrived.  Also note the grey floor and brown cyc.

In the late '60s following years of experiments at AP and studio H at Lime Grove the BBC had drawn up a book of rules as to what was and was not acceptable to transmit in colour.  It was almost as though they didn't want too much colour on screen as it might alarm the viewer.  Hence, for the first few years the most popular colour for cycloramas and scenery in general was brown.  Lovely.

 

A potted history of early colour cameras...

It had been a long wait before a good quality, reliable colour camera was available.  In 1966 there were three main camera manufacturers:  Philips, Marconi and EMI.  The BBC carried out a three-way test over several months in Pres B using the programme Late Night Line-up.  Engineers in the studio examined their reliability - Marconi provided their own maintenance engineer, the other companies left it to the BBC ones.  Meanwhile, other members of the BBC great and good watched the pictures at home and made notes.  A decision had to be made urgently so that the first studios could be equipped in 1967.

 

Philips (under the brand name 'Peto-Scott') had its PC60 which was very good quality but perhaps a little soft - it had only three tubes.  Also, the company was not British - therefore at a disadvantage with regard to the BBC.  Nevertheless, two OB units were equipped with PC60s in 1967.

Marconi had its Mk VII which was much sharper, having four tubes.  This camera was designed in the mid '60s for the export market - in particular America - and with its lens bolted onto the front it meant that a wide selection of lenses could be used.  It was built using military-grade components and its electronic design was very advanced.  Ruggedness and reliability were intended to be key features.  The camera was sharp but its colourimetry was not liked by all - some described faces as looking sun-tanned, others simply thought that faces looked pink.  Someone has described the picture to me as looking like a black and white image with the colour added on top - which of course is exactly what it was.  Its luminance tube produced an image and the colour information from the other three tubes was superimposed. 

The main problem with the Mk VII was its weight and its length.  It was so long that the kind of camera moves used on studio dramas or light entertainment shows were not possible without using a separate assistant or 'dolly-op' to move the camera pedestal.  Peds had to have a larger diameter steering ring fitted but when the cameraman stood behind it he couldn't reach the ped with his feet.  Therefore he could not track or crab the ped in the usual way.

The third camera was supplied by EMI.  Some sources say this was named 2000, others 2001.  It was a long time ago and memories are not that reliable.  Anyway, this camera was the nearest to the BBC's specifications.  In seeking sales EMI had worked very closely with the BBC to produce exactly what they wanted.  It was compact with an integral zoom lens so cameramen and directors loved it.  Its electronics were less advanced than the Marconi which supposedly made it easier to line up and maintain.  Its colourimetry was also closest to the BBC spec and (in its 1968 incarnation) produced very good flesh tones.  This camera used a different technique from the Marconi Mk VII, using the green tube to produce the image whilst the luminance tube supplied only the fine detail information.  Perhaps surprisingly, this appeared more natural on screen in many people's eyes.

However - the only tubes that gave really good quality were Plumbicons - invented by Philips.  Naturally, they were reluctant to see other manufacturers use them.  Marconi got round this by selling cameras without tubes and asking the TV companies to order them direct from Philips which, surprisingly, they were willing to do.  Marconi had allegedly bought some Plumbicons for development purposes claiming they were for 'medical use'.  According to a technical paper by an EMI man named McGee, EMI attempted to develop lead-based tubes too but found it too difficult to get the mix just right and layer thickness uniform enough.  They were therefore forced to use much less sophisticated Vidicon tubes but these were nowhere near as good as the Plumbicon.  TV camera enthusiast Paul Marshall has written to me explaining the problem...

'I proved this for myself when I got the Marconi Coffin camera and the EMI (vidicon colour) 204 camera going for the NMPFT (National Museum of Photography, Film and Television).  Our 'scene', a red dalek, was perfect on the coffin, but the red sensitive vidicons just couldn't give a nice looking dalek (the blue and green tubes had so much red and infra red sensitivity that they always saw something through the crude dichroic and thus de-saturated reds.  Flesh tones were awful plus the low light shading, noise and microphony to boot!  Horrible.'

Ex EMI engineer Dave Craddock has written to me with his story.  He was EMI's technical manger in Australia and New Zealand betwen 1962 and 1966. In late 1963 he had four 204s that he demo'd at the 'Sydney Showground'.  This included an interview with the Australian PM, Robert Menzies.

He describes the 204 as three EMI 201s in the same box with Vidicon tubes, each providing an R, G or B signal.  He says that although the 201 was a good camera, having 3 together made registering the images very difficult, especially when the heat began to build up.

I'd better not repeat here what Dave thought of the people who were running EMI at the time.  However, he took a very dim view of the person who ordered cheap capacitors, most of which proved faulty.  They had to be replaced with Philips ones ironically and he says he filled a tea chest with the dud ones once a month.  Dave became so disenchanted that he resigned and joined RCA in 1966, before the 2001 came on the scene.

What happened at the BBC tests is not 100% clear.  However, it seems more than likely that the results were a disaster for EMI.  The camera was clearly not as good as the Marconi.  The BBC engineers were dismayed as the camera designed to their spec wasn't the one that produced the best pictures. 

Something had to be done fast to be ready for colour to begin in 1967.  Reluctantly, the BBC ordered 17 Marconi Mk VIIs which, thanks to Marconi pulling out all the stops, were duly delivered on time.  These were installed in TC6, TC8 and one of the studios at Alexandra Palace for BBC2 News.  Meanwhile EMI went back to the drawing board, persuaded Philips to sell them some Plumbicon tubes and spent months integrating them into the camera's design.  After a great deal of work they came up with a revised design ready for delivery in 1968.

However, I have also been sent an interesting email by Charles Hope - a retired senior BBC engineer - that casts a somewhat different light on this story.  He writes...

'At the time of this work, I was involved with the BBC Motoring Club (one of the many 'social' sections) and got to know the Head Of Designs Department (Neville Watson) very well.  He told me that everybody (Research, Designs and Operations) wanted to use EMI cameras but the Director of Engineering insisted the Marconi gave the best results.  In 1968, about a year after the Marconis had come into service, DE gave a major talk in the Theatre, fed sound only to all studios, in which he apologised for buying the 'wrong' cameras.  He retired shortly afterwards.'

At first glance this seems to contradict the other version of events - but not necessarily.  Firstly, it would be nice to know a bit more about this rather surprising announcement and apology.  I would certainly like to know the exact words the Director of Engineering used - and exactly what it was he was apologising for.  Perhaps for causing so much extra work by having to swap cameras round the studios so soon after they were bought.  However, he clearly felt at the time that he had no choice but to go with the Marconi.  Bear in mind that it does seem that the EMI wasn't as good in 1966 as it became a year or two later after more development work was done.  It is also frankly not very surprising that all those engineers wanted the EMI chosen if they had contributed so much to its design.

All this is most intriguing.  Can you shed any further light?

 

The author in 1976 with an EMI 2001 trying to look as though I know what I'm doing.

The picture was taken in studio A at the BBC's engineering training centre at Wood Norton, Evesham.

This print has been skulling about in the bottom of a drawer for 30 years and is a little the worse for wear.

Opinions differ strongly as to the relative merits of the various cameras of the day.  Those with ties to Marconi believe that their cameras were trashed unfairly by the BBC and that some sort of rivalry or worse existed between the Corporation and Marconi.  Interestingly, having seen this statement, a retired senior BBC engineer has written to me ...

'As a maintenance engineer in Central Area (later to become Television Network) we learned very early on to hate Marconi kit.  It was very unreliable!  Cameras, Picture monitors, Sync Pulse generators (I had the misfortune to have to commission one when on attachment to SPID) all failed far more often than other makes.  My former colleagues in what was Transmitter (Transmission) department had the same feeling about Marconi transmitters.' 

Of course this is only one person's opinion.  Other engineers may have had a different experience.  Certainly, there are several examples of Marconi MkVIIs in use by enthusiasts today who say that the cameras are reliable, well-built and still produce very nice pictures.  They sold very well all over the world - unlike the EMI 2001.  They were also popular OB cameras with some of the ITV companies.  I have, however, had an email from Ian Hillson who seems to be following the BBC line of the day...

'As an engineer, the thing I remember about them was the huge spares cabinet that you needed - every unit inside it seemed to have been designed by a different individual design team using their favourite components - so you had everything in there, transistors, nuvistors, thick film circuits, thin film circuits....

And Marconi only ever used salmon pink wire, so it was impossible to trace thro'...

And it was single core, so started to break as they used it at the hinge on the fold down front of the CCU....

And, I seem to remember, the lens they used was for an IO and gave a huge image size for the plumbicon and not enough back-focus to accommodate the block, hence needed relay optics - and lost more light!  And it had a very Michael Mouse fixing system of a guillotine handle locking (or not quite locking) into an ineffectual slot around the back of the lens.  Methinks that everyone of my age has seen the zoom lens fall off a MkVII...'

So the 2001 became the favourite of the BBC - both cameramen and engineers liking it - and of course it remained in use for many years.  It was also bought to equip studios by most of the big ITV companies including Thames, LWT, ITN, Yorkshire, Granada and ATV.  They would certainly not have ordered it if they had not preferred it for studio work over the Marconi or Philips. 

Incidentally, I have been told by a retired BBC engineer of an apocryphal story concerning the time Granada was choosing whether to buy EMI or Marconi colour cameras.  It seems that the EMI was producing better pictures and when the man from Marconi came to try and improve results he is supposed to have said " A side by side comparison - that's not fair."  Actually, I think this tale says as much about the attitude of BBC engineers as it might about Marconi cameras.

The 2001 was not without fault however - arguably no more reliable than the Marconi and prone to noise in some examples.  It was also not good at coping with dark scenes in plays - noise, smearing and curious colour casts are to be seen in old tapes.  Its greatest strength was also its weakness.  Its integral lens made it unsuitable as an OB camera where lenses are often changed and overseas TV companies did not like it for the same reason.  Only two zoom lenses would fit it.  Its colourimetry was not liked outside the UK.  The subtle tones it produced - giving excellent rendition of faces - also made it appear cool and desaturated with some material.  In particular, most US companies did not like it at all.

Thus the original Marconis were removed from TC6 and TC8 after less than a year and used by the BBC where camera movement would not be an issue - in news studios and the Pres studios.  All the other studios were equipped with the EMI 2001.

 

Marconi and EMI each went on to develop a camera that was the opposite of the Mk VII and 2001 respectively.  Marconi produced the Mk VIII with its integral lens and much improved colourimetry.  In 1970 it was arguably the most advanced camera design in the world.  The BBC allegedly indicated that they were interested in purchasing 80!  Oddly, they actually bought only two - for a news OB unit.  Actually, probably three.  Ian Hillson and Roy Adcock found one in a cupboard in Elstree in 2000, apparently brand new and with a number 3 on it.  Ian had been an engineer occasionally working with the 2-camera OB unit and he was particularly cross...  '..."only bought two" ... pah!  They lied to us...'

One person who worked for Marconi has told me that he believes that the automatic line-up it possessed was not liked by the unions - fearing job losses - and the BBC did not want any industrial problems so avoided it.

A BBC engineer on the other hand recalled to me that his memory of the camera was that the automatic line-up was prone to errors and that a conventional line-up was often required in addition to the automatic one.  I have also been told by another senior engineer of the day that 'The automatic line up created enormous problems because it couldn't be switched off!  Lens aberrations at the edge of the picture could result in the camera deciding that the tube registration needed adjustment even when on air.'  However, Paul Marshall has written to me with this observation... 'Oh, dear, of course you can, it's a switch in the automatics drawer with several positions, including 'off !'  The automatics were never perfect, that's true, but they weren't bad if the tubes were from the same batch, correctly oriented and the beam current set-up right.  The later, MkVIIIB had a pair of 'size corrector' pots that mopped up a lot of problems to do with through the lens v. diascope line-up.  Lenses for tubed cameras invariably had chromatic aberration and inherently the diascope doesn't.  Thus, there were width and height registration errors when you went back to the lens.  The pots compensated for this and things were much better.  I think this is what your chap is talking about.'  Reading between the lines it does seem to me that the automatic functions of the Mk VIII were perhaps not quite as automatic as Marconi might have led potential purchasers to believe.

Ian Hillson takes the same view as the other BBC engineers...

'...The cameras were awful and needed a final tweak after auto line-up.  They had motorised pots on the CCU to store the settings! Fun to watch....

One of the problems as you say was that the diascope (obviously) didn't use all the elements in the lens - so you were still left with a bit of chromatic lens aberration to try and reduce.  And the green tube scan patch was smaller than the red and blue ones, just to make registration errors worse  - methinks that this gave the camera greater sensitivity (same light over smaller tube area) - sadly being three tube it was "contours out of green" which gave rise to soft & noisy red carpets at royal events!'

Ken Banwell - ex HTV engineer - has written to me with broadly similar views of the Mk VIII

'I came across them at HTV, who had 12 or 13, including 2 of the 3 preproduction ones.  The other was with the BBC News OB unit.  I notice that [Ian Hillson}says that the green scan patch was smaller than the red and blue.  It was the other way around - the red and blue had minifiers on to increase sensitivity.  The automatics after the addition of the additional pots worked quite well if set up.  The main problem was reliability from the wee cees - the red ones which burned out, the fans on the PSU`s that melted until replaced by metal ones and the camera head power supply (I still have one) which was a designers dream and an engineer's nightmare.  I could still line up a CCU without much thought after 20 odd years, I did it so often.  HTV tried twice to use one on an OB.  It never worked so they gave up and used a 2001 from studios if an extra camera was required.'

'A designer's dream and an engineer's nightmare' seems to be a common theme in what most people have told me.  Whether the Mk VIII was or was not liked by engineers, a cameraman who operated one told me that it felt odd in use - because the viewfinder and lens were offset.  In any event, the Mk VIII did very well in the export world so Marconi stayed in business.

 

EMI developed the 2005 after several years' research.  One wonders what they had been up to.  A long, ugly 3-tube camera with its lens bolted on the front was the result.  It produced soft, muddy pictures and was disliked by cameramen and engineers alike.  None were ordered for the BBC's London studios.  To my knowledge, only BBC Manchester and LWT's studio at Wycombe Road were equipped with these cameras in the UK. 

Within a short time EMI abandoned broadcast camera manufacture.  It is astonishing how they could have thrown their lead in this market away.  Sure, the integral lens of the 2001 made it difficult to sell abroad but there was no excuse for subsequently producing a camera that produced such bad pictures. 

Meanwhile, Philips quietly came up with the LDK-5.  A superb camera with triax cable that became the workhorse of BBC OBs and TV companies all over the world. 

So in the late '70s the BBC were left without a suitable studio camera.  It was not politically acceptable to order a non-British camera to equip BBC studios.  They persuaded a little company that made CCTV security cameras - Link - to come up with a design.  The 110 was a soft 3-tube camera with integral lens that was not particularly liked by anyone but was just about acceptable.  Its physical design was not very sophisticated, as this experience from a Thames engineer indicates...

'At Thames I had experience of the Marconi Mk VII’s, EMI 2001’s and the dreadful Link 110’s.  The camera cable connector was attached to the chassis by 4 quarter inch, self tapping screws.  One day we noticed a couple on the floor and then spotted camera 1 tracking across the floor with its connector hanging in free air!'

The next design from Link that came along in the early 1980s was genuinely very good - the 125.  Most of the BBC's studios were eventually equipped with this camera.  Limehouse, too, ordered it after an exhaustive test looking for the best camera available at the time.  Everything was fine until Link went on to the next generation - the 130.  This model was developed in the mid 1980s to the latest BBC spec.  A set of cameras was delivered to be installed in Elstree A.  The studio was due to open with them in 1989. 

Sadly, the 130 overreached itself in what it was trying to do with the technology that was available to the company at that time.  It attempted to have an automatic microprocessor-controlled line-up but failed.  Despite all the efforts of Link and BBC engineers they could not make the cameras work reliably.  Oddly, at the time Marconi had a perfectly good camera (Mk IX) that did more or less the same thing - except that apparently it worked!  For some reason, the BBC would not contemplate buying the Marconi.  Very odd.  Shortly afterwards Marconi, too, ceased broadcast camera manufacture.

Having already bought some lenses to fit the Link 130s they had ordered, the BBC were left with a problem.  They had to find a suitable camera that would fit them.  The answer was found in France, believe it or not.  In 1989, a set of Thomson 1530s - one of the last tubed cameras on the market, was purchased for studio A at Elstree.  These were (of course) modified to BBC specs and were renamed 1531s.  Thus began a relationship with Thomson that was to last a decade.  4:3 CCD models followed by widescreen models were subsequently bought for almost all the BBC's studios over the next decade.  (The exception was at Elstree where the EastEnders studios bought Philips LDK 100s, which are still in use.) 

Since 2004 Sony has become the BBC's manufacturer of choice, with almost all the TV Centre studios now equipped with E-30 cameras, although TC1 and TC8 were fitted with high definition HDC-1500s in 2006 and TC4 in 2008.

 

Some might say that thanks to BBC camera policy during the 1960s-1980s - EMI, Marconi and Link were all forced to give up involvement in broadcast television.  You could say that EMI and Link failed because they were too closely involved with the BBC and Marconi failed because it somehow antagonised them.  However, you can't have it both ways.  Can the BBC really be held responsible because it ordered or didn't order various cameras?  What is certainly true is that all these companies had to give up at some point because their latest camera could not be sold in sufficient quantities at home and abroad.

Whatever the reason, there is now no British manufacturer of broadcast television cameras.

If you were part of this process and can add any information - or of course if you disagree with any of the above I'd love to hear!

Golden Age Television Recreations is a company that hires working examples of old TV cameras.  Their website has some excellent images of most of the cameras mentioned above.  Go to their 'equipment for hire' page.

 

 

Back to the late '60s and the dawn of colour on BBC2... 

Of course, costume drama was a perfect subject for colour and the first made in TC6 was Vanity Fair, starring Susan Hampshire.  The series began in October 1967.

It had been decided that the two big studios 6 and 8 were to be equipped for colour and would open within a few weeks of each other.  It was also decided that TC6, 7 and 8 would share a common apparatus room but in the event this proved to be a nightmare for the studio engineers to operate.  Within a few years walls were built and each studio had its own separate area and dedicated engineers like all the other studios.

Roderick Stewart has written to me with an amusing anecdote...

'Studios TC6, 7 and 8 did indeed have a combined apparatus room as you describe, but by the time I worked there, they'd already put up Marley blinds to separate the areas belonging to each studio, because the original plan was not as practical as they'd thought. There was a common monitoring desk (known as the "Magic desk") which had been included with the intention of checking colour consistency between the three studios, but it was hardly used, and eventually dismantled, though one of the control panels was so integrated with the workings of other equipment that we couldn't disconnect it, so we just buried it under the floorboards where it could sometimes be seen glowing through the cracks between them.  It probably puzzled whoever eventually dismantled the studios for their next refurbishment.'

 

One other item of interest about these three studios - they were initially designed to be dual 525 and 625-line capable.  This came as a surprise to me when I discovered it as I would have thought that exporting programmes to the US was not a high priority in those days - unlike ATV at Elstree.  However, I have been informed by one of the engineers responsible for the installation that TC6 did indeed make at least one programme in 525-line NTSC which was subsequently converted to 625-line PAL by the BBC's standards converter.  The programme was a play - Charley's Aunt - starring Danny La Rue and made in 1969.  I have also been informed that at the time the studios were designed there were no 625-525 converters, only ones converting from the US standard.  (625-525 standards converters came a little later.)  Thus, to make a programme for export to the US you had to make it in 525 lines.  It also seems that one current affairs programme for the USA came out of TVC for the London contributions and was made in 525-line NTSC.

Interestingly, there were some problems using the 525 lines/60Hz system as the frequency sometime 'beat' with the studio lighting causing a flicker.  The lights were fed by normal 240 volt AC current which of course alternates at 50Hz.  (50 Hz means that the electric current alternates fifty times per second.)  ATV's studios at Elstree apparently got round this by using a DC feed to their lighting, which therefore did not flicker.

Roderick Stewart has some more information on the 525-line capability of these studios...

'There was one set of 525 line NTSC equipment which could in theory be assigned to any of the three studios at the flick of a switch, but I only ever saw it used twice, and each time it was a nightmare of clattering relays, followed by hours of diagnostics to trace which ones had stuck and which DC fuses had blown because the system hadn't been used for years.  Thinking about all the things that had to be switched, the pulse feeds to the cameras and encoders, RGB feeds from cameras to encoders, inputs to and RGBS outputs from rack mounted decoders to colour monitors, and feeds to a separate waveform monitor and vectorscope, it was amazing it ever worked at all.

Not only that but there was some relay logic intended as an interlock to prevent two studios from being assigned the 525 NTSC gear at the same time.  If it had been necessary to switch it every day there might have been some sense in all this complication, but in reality it was more trouble than it was worth.'

 

 

TC1, TC6 and TC8 were designed with a new short lighting bar system with one dual-source luminaire on a rolling trolley on each bar.  Each bar is only 4 feet long and spaced with their ends 3 feet apart.  (In TC1 this distance is 4 feet.)  Each row of bars is spaced four feet apart, rather than the 6 feet in 'long bar' studios.  This arrangement gives much greater flexibility to the lighting director.  Top light entertainment LD Dickie Higham used to have his own studio classification which baffled many a colleague (including me) until the penny dropped.  According to him, TC1, TC2, TC3 and TC8 were all 'long bar studios.'  The rest were 'short bar' ones.  He was, of course, referring to the distance from the studio to the BBC Club.

 

The dual-source luminaires designed by Derek Lightbody (no, really) were first installed in TC6 and TC8 when they opened, then the rest of the studios at TVC, and D and E at Lime Grove.  There were even some at Television Theatre.  They were a clever way of reducing rigging time and offering more flexibility to the lighting director.  They are commonly called 'twisters' by everybody in the industry except those who actually use them in the BBC.  The 'pointy' end - with a fresnel lens and barndoors - was fitted with a 5kW lamp which had two filaments, each rated at 2½ kW.  You could use either or both filaments by using a pole-operated switch.  When the Link cameras were installed in the studios, these needed less light so the filament size changed to 1¼ and 2½ kW.  So far so good.

The 'soft' end wasn't really, since the reflector was only about 18 inches square.  However, the original lanterns - called 'Quarts' by Berkey, the manufacturer - were fitted with a very good eggcrate, giving quite a bit of control over the spread.  Thus, they actually made excellent softened keylights and were used as such on many dramas and sitcoms. 

I shouldn't really use the past tense as they are still in use - or at least newer versions are - in all eight main studios at TVC.  Sadly, the newer lanterns designed by Lee Colortran have soft ends with eggcrates giving far less control but they are a bit softer.  Other manufacturers have also made their versions.  Beware the Kohoutek!  This monster attempted to use the same bulb for both ends and was a complete disaster.  Sadly it is still to be found in a couple of the smaller studios at TVC.  Believe it or not the lantern is named after a comet that promised astronomers a great show but when actually observed was a huge disappointment.  According to Wikipedia...

'Because Comet Kohoutek fell far short of expectations its name became synonymous with spectacular duds.'

Who'd have though it?

I am told that one of the reasons the original Berkey lanterns were replaced in the 1980s was that a very useful material was allegedly used as insulation in their construction.  Yes - you guessed it - asbestos.  God only knows how much of the stuff was knocked out of them over the years whilst being beaten with a stick by enthusiastic electricians.  Let's face it...we're doomed.

 

 

TV Centre probably in 1960.  TC1 is built but not fitted out.  TC8 has yet to be constructed.

 

Stage 4 was the construction of the first section of the spur.  In 1959, months before the building had opened, a meeting was held to discuss what would be included in the first section of the spur.  They decided that it would contain another medium to large studio - TC8 and the new news centre. 

Preliminary work began in 1963 and by 1966 the basic shell of the building was complete.  The occupation of the news area was postponed, however, by the World Cup.  The BBC, as host broadcaster, had to house the world's TV companies for the contest so the space was turned into facilities for them.  A temporary studio was built, equipped with EMI 203 black and white cameras, which following the World Cup was used as the weather studio whilst Pres A was being colourised.  Once this was over work could resume on equipping the studios and newsrooms.

The design of TC8 benefited from the experience gained working in the older studios.  It is said to be the most popular studio amongst many programme makers.  Its galleries are well laid out, the studio is slightly wider than the others at 72 metric feet by 90 metric feet within firelanes and it was the first studio built with retractable audience seating.  This enables a greater floor area to be used than the other studios when an audience is present.  It also has the same short lighting bars as in TC1 and TC6.  It has a better ventilation system than the other studios, in which the cool air enters via vents distributed all over the grid.  The other studios use pipes spaced a few metres apart around the top of the walls that pump cool air over the top of the cyc.  I believe it is also the only studio at TVC in which no asbestos was used in its construction. 

TC8 opened in 1967 with Marconi MkVII colour cameras a few weeks after TC6.  The Marconis only lasted a few months and by April 1968 they had been replaced with EMI 2001s.

 

TC8 was also the first studio with thyristor dimmers controlled by a computer memory console - the Thorn Q-File.  This console was subsequently installed in TV Theatre and all the other studios at TVC except TC6 and Lime Grove D and E.  These three studios were equipped with the Strand MMS - 'Modular Memory System.'  This was a console with fader wheels rather than the motorised faders of the Q-File.  It had a slightly different operating philosophy from the Thorn desk which some liked, others not.   It was in fact the predecessor to the Galaxy - without question the best lighting console ever developed for TV studios.  Almost every studio in the UK is now equipped with one - they were available to purchase, in improving versions, from the early '80s to the mid '90s. 

Their manufacturer, Strand Lighting, has not offered them for sale for about 10 years now.  Bizarrely, they and all the other console manufacturers have not offered a similar replacement but only consoles that very few operators or LDs believe are as suitable for television as the old Galaxy.  Thus, these old lighting desks soldier on.  Spare parts are acquired from old consoles being replaced in theatres or studios all over the world.  A few years ago, the BBC even bought an old Galaxy from Russia.

When one of the many lighting console manufacturers have a new one for sale that is as good as a Galaxy then they will probably sell about 30 of them within a year or two.  Sadly, this won't be Strand.  They went bust in 2006 and part of what remained of them was taken over by an American company, who were subsequently bought by Philips.  The current range of Strand consoles are very much aimed at theatre use.

TC7 and TC8 were later equipped with a radical re-development of the Q-File called the 'Thornlight.'  It had obviously been designed by a committee and was in some ways rather clumsy to operate.  However, once you got the hang of it it was extremely flexible and I personally really got to like it.  These were later replaced by Galaxys, as eventually was TC6's MMS, until by the late 1980s the only studios still with a Q-File were TC1 and Television Theatre.

The curious saga of the QII

To continue along  this rather specialised lighting console tangent...

...a handful of' senior 'lighting and vision control supervisors' (console operators) at the BBC decided in the mid '80s that the Thornlight was rubbish and that the old Thorn Q-File was better than the Strand Galaxy.  There was, as it happened, a problem in re-equipping TC1.  It was due to have more than 1000 dimmers installed in its refurbishment and the software of the Galaxy could not apparently cope.  Thus, they persuaded the BBC research department to design a console that could control this many dimmers.  It was to be, in effect, a copy of the old Q-File using modern components and would be called the QII. 

It had only 99 files in its memory which for the kinds of shows that were being made in TC1 (Children in Need etc) was clearly inadequate yet the project went ahead.  It solved the channel number problem by including A, B, C and D on its keypad as well as numbers.  Some of the more junior operators like myself were concerned at what we would be losing compared with the Galaxy.  After some pressure, a modification was made to the design and a sub-master panel was included - a small victory.  

By the time the console was available and installed in TV Theatre and TC1 many of those who had pressed for its adoption had retired or were now LDs.  Thus a new generation of console ops had to make the best of this curious desk.  TV Theatre closed in 1991 so the only one left was in TC1.  Eventually, after console operators had struggled with it for nearly a decade one of the last Galaxies available was installed in TC1 in 2000.  Of course - all the dimmer numbers on the lighting bars had to be changed as there were no longer any 'A, B, C, D' dimmer numbers.  This was a huge task in itself!  An electronic patching system solved the problem with the amount of channels - as it could have all along.  Indeed, the same engineers developed an excellent one called 'Leopard' (can't change its spots - geddit?) at the same time as the QII.

This project was done with the best of intentions and looking back, it is very hard to understand what the people who drove the whole thing forward had against the Galaxy.  At the time, as a relatively new console operator I was perfectly happy with the Galaxy but I suppose I was won over by the enthusiasm of the project leaders.  A couple of TC1 studio engineers and a team of engineers from BBC Research Department spent years working to develop the QII.  For some reason, I was asked to demonstrate the prototype at the Institute for Electrical Engineers which was a little awkward as it was a very simple desk with no effects built in.  Indeed - its simplicity was said to be its main advantage.  I did a few cross-fades, ending up by cutting through a dozen cues as fast as I could accompanied by some music and everyone applauded.  Phew.

This really was the old BBC at its best and worst.  At its best because it put vast resources into creating something that no commercial company could supply and which it genuinely thought would provide the best solution.  At its worst because the project was essentially looking backwards not forwards, it must have cost a fortune, and clearly had no hope of recouping any of that through sales. 

 

 

The two news studios on the 6th floor of the Spur, N1 and N2, were not entirely fitted out with brand new kit, as you might have expected.  According to engineer Bob Taylor, no less than 65 pantechnicons were used to transport cameras, other technical equipment and all the office contents to TVC from Alexexandra Palace.  The move began on the night of Friday 22nd September 1969.  Astonishingly, they had to be ready for a broadcast into Grandstand the following morning and fully up and runnning by Monday.  People worked for days without going home, grabbing a few hours sleep when they could on camp beds in a conference room in order to complete the move without any hitches.

A couple of remote-controlled Marconi Mk VIIs in one of the news studios in 1969.  They each had a small 'stand clear' warning stuck on the panning head.  You had to watch out if you stood too close as the operator, sitting in his control room, might suddenly move the camera and that huge lens could give one a good old bash.

In the bottom left corner of the photo can be seen a motor bolted to the camera ped.  This controlled the ped height remotely.  Ian Hillson tells me that one evening, live on air, the feedback loop fell off the servo of one of these and it powered itself to full height in vision during a live studio spot.  All the racks man could do was to pan the camera down so the poor reporter ended his piece witha  crick in his neck looking almost straight up into the grid.  Must have looked very dramatic, like the closing shot of a big movie.

picture thanks to Roger Smeathers

 

Both news studios were originally about 30 x 40 ft.  This was a bit of a disappointment to the news department, who had become used to working at Alexandra Palace in studios almost twice as big.  It is odd actually, that they were so small and consequently somewhat limited in their potential use.  However,  in 1984 N2 was enlarged to include the lobby area and prop store that was sited adjacent to the two studios.  It thus became about 40 x 50 ft but one end has a low ceiling.  This enabled a big wideshot of the studio set to be done at the beginning of the Nine o'Clock News around that time.

I'm sure there are plenty of anecdotes of incidents during news broadcasts from these studios.  Please send me some if they are relatively short and of course amusing/interesting.  Well-known ones of course include Jan Leeming surviving an exploding light bulb above her head whilst on air in 1980.

On May 23rd 1988 the 6 o'clock News was invaded by several women protesting against Section 28.  Sue Lawley kept cool under fire whilst Nicholas Witchell sat on a passing lesbian to try to shut her up.  The most impressive part of this was that the protestors actually found the studio.  Most people who work at the Centre have no idea where they are even now.

Then there was the 1976 Peter Woods incident - some assumed a little the worse for wear after a few hours in the BBC Club.  In fact it occured at seven thirty in the evening, during a five-minute bulletin into BBC2.  After several slurred attempts to read out the trade figures he gave up, saying "Apparently, the trade figures are an awful lot."  Network Control then faded him out and the continuity announcer had to make a quick apology.  Hundreds of viewers phoned in to complain.  His condition was later blamed on the effect of medication 'for sinus problems.'  The news was always recorded 'PasB' on a domestic video recorder but on his website Bob Taylor, studio engineer, owns up to having removed the tape on the spur of the moment and erased it to save Peter's blushes.  The official announcement was that the machine had been faulty.  The incident didn't seem to affect Mr Woods' career however, and he was even included in the famous Christmas Morcambe and Wise dancing newsreaders sketch singing the last line.

A little postscript to this incident:  I'm reminded that despite the 'official' video recording having been lost, Kenny Everett used to play it during his anarchic radio show.  How he got hold of it is a mystery but apparently a unit in the bowels of Broadcasting House had the job of transcribing news broadcasts so used to make an audio recording of the TV news.  'News Sound Recording' dept in the Spur of TVC also it seems would have had an audio copy so the mole who leaked the tape to Mr Everett might have worked in either of those departments.  Or of course, neither.

Another anecdote from Roger Tone's memory bank was recounted to me by Ian Hillson.  It seems that Robert Dougall, one of the 'old school' BBC newsreaders, liked to sit on his 'lucky cushion' when he was in front of camera.  He was known as being icy cool and with a somewhat subtle sense of humour.  For a bet, one of the crew (who shall not be named here) placed a fully-charged whoopee cushion under the favourite 'official' one and the studio crew awaited the inevitable result when Mr Dougall sat down.  He was a little late into the studio and sat down rather gingerly just before transmission.  The whoopee cushion failed to detonate so all those in the know spent an agonising 10 minutes during the bulletin praying that it would not go off during a particularly serious piece to camera.  The studio director, fully appraised of the situation, instructed the floor manager confidentially over talkback, "If it goes off on-air I expect you to say 'excuse me'..."   It didn't - and Mr Dougall went to his grave never knowing how very close to an embarrassing incident on camera he had been. 

 

 

N1 and N2 were closed in 1998 when the new News Centre opened in Stage 6.  They became the 'property' of BBC Resources who renamed them TC10 and TC11 but that department could not afford to refurbish them so they were left unused for a couple of years.

TC10 (30 x 40ft) was the home of daily afternoon shows The Phone Zone from April 2000 and then TOTP@Play, both broadcast on satellite channel UK Play.  When this channel closed down in September 2002 the studio was unused for a while but then became the home of the Virtual Reality (VR) department until 2004.  However, it is not known what VR programmes were made here.  During this period it was also used to make two new series of Treasure Hunt for Fremantle in 2002 and 2003. 

From 2004, TC10 entered a 'service level agreement' with the Children's department and was used for presentation and continuity for childrens programmes on BBC1 and BBC2 replacing TC9 in this role.  From April 2006 the daily Level Up show was based here.  This replaced X-Change on CBBC channel.  Level Up ended its run in Sep '06.  This studio is on long-term booking to Children's dept until they move to Salford and various children's series have used the studio over the past two or three years.

TC11 (50 x 40ft) was opened as the home of Liquid News from February 2002.  At the extended end of the studio with the lower ceiling the 60-Second News set was built.  Both these programmes went out on BBC Three.  Liquid News became very popular with a small but dedicated audience.  Initially it was based in TC0 and then moved to this studio to make way for CBeebies.  The original presenter, Christopher Price, had a dry innuendo-laden style and the show became very much his vehicle.  Tragically, he died suddenly on 22nd April 2002, at the age of just 34.  The show gradually reduced in audience terms and was quite expensive to produce with reporters being sent to glamorous locations all round the world.  It was axed on 1st April 2004.

TC11 then became the home of BBC Three's 7o'clock news.  This in turn ended in December 2005.

The studio was subsequently used for a few news-related bookings, including covering for the main news studios whilst they were being refurbished in 2006.  It has now returned to the BBC Studios portfolio and is available for general use.  I understand that TC11 is occasionally used by the Sport department.

In the autumn of 2008 and 2009 it was used for the daily Strictly Come Dancing spin-off series - It Takes Two.  Previous series had been made at independent studio The Hospital Club, with its lovely Thomson LDK 6000 HD cameras, so the rather less sophisticated JVC KY-29D cameras in this studio certainly provided a bit of a challenge to the lighting and engineering departments, to say the least.

 

Back to the history of the building...

During the 1980s the site was developed further.  Offices were built behind the scenery block which also contained the telephone exchange - hence it became known as the EBX block - and opened in 1982.  The multistorey car park for 964 cars just snuck in before such things became completely impossible for planners to agree to and also opened in 1982.  It was said at the time that planning permission had only been granted by the council on the condition that it would be used by those working unsocial hours.  Astonishingly, once opened many such people found it very difficult to obtain car park tickets and it appeared to be at its fullest between 09.30 and 17.30 during weekdays as indeed it is now.  Fancy that.

Yet more office space had to be found so a ring of prefabricated buildings were set on top of the scenery runway.  This became known as the 'periphery' and these offices containing 15,000 sq ft opened in 1985, blocking the view of the park previously enjoyed by those sitting on the terrace outside the BBC Club.  This view had been carefully planned by Dawbarn in the original design and was no accident.  Still - these were the 1980s and offices had to come first, obviously.

The Centre showing the first section of the spur completed but before stage 5.

 

Television Rehearsal Rooms

Before moving onto Stage 5 a brief mention ought to be made of the Television Rehearsal Rooms in North Acton.  Clearly, not part of TVC but very much tied in with the process of making programmes at the Centre, they were only two stops down the Central Line.

Mike Jones has passed to me all sorts of fascinating info about this little area of TV history.  (The picture above is thanks to him).  He used to manage the bookings as part of his job.

When TV Centre was in the early stages of planning it had been assumed that rehearsal rooms would be included.  However, the BBC at the time needed about 30 such rooms - all big enough to compare with the space available in a studio.  They soon realised that there would simply not be sufficient space on site and of course cost was another issue.  Therefore they would continue to book all the old drill halls and church halls currently in use.

Astonishingly, this decision caused a flurry of letters to The Times in Nov/Dec 1962 involving a prominent MP and several others.  These decried the despicable treatment of actors by the BBC.  The head of drama at Granada rubbed the BBC's noses in it by pointing out that Granada had included rehearsal rooms in its new centre.  However, for the first decade of TV Centre's life, actors and performers would have to slum it as before.  (As indeed they do now.)

This decision was most unpopular, not only with performers but with directors and producers too.  According to Mike Jones - Bill Cotton Jr, being shown around the Centre for the first time, nonplussed the assembled top brass by agreeing that it was all wonderful but then went on to ask; "Where are we supposed to rehearse?"  Bill was just a Light Entertainment producer at the time but in 1962 was made Assistant Head of Light Entertainment.  In later years he of course became head of Light Entertainment and then Managing Director of Television.  One can't help thinking that if he had been in charge a few years earlier there would have been some suitable facilities included at the Centre.

However, the BBC were eventually forced into making some new arrangements.  In 1968 the government announced a planned reduction in the size of the Territorial Army and many drill halls around the capital would close or have a change of use.  The BBC would have to provide its own facilities after all.  They drew up plans and did a deal with a property development company who would be responsible for building them.  The Television Rehearsal Rooms in Victoria Road, Acton opened on 4th May 1970 containing eighteen large rooms.

The local press visited soon after opening and reported that the following programmes were in rehearsal: Dr Finlay's Casebook, Dad's Army, The Doctors, a drama series called Codename, Up Pompeii, a Brian Rix farce, and an edition of 30-Minute Theatre.

The building was very impressive - seven floors high and with a great view of - well, Acton actually - from the canteen's terrace on the top floor.  The ground floor was where rehearsal props and hundreds of white poles on bases were stored.  (These were used to denote doorways in sets.)  Each of the first to sixth floors had three very large rehearsal rooms of 70' x 50', 70' x 50' and 80' x 50'.  There was also a large green room on each floor.  The first floor rehearsal rooms even had sprung dance floors.

For the first twenty years of its life it was very busy with all kinds of shows being rehearsed - dramas, comedies and variety shows.  The canteen at lunchtime was filled with dozens of famous showbiz stars - actors, singers and dancers all rubbing shoulders and massaging egos.

Of course, in the early 1990s it was considered by the accountants that such facilities ought to make a profit (!?) so a price was put on the hire of each room.  Few programmes could afford to pay the unrealistic hire rate set by - well - I wonder who? - so sitcoms and sketch shows mostly moved out to cheaper church halls.  (Why didn't they charge productions the same as other accommodation, one wonders, then the license payers' money would have stayed within the BBC, rather than going to the owners of all the less suitable halls.  You see, I simply don't understand how to run a business.) 

To be fair, by the '90s the rooms were not needed by anywhere near as many productions as in previous years.  The change from multicamera studio drama to single camera shooting meant that the need for rehearsal rooms for dramas dried up (they were usually rehearsed at the shooting location) and the old variety shows also went out of fashion.

So - by the end of the 1990s, two of the floors were being used as the costume and wig store and the rest was turned into - offices.  Hey ho.  It does seem strange that at least one floor could not have been kept on with its three rooms for rehearsals.  The BBC Comedy department could certainly have kept those in use - and of course they could also have been rented to independent companies too.

In fact, a couple of rooms did become vacant around 2007 when it was clear that the building would soon be disposed of.  The office furniture was cleared away and they became - rehearsal rooms!  They were busy for several months and proved what could have been done for the previous decade with a bit of - dare I say it - imagination and common sense.

The BBC left the building in the spring of 2008.  I gather it will soon be demolished and the site used for flats with retail on the ground floor.  What a shame.

 

 

Stage 5

In 1978 a steering group had been set up to examine what could be included in the project to complete TV Centre - in other words, Stage 5.  The 'Television Development Committee' chaired by Robin Scott would examine four or five possibilities.  (One of the intentions was that this final phase of construction would partly replace the existing facilities at Lime Grove and TV Theatre.)  Their conclusion was to construct stage 5 in two phases - the first would provide a new videotape area containing 100 machines (in fact it became 130) and accommodation for staff from Lime Grove.  The second phase would see the construction of a replacement for Television Theatre (TC9). It was assumed that the project would be complete by the mid 1980s.

In fact, construction did not commence until January 1985 and the first phase was completed in February 1988.  It contained no television studios although at the time it was still assumed that the new TC9 would be built within a few years.  The huge task in designing the new studio was begun.  By October 1985 the plans were well developed - even to the extent of building a large scale model in which acoustic tests could be undertaken.  The huge volume of the new studio - far greater than any other built by the BBC - was raising issues of reverberation within the building and the possible penetration of traffic noise.  Thus the research and detailed plans for TC9 gathered pace.

To support the weight of the new building, piles 100 ft deep had to be driven into the ground.  Its largest single girder is 22 metres long and weighs 12 tons.  Despite these superlatives Stage 5 is a monolithic brick-faced block that does not quite match the colour or style of the previous construction.  The back of the building is in my view particularly unsympathetic to the original design.

It includes the BBC post production areas on its upper floors.  No less than 130 VT machines were installed.  Rather different from the 16 machines the VT area in the hub was originally designed for. 

The move of the VT department to stage 5 did not take place immediately.  They had to wait for a new tape format to be established before equipping all the suites.  This format was the D3 cassette.  Developed by Panasonic, the BBC was its first major customer.  A few suites were opened in 1991 and used for training but the big move to stage 5 happened in January 1992. 

The BBC's post production department had been created in 1989 - combining film editing with VT editing and sound dubbing.  This new department was, as its name suggests, more concerned with what happens to the programme after it has been made rather than during it.  From 1991, the new D3 cassette enabled every studio to be equipped with its own machines in the studio's apparatus room which were (and are) remotely operated by the studio resource manager who sits in the production gallery.

The new VT suites in stage 5 thus became almost entirely used for editing.  In the late '90s as each studio was converted to digital widescreen, the tape format in general use was changed to Digital Betacam. This uses the superior component system of recording whereas D3 recorded composite pictures.  It took many years and several tape formats but with Digital Betacam we at last had a recording system in use that in playback was indistinguishable from the original live pictures.

In 2006 the BBC announced that over the next few years it plans to go over to a tapeless system of recording and transmitting programmes, meaning that everything will be stored on hard disk or server.  This will avoid having to digitise recordings prior to editing, grading and dubbing.  The transferring of the final edit to a master tape will become a thing of the past with programmes being transmitted as data directly off a hard drive.  This will simplify the whole post production process and cut costs.

 

TMS/TC0

The new stage 5 included a music studio on the ground floor.  It was built to replace the TMS (studio H) in Lime Grove and was equipped to a very high standard.  It opened in July 1989 and was planned to have sufficient space for 40 musicians. It apparently had an automated Neve 48-channel sound desk together with 2, 8 and 24-track ATRs.  (I was previously mystified as to what these initials stood for.  It was more than a year before Aiden Lunn wrote to me to point out the obvious.  ATR stands for 'audio tape recorder'.  Doh!!!)

The main floor area is about 45 x 28 ft but it also had a very large control room, almost half the size of the studio itself  and a separate smaller soundproof 'loud' booth.  The whole studio is a floating box within a box construction.  The walls have variable acoustic panels that can be turned round for hard or soft surfaces, and it has a silent ventilation system.

Unfortunately, the new TMS only had a working life as a sound studio for a few years.  With the new commercial way of working introduced in 1993 (snappily named 'Producer Choice') each studio had to bid for bookings in competition with those outside the BBC.  Despite its superb facilities it was priced too high and therefore did not get the use it deserved.  It struggled to pay its way for a year or two until the decision was make to close it.  It might seem curious to some that closure was a better idea than cutting the hire cost to attract business but that is the way an accountant's mind seems to work.

 

Around 1995 the studio found a new use.  It reopened as a 'virtual reality' studio following a name change.  It was considered unwise to call it TC9 as the BBC policy in the '90s was to close studios, not open new ones.  Senior BBC management might not understand.  Therefore it became TC0 ('TC zero') which also had a nice 'virtual' ring to it. 

The studio was initially equipped with a 2-D system called 'Virtual Scenario'.  Around 1997 this was upgraded to a 3-D system called 'Free-D'.  Richard Russell worked on this project.  He informs me that Free-D was first shown publicly at IBC in 1997.  It had been developed by BBC Research Dept. and many people thought it would be very popular with programme makers.  The system allows actors or presenters to move freely in front of a blue screen whilst the camera can track, pan, tilt and zoom.  Hand-held cameras can also be used.  Sensors detect all these parameters partly by looking at 'targets' mounted all over the studio grid and the system automatically locks the background behind the artist.  This background can be a photograph or more interestingly a computer-generated 3D world.

I mentioned 'blue screen' but it was even cleverer than that.  The cameras had a ring of blue LEDs around their lens and the cyclorama and floor were made of grey fabric impregnated with millions of highly reflective glass beads (rather like a road sign).  Thus the camera saw the cloth as bright blue but the actors could be lit in any colour to match the background.

Free-D was a great idea but sadly few producers initially liked it or understood its implications and only a handful of VR programmes were made in TC0.  These included Record Breakers Gold - although in fact this show probably only used the 2-D system..  Richard Russell also recalls another children's series, probably broadcast live on Sundays, which involved children searching for objects that they couldn't see (although the viewers could, through the magic of VR).

As a small studio, TC0 was perhaps not the best environment to fully explore the potential of Free-D.  Therefore, VR 'targets' were installed in the grid of some large studios.  One quarter of TC4 still has them mounted between the lighting bars - I lit an experimental VR programme in there in July 1997.  TC1 was fully equipped for Fightbox and Elstree D for the series Bamzooki.

Shortly after the studio closed as a sound studio, the control room was converted into a dubbing suite.  Thus it was not possible for it to become the new vision and production control area for TC0.  At one end of the main studio is a timber bridge running across the room's width that was originally intended to be used for musicians.  A single control room for sound, vision and production was constructed beneath it.  This effectively reduced the studio's length by about eight feet.  A basic floor-mounted lighting truss was constructed within the studio - the ceiling would not take the weight.

VR proved to be a commercial disappointment and after a few years - probably in 1999 - the gear was removed and the studio was booked for a conventional series (if that's the right expression) when The Chris Moyles Show took up residence.  This went out on digital channel UK Play.  When this series ended after some months it was followed by another daily show - The Phone Zone.  Some time later this show moved upstairs to TC10 to become TOTP@Play and TC0 became the home of BBC Choice's entertainment news show - Liquid News which began broadcasting in May 2000. When this in turn moved upstairs after nearly a couple of years to what had become TC11 the studio was occupied by the presenters of the CBeebies channel from February 2002 until the end of 2007.  In January 2008 they rather surprisingly moved to studio 4 at Teddington. 

It seems that the studio was probably not used at all in 2008.  However, one wonders how many production managers even knew it existed.  There was a rumour for a while that it might be turned back into a sound studio but nothing came of that.  In  2009 it was used for the occasional single camera shoot and as a rehearsal room for sitcoms.  Early in 2010 the BBC's research department was relocated from Kingswood Warren to White City.  TC0 has been allocated to them now for their experiments, since there is no suitable space in the White City building.  Thus, the department that devised the various virtual reality systems has, so to speak, returned home.

 

Incidentally - the old sound control room was itself turned into an ad-hoc TV studio for a kids' live interactive puppet series called Nelly Nut in 2004.  This formally become known as TC12 and for a while was the home of one or two CBBC programmes including Sportsround.  It then became the continuity studio for CBBC - the 21st century version of the famous broom cupboard.  Early in 2008 this moved to a room in the East Tower and the studio was closed.

 

Around 2000 an area on the ground floor of stage 5 previously used as the lamp store was converted into 'The Foyer'.  (The lamp store moved to the scenery block).  The Foyer is a large area capable of holding two studio audiences - about 650 people - before they make their way to their studios.  It contains a licenced coffee bar and also a BBC shop selling merchandise.  It took many, many years for the BBC to realise that an audience that had been kept waiting outside in the January rain for half an hour or more before coming into the studio would not laugh as loud as one that was nice and warm and had had a glass of wine.

The Centre following the completion of stages 5 and 6.  It's pretty clear that several architects were involved in the design of each section of the spur.  I wonder what Graham Dawbarn would have thought of what they did to his original building. 

Personally, I think the original spur and stage 5 are particularly disappointing but the design of stage 6 is much more in keeping with Dawbarn's design.  It contains several details and features that echo the main block and its mass is far better balanced.  It's still a shame that the bricks are not the same colour!

 

Stage 6 was, as we have seen, very nearly a superb television studio that would have been the envy of the whole industry.  Nearly, but not quite.  During the '70s and '80s the entertainment department had been putting pressure on the BBC's senior management to construct a new studio in the remaining space at the end of the spur at TVC.  It would replace Television Theatre but would be far more flexible in its use.  It was to have a floor area about 98 x 85ft wall to wall but with the addition of large audience rostra on two levels.  (So somewhat larger in both length and width than LWT's studio 1).  The BBC producers were fed up with the way that LWT's big shows looked so much more impressive than theirs made in TC8.  Even TC1 didn't look as good once you filled it with the usual mobile seating.

This model was built during the 1980s to show how the new TC9 would look when completed.  What is notable about this is the extraordinary detail of the model itself!  It alone must have cost thousands to make.

The colour of the elevation is quite striking and I wonder how it would have looked when completed.

Detailed plans were drawn up over several years for this new TC9.  It was to have a grid height of 72 ft (TC1 is 'only' 45ft high) which would enable scenery to be flown on counterweight systems.  There would be a permanent audience rostra seating 400 which could be extended with moveable 'wings' and the studio would have its own foyer, make-up, wardrobe and scenery handling areas.  There was even to be a large band room with its own control room - oddly duplicating the new music studio a few yards away in stage 5 which was almost exactly the same size.

Terry Brett was asked to represent the lighting side of things.  He was a busy LD at the time but attended many meetings of the steering committee.  He tells me that he is still waiting for someone to inform him that the project has been cancelled - let alone thank him for all the work he put in.

Terry tells me a couple of problems with the studio's design that had to be overcome.  One concerned the trough that was to run round the bottom of the cyclorama so that groundrow lights could be hidden, thus creating an 'infinity cyc'.  One challenge was how to create this trough whilst still leaving enough headroom in the news department garage beneath.  Terry describes another issue that arose:

'...being the BBC it had to have handrails to protect the terminally stupid.  However, in the end the trough lid became the safety device on the outer side.  The trough had to be engineered to allow camera tracking when the studio was in sitcom mode and the cover strong enough to take camera cranes and just about anything else that could be thrown at it.  Also it had to be deployed quickly so as to speed up turn-rounds.  The final solution was to have the trough covered by a concrete 'lid' which could be hydraulically raised.  Now as most builders at that time worked to the nearest inch at best, the construction of this monstrosity was going to be a challenge.  However, unbelievably the challenge was met!

Secondly, there were problems in keeping the studio ventilated. With such a high cyclorama containing the heat [someone] came up with the idea of dropping the ventilation to the level of the lighting rig.  Now this brought some strong protest from many, not the least me.  The amount of space lost in the hanging rig would have been unbearable.  It was then suggested that the ventilation trunking should be flexible and fitted to the LX bar suspension.  i.e. as the bars came down, the trunking came down with it - albeit a few feet above the bar itself.  This was built and a demo section was installed somewhere in the depths of Woodlands.

Such was the ability of the old BBC to innovate - where did that all go?  In retrospect the noise from those pop riveted lamps heating up and cooling down would have given sound something to think about.'

 

Before stage 6 was built, the ring road past TC8 came to an abrupt end and a ramp took it down to the level of the front car park.  Terry tells me that somewhere under the ramp a couple of experimental sections of trough were built complete with hydraulic lids.  He even has some video of the contraption in operation.  I wonder if it's still buried under there...???

Cameraman Jeff Naylor was asked for his advice on a particular issue...

'One addition to the plans for the New TV Theatre was for a remote-head camera crane such as a Louma - I distinctly remember the plans from a meeting where I discussed where it could be mounted and the compromises it would force on the lighting rig, in particular the followspot positions - as I wanted to hang it over the edge of the Circle!'

 

I see that some things never change.

The planned TC9 at ground level.  Click on the image for a larger view.

Wood Lane is bottom right and the music studio top left is the current TC0 (although it was actually built a slightly different shape.)  Its sound control room became TC12 for a while.

The line down the centre of the plan indicating the left wall of the studio denotes the limit of construction.  Everything to its left was built - everything to the right remains a 'what if.'

The adjustable side audience units in the theatre are shown with dotted lines.  The floor area of the studio would have been somewhat larger than TC8 but with the addition of two tiers of audience seating.

Incidentally, the area marked as lamp store and scenic store is now used as 'The Foyer'.

A section through the proposed studio.  Click on the image for an enlarged view.

Note the two tiers of seating and the side 'boxes.'  To get an idea of scale, the cyclorama on the right which is shown dropped into the trough is marked as being 36ft high.  Only the largest studios today have tracks for a cyc of just 30ft height.  The height of the grid over the studio floor is 22m which is an astonishing 72 feet!  This would have enabled huge scenery units to have been flown out of sight.  The man shown on the gantry on the right is at the height of a grid in a 'normal' studio.

Note the lines drawn to indicate angles and possible positions for follow spots.

The cars indicated at the bottom are in the underground car park.  It can be seen that the groundrow trough would have reduced the headroom in that area in the car park.

The large empty 'box' top left is an area that would have had ventilation plant and other services.

 

The idea was to close TV Theatre and transfer Wogan, or the show's successor, to the new studio.  It would also of course be available for other big Saturday night shows.  There is little doubt that this studio would have become the best equipped LE studio in the country and would have been much in demand today for big gameshows and music/entertainment shows.  Sadly, despite all the work done on the project it was abandoned very soon after Michael Checkland became DG.  The studio had been enthusiastically supported by Bill Cotton but it was cancelled within a week of his retiring from the job of Managing Director of Television in 1989.

It was becoming fashionable with some around that time to declare the age of the big TV studio over.  Also, the new director general and his assistant John Birt were introducing far more stringent financial control over all the BBC's costs and expenditure - so with accountants rather than programme makers running the BBC the project didn't stand a chance.  If only construction had begun a few months earlier it would almost certainly have been completed and now be the busiest studio in London!

Instead, TC1 - which was due to be refurbished - would be given a more fundamental refit, with built-in retractable audience seating and redesigned stairs with a new glazed foyer area at first floor level for the audience.  After nearly three years work the 'new' TC1 opened in January 1991 but was not a patch on what might have been.  I imagine that the managers of BBC Studios wish they now had that 'nearly but not quite' studio with its large audience and plenty of floor area to rival Fountain or TLS studio 1.

The legacy of the old plans can be seen in the rather oddly shaped curved podium that extends from the base of Stage 6 towards the Horseshoe carpark.  This was part only of what was going to be the grand entrance to the new theatre leading in turn to the foyer on the first floor and taking audiences into the main studio auditorium at the back of the seating (as happens in West End theatres).  There was even an idea for LED lights announcing tonight's performance displayed around the semi circular facade above the entrance doors.  Stage 5's rear elevation makes a bit more sense too when the original proposals are understood.

 

So what did become of stage 6?  Well, it became the BBC's News Centre.  It was opened in July 1998 by (some might say appropriately,) Sir Christopher Bland.  It seemed a good idea to John Birt to bring radio news away from Broadcasting House in central London to join TV news several miles away at Television Centre.  Guess what?  The journalists didn't like it.  They still don't.  So Greg Dyke (a man who actually understands television) gave the go-ahead to rebuild much of  Broadcasting House to take the radio news back there as well as the TV news. 

Stage 6 was also finished off with a new reception area complete with Henry Moore sculpture (now removed), facing Wood Lane.  It all looks very smart and businesslike.  The old reception became the 'stage door' and is still occasionally featured on various shows. 

 

Stage 6 opened in July 1998 and the Real IRA tried to blow it up in March 2001 with a taxi parked outside.  Fortunately, nobody was hurt.  Although the damage looked superficial (one assumes that such an attack had been foreseen) it took about two years before the scaffolding came down and an even stronger bombproof wall of glass was revealed.  Oh - and you're not allowed to park or leave your bike outside any more.

TV Centre reception the day after the bomb.

 

TVC has come under attack on several occasions over the years.  Apart from the Real IRA, it has been surrounded by thousands of screaming pubescent girls when bands such as Take That have performed on Saturday morning kids' shows.  If you don't think that sounds too bad you should have been there! 

Only slightly less scary was the occasion when evangelical militant Christians tried to prevent people from entering or leaving the building during the Jerry Springer the Opera controversy in January 2005.  More recently, when leader of the BNP Nick Griffin appeared on Question Time in TC6 on 22nd October 2009, several hundred angry protestors demonstrated outside the gate - about 25 breaking in as far as the Stage Door (the former main reception).  On the same night three other audience shows were also being recorded - Harry Hill's TV Burp (TC3), Friday Night With Jonathan Ross (TC4) and Piers Morgan's Real Lives (TC8).  About 1,000 ordinary punters with tickets therefore had to be got into the building past the shouting protestors - as well as the QT audience and the panelists - but somehow the security staff did it - and got them out again safely.

I should declare an interest here, having lit the televised version of Jerry Springer the Opera, several editions of Live and Kicking and been in the building lighting TV Burp on the night of the BNP Question Time.  (For the record, the ignorance shown by many of the protestors of what was actually depicted in Jerry Springer the Opera was astonishing and proved to me how otherwise intelligent people can be hoodwinked into believing anything if instructed by skillful and manipulative leaders.  At least I had seen the show - several times - which most of those interviewed clearly had not.)

Other incidents have included the women's invasion of the 6 o'Clock News in 1988 when Sue Lawley kept her cool and Nicholas Witchell sat on a lesbian.  Meanwhile, in March 2000 a media studies student (no really) vaulted over the low turnstile in main reception and found his way to the main newsroom.  He is said to have gone on the rampage, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage, getting 'within feet' of Anna Ford.  Having smashed monitors and thrown a coffee table through a window, he explained afterwards that he was upset by Greg Dyke's style of leadership and thought the license fee was too high.  Apparently he threatened to kill anyone who tried to stop him but eventually somebody did and he ended up in a mental hospital.  Still, A* for the essay he wrote afterwards so probably worth it.

This happened incidentally after security had been tightened following the murder of Jill Dando.  Since then, access from reception into the building has been completely redesigned with a high glass wall containing motorised turnstiles that only let one person through very slowly and can, in theory, trap someone half way round.

Then there was the invasion of the live Lotto draw in TC4 during Jet Set on 20th May 2006.  This was by six members of Fathers for Justice, one of whom allegedly received a distinctly less than friendly welcome from presenter Eamonn Holmes.  The director cut to a close-up of him remaining calm and collected but those working on the show have told me what was happening just out of shot!  Respect due to Mr Holmes.  Soon afterwards, Camelot decided to move the draws to the rather more secure ex-British Forces Broadcasting Service (SSVC) studios run by Arqiva in Buckinghamshire.

 

 

Construction and refurbishment have continued at TC for the whole of its life.  Individual rooms and whole floors have from time to time been gutted and rebuilt.  Studios too are given refurbs every few years.  The running of the building itself was taken out of the BBC's hands in 2001 and became the responsibility of a company called Land Securities Trillium.

The early days of this new operation were sometimes not as smooth as they might have been.  A studio resources manager has told me a story that cannot possibly be true.  Allegedly, shortly after Land Securities Trillium took over, he phoned the new number to ask for the air conditioning to be made cooler in the studio he was working in.  He was connected with an office in the north of England.  The operator requested the studio's 'room number', what floor it was on, the address of Television Centre and various other details.  Finally, he was told the job number and informed that the work would be carried out next Tuesday.  Thankfully, I believe this and other similar teething troubles were ironed out within a few weeks.

In July 2006 the contract to supply facilities management passed to a company called Johnson Controls.  I assume they too learnt pretty quickly to adjust studio temperatures faster than next Tuesday.

 

 

The programmes...

It would be impossible to list every programme ever made TVC - some are probably best forgotten anyway.  (Little and Large, anyone?)  What I shall foolishly attempt to do here is to list by decade a range of typical productions.  They are in no particular order.  I am bound to have missed some really obvious ones.  Where I know it, I shall indicate the studio in which it was made.  It's worth pointing out that although some shows almost always came from the same studio others moved about quite a bit, depending on available space.  TC3, 4, 6 and 8 are all about the same size so a show designed for any one of these will fit in another.  Where I have indicated a studio it doesn't mean that it didn't also use others.

There are quite a few where I haven't put the studio even though I have a pretty good idea.  For instance, TC8 has for years been the favourite studio for sitcoms but unless I am sure, I have not noted it here.

Some series spanned years or even decades so I have simply noted them when they started (or moved here from other BBC studios).

Anyway - here goes...

1960s

The Wednesday Play (many highly regarded individual titles), Play For Today, Softly Softly, Dr Finlay's Casebook, Compact (TC2), The Forsyte Saga (TC4 - last b/w drama), Vanity Fair (TC6 - first colour drama), 30-Minute Theatre, Theatre 625 (TC1), Billy Budd (opera - main set in TC1, orchestra in TC2), Sherlock Holmes (TC1), Stand Up For Nigel Barton (TC4), Steptoe and Son, Not Only...But Also, Till Death Us Do Part, Dad's Army, That Was The Week That Was (TC2), Not So Much a Programme - More a Way of Life (TC2), BBC-3, The Lance Percival Show, Come Dancing (TC2!), Tomorrow's World, Frost Over England, It's a Square World, Morecambe and Wise (TC1 and TC8), Sykes (also at Riverside), Harry Worth, The Dick Emery Show (TC8), Marty (Feldman), The Liver Birds, Meet The Wife, The Rag Trade, All Gas and Gaiters, The Likely Lads, Marriage Lines, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Spike Milligan's 'Q', Comedy Playhouse (TC4), Top of the Pops (TC2 briefly then all large studios), International Cabaret, Beat Room (TC3), The Black and White Minstrel Show (TC1), Jackanory (probably every studio at some time), schools programmes (TC5), Ask the Family (TC5), Top of the Form, Call My Bluff (TC2, TC5), Late Show (TC2), Points of View (Pres B), Late Night Line-Up (Pres B), The Sky at Night (moved here from Lime Grove to Pres B and the corner of several other studios), Holiday '69 and onwards (TC5)

1970s

Elizabeth R, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, I Claudius (TC1), Pennies From Heaven (TC6), Play of the Month (TC1 usually), Play of the Week, War and Peace, Testament of Youth, Secret Army (TC8, TC1), To Serve Them All My Days, The Onedin Line, The Pallisers, Churchill's People, BBC Shakespeares (TC1 mostly), Telford's Change, Professional Foul, The Duchess of Duke Street, The Flying Dutchman (opera - main set in TC1, orchestra in TC3), Hansel and Gretel (opera - main set in TC1, orchestra in TC3), Dr Who (moved to TVC from Riverside and Lime Grove - used most large studios), Blake's 7, The Two Ronnies (TC1 plus others),  Are You Being Served?, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Open All Hours (TC8), Citizen Smith (TC8),  Up Pompeii!, Porridge, In Sickness and in Health (TC8), The Les Dawson Show (TC8), Rentaghost, The Goodies, The Good Life (TC6), The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Not the Nine O'Clock News, Fawlty Towers (TC4), Jim'll Fix It, Blankety Blank (TC8), Parkinson (TC8), The Old Grey Whistle Test (Pres B plus others), Butterflies, To The Manor Born, Play School (TC7), Blue Peter (TC1, 3, 4, 6, 8), Grange Hill (various studios before moving to Elstree in 1985), Multi-Coloured Swap Shop (TC7), Film '72 and onwards (Pres B)

1980s

The Chronicles of Narnia, Tenko, Lord Peter Wimsey, Performance (TC1 usually), Marie Curie, The Ginger Tree (TC4 - first HD drama series), Juliet Bravo, Bomber Harris (TC6), Yes Minister (TC8), Only Fools and Horses (TC8), Bread (TC8), Hi-De-Hi, Blackadder, Russ Abbot, Alas Smith and Jones, 'Allo 'Allo (some series), Birds of a Feather (series 1), May To December, Just Good Friends, Ever Decreasing Circles, Three of a Kind, Children in Need (TC1), Noel Edmunds' Late Late Breakfast Show (TC8), The Paul Daniels Magic Show (TC8), Lenny Henry Show (TC8), Victoria Wood as Seen on TV, French and Saunders (TC8), A Bit of Fry and Laurie (TC6), Bob Says Opportunity Knocks (TC8), Bob's Full House, Saturday Superstore (TC7), Going Live (TC7), Double Dare (TC4), Chucklevision, Newsnight (TC2, then TC7), BBC Breakfast (TC2 then TC7), Crimewatch UK (most studios at some time), Watchdog (TC2 and 5)

1990s

The House of Eliott (last multicamera studio-based drama series - TC1), One Foot in the Grave (TC8), The Fast Show, Absolutely Fabulous (TC8), Rory Bremner (TC6), Knowing Me Knowing You, Saturday Night Armistice (TC8), The Thin Blue Line, The Brittas Empire (TC8), As Time Goes By, Keeping Up Appearances, Never Mind the Buzzcocks (TC6), I'm Alan Partridge (TC1), Dinnerladies (TC8), Shooting Stars (TC7 for two series then TC1), They Think It's All Over (TC6), Live and Kicking (TC6), The Stand-Up Show (TC7 then TC6), Terry Wogan's Friday Night (TC1), Ruby (TC2, TC4), The Full Wax (TC1), Comic Relief (TC1), Auntie's Bloomers (TC8), The National Lottery Live (TC8) The Late Show (TC7), Later With Jools (TC1 and TC3), Noel's House Party (TC1), The Generation Game (Jim Davidson version - TC4), Bodger and Badger (TC7), Run the Risk (TC1), Grandstand (from Lime Grove to TC5), Match of the Day (from Lime Grove to TC5), 2000 Today (TC1)

2000s

My Family (series 1 only), 2 Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (TC8, TC6), The Crouches (TC8 & TC1), Lee Evans - So What Now? (TC8), Dead Ringers (TC4), Catherine Tate Show (series 2 & Christmas special - TC8), Little Britain (TC1 & TC8), Swiss Tony (TC8), National Lottery Stars (TC1), TOTP (returning from Elstree and Riverside to TC3), Distraction (for C4  - TC1), Boys and Girls (for C4), Without Prejudice? (for C4 - TC4), Friends Like These (TC1), Wright Around the World (TC4), In It To Win It (TC1, TC4, TC6, TC8), Jet Set (TC4), Eggheads (TC6, TC3, TC4, TC1), The Keith Barret Show (TC8), Friday Night With Jonathan Ross (TC4), Liquid News (TC0), Come and Have a Go, Hard Spell, Strictly Come Dancing (TC4 then TC1), Strictly Dance Fever (TC1),  X-Change (TC2), The Saturday Show (TC6), Dick and Dom in Da Bunglow (TC2 then TC6), Mock the Week (TC8), Level Up (TC10), The Soap Awards (for ITV1 - TC1), New Paul O'Grady Show (for C4 - TC6 and TC8), 8 out of 10 Cats (TC6, for C4), Grownups (TC6 and TC8), That Mitchell and Webb Look (TC8), A Question of Sport (TC8),  How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? (TC1), TMi (TC9), The Charlotte Church Show (for ITV1), Any Dream Will Do (TC1), I'd Do Anything (TC1), Alan Titchmarsh Show (TC4 for ITV1), Let Me Entertain You (TC1), Who Dares Wins (TC1), Lab Rats (TC8), Goldenballs (TC8, TC3, TC4 and TC1 for ITV1), The Omid Djalili Show (TC8, TC1, TC4), Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding-Dong (TC8 for C4), It Takes Two (TC11), Last Choir Standing (TC1), Hole In The Wall (TC8), Would I Lie to You?,  Maestro (TC1), Ready Steady Cook (TC2), Are You Smarter Than A 10-year-old (TC1, for Sky 1), Miranda (TC3), Coming Of Age (TC8), Piers Morgan's Life Stories (TC8, for ITV1), Harry Hill's TV Burp (TC3, for ITV1)

It's interesting that TC3 seems to be so poorly represented above.  Some of those programmes above without a studio indicated almost certainly were made in TC3 but I can't confirm that.  During the '60s and into the '70s it was a favourite studio for dramas - the titles of individual plays are sadly forgotten.  During the 90s it was not converted to digital widescreen due to lack of funding so was often empty.  From about 2002 - 2006 it was the home of TOTP and has been the home of Later With Jools for a number of years.

On the drama front, there were a number of easily forgotten series that came and went and several striking single plays that often appeared under the banner of 'Play of the Month', 'Play for Today', 'Performance' etc.  Again, during the '70s and '80s the BBC were famous for their traditional Sunday teatime dramas - often of Dickens' work.  These were usually made  in TC3, TC4, TC6 or TC1.  The amount of drama made in these studios gradually faded during the 1980s until only a handful of series were being made by the turn of the decade.  With the ease of shooting using digital video on location and the improvement in the quality of super-16mm film all drama was being made using a single camera on location or in film studios by 1994 - or was being shot in its own dedicated studio like EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City.

Incidentally, there is a lack of mention of music specials with the likes of Shirley Bassey, Jack Jones, Sammy Davis Junior etc. although I do remember there seeming to be a constant flow of such programmes - especially during the seventies.

 

A summary of each studio

Measurements are in metric feet (30cm) and relate to working area within firelanes unless there are no firelanes.  I have highlighted the dates when cameras were replaced.  Over the years technology has moved on.  It has followed this pattern:  monochrome, 4-tube colour, 3-tube colour, CCD 4:3 colour, widescreen colour, digital widescreen colour and finally 1080i high definition.  (1080p/50 HD will be the next development, TC6 being the first studio to be fitted with this standard.)  The BBC has installed HD cameras in TC1, TC8 and TC4, with TC6 planned for an upgrade in 2010.  TC2 and TC3 both made HD programmes in 2009 using hired kit.  The BBC have declared an intention to make all programmes in HD by 2012.

TC0

45 x 28 ft wall to wall.  Originally built as TMS (television music studio).  Opened in July 1989.  Mural of musicians and instruments on corridor wall outside the studio indicate its origins.  Closed as sound studio and converted to 'virtual reality' TV studio renamed TC0 probably in 1995.  Record Breakers Gold and one or two other shows made here using VR.  VR kit removed around 1999 and studio used for The Chris Moyles Show and then The Phone Zone - daily shows for UK Play channel.  From May 2000 used for Liquid News for BBC Choice.  From Feb 2002 - January 2008 was continuity studio for CBeebies channel.  (CBeebies now in Teddington studio 4)  Equipped with JVC KY-29D cameras.  Hardly used since CBeebies left.  Occasionally booked for single camera shoots.  Sometimes used as a rehearsal room.

TC1

100 x 90 ft.  Opened in April 1964 with EMI 203/6 cameras.  Converted to colour with EMI 2001 cameras in 1968.  During '70s used for several operas and major dramas like I Claudius and BBC Shakespeares.  LE included Black and White Minstrel Show and Morcambe and Wise Show.  Closed for major refurb and asbestos removal in 1988.  Re-opened in Jan 1991 with Thomson 1542 CCD cameras (first at TVC).  QII lighting console installed.  96-channel stereo sound desk installed.  Control galleries completely rebuilt.  New 384 seat audience rostra fitted.  Acoustic wall panels all replaced.  Lighting hoists all replaced.  Cameras replaced with digital widescreen Thomson 1657D cameras and lighting console changed from QII to Galaxy in 2000.  In 2003 VR 'targets' fitted in grid for Fightbox VR series - also used for general election.   In summer 2005 sound desk converted to 5.1 digital audio ready for high definition.  TC1 is used for all kinds of shows from comedy:- I'm Alan Partridge, Little Britain - to LE: - Strictly Come Dancing, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? - and major event programmes: - General Elections, Comic Relief, Sports Personality of the Year and Children in Need.  This studio staged the live final of ITV's Kids' Stars in Their Eyes in March '06 when Granada's studios in Manchester were closed for some months due to asbestos scare.  TC1 was fully equipped for high definition in August 2006 with 10 Sony HDC-1500 cameras and HD monitors in refurbished production and lighting galleries.  Received a new vision matrix during the summer of 2008.

TC2

60 x 40 ft.  Opened in 1960 with Marconi Mk IV cameras.  Home of weekly soap Compact and satirical comedy shows like That Was The Week That Was throughout '60s.  Not converted to colour so closed around 1970.  Used for storage of  audience seating units throughout '70s.  Re-opened in 1981 with Link 125 camerasFirst studio at TVC to be equipped with Galaxy lighting console.  Breakfast Time and Newsnight moved here in 1987 from Lime Grove.  Probably equipped with Thomson 1542 cameras around 1991.  News dept moved to TC7 in 1997.  Basic widescreen refurb in 1998 with Thomson 1657s.  Since Jan 2002 used for daily X-Change programme on CBBC channel.  This programme ended in March 2006 after 2,032 shows.  The studio was officially closed at the end of March as asbestos was said to have been discovered in the air conditioning system.  However, it was used for one or two programmes in summer 2006 with a temporary AC plant.  It was then decided to reopen the studio after all so removal of asbestos began in August 2006.  The cost of removal is said to have run into millions of pounds.  It reopened in Jan 2007, temporarily as the Sport studio whilst TC5 had its asbestos treated.  It became available for general programming from the summer of 2007.  Blue Peter now uses this studio.  TC2 is an interesting addition to BBC Studios' portfolio.  They have not had a medium/small studio to offer general clients for a number of years as all three of these studios have been permanently tied up with Children's, Sport and News.  Received TC4's 4-year-old Sony E-30s in summer 2008.  Fitted with a new Calrec digital sound mixer in Jan 2009.  Equipped for HD using 'fly-away' kit and cameras hired or borrowed from other studios in September 2009 for new series of Ready Steady Cook.

TC3

90 x 70ft.  Opened in June 1960 as drama studio (very 'dead' acoustic) with Marconi Mk 4 cameras.  Colourised in 1969 with EMI 2001 cameras.  Major refurb in 1985 - Link 125s installed at same time as new Grass Valley 1600 28-input vision mixer.  Galaxy console and 541 new dimmers installed.  New lighting hoists fitted.  Permanent retractable audience seating installed.  Asbestos treated in 1988.  Thomson 1542 CCD cameras installed in 1992.  These only 4:3 PAL so work reduced during 1990s until digital widescreen refurb in 2001 for return of TOTP.  Galleries also rebuilt at this time and sound facilities upgraded to be suitable for several live bands on the same show.  No cameras purchased but Thomson 1657 widescreen cameras 'borrowed' from other studios when required on a daily basis.  Red Assembly area converted into 'Star Bar' for use by TOTP.  New Sony BVP-E30 cameras installed in 2004.  Later With Jools used this studio from 2004 using HD cameras via an OB unit.  Further work on asbestos removal began in the summer of 2007 leading to closure for several months.  Reopened in January 2008 with new black wall panels.  In 2009 made Eggheads in HD using 'fly-away' HD kit thus proving that the studio can be used for HD productions if necessary.

TC4

90 x 71ft.  Opened in Jan 1961 as LE studio with variable acoustic ('ambisonics') and small band room (TC4A).  Initially equipped with EMI 203/4 cameras.  During '60s was favourite studio for sitcoms.  In 1967 was the studio used to make all but one episode of The Forsyte Saga - the last major drama shot in black and white.  Colourised in 1970 with EMI 2001 cameras.  £2m major refurb in 1983.  Link 125s installed.  Galaxy console and new dimmers installed.  New lighting hoists fitted and permanent retractable audience seating installed.  Grass Valley 1600 vision mixer fitted.  Asbestos removed around 1988 and new acoustic wall panels fitted.  Thomson 1542 CCD cameras installed in 1992.  Major refurb to digital widescreen in 1996.  Galleries rebuilt and new Thomson 1657 cameras installed.  Galaxy Nova console installed.  VR 'targets' installed in quarter of grid for VR shows in 1997 but hardly ever used.  New Sony BVP-E30 cameras installed in 2004.  New sound desk installed summer 2007.  TC4 is used for all kinds of programmes but gameshows in particular have been a regular booking for the past few years.  Refurbished in summer 2008 with eight Sony HDC-1500 HD cameras and new mixer, monitors and VTRs.  Sound also converted to 5.1 surround.

TC5

60 x 40ft.  Opened in Aug 1961 with EMI 203/4 cameras.  During 1960s was home of schools television, although other programmes made here too - especially panel games.  Last studio at TVC to be colourised with EMI 2001s, probably in 1973.  Later equipped with Link 125s during 1980s - precise date not yet known.  Major refurb in 1991 to become sport studio.  Lighting gallery converted into second production gallery enabling two programmes to be run from different ends of the studio simultaneously (on BBC1 and BBC2).  Studio divided by thick black drapes. Lighting gallery moved into old prop store and also remote camera controls fitted enabling a reduction in the size of the camera crew.  New graphics area built in old puppet studio/video effects workshop.  'Virtual' green screen sets used for several years.  Thomson 1657 widescreen cameras installed around 1995.  Around 2001 new 'real' permanent set built on two levels to be used by all sport programmes.  New set design in 2005.  Further work on asbestos removal discovered to be necessary in 2006.  This began early in 2007.  Old acoustic wall panels removed and new ones fitted.  Sport returned to the studio with new set when asbestos removal was complete in summer 2007.  Will be vacated by Sport dept when they move to Salford Quays around 2011.

TC6

92 x 70ft.  In original plan was to be two studios divided by doors but this was never actually done.  Opened in 1967 as BBC's first colour studio.  Cameras were Marconi Mk VIIs but were changed in 1968 for EMI 2001s.  In 1977 replaced with 3-tube Link 110s with Varotal lenses.  (Very prone to blue flares!).  1988 closed for 10 weeks to remove asbestos.  Acoustic wall panels replaced.  1993 reopened after major refurb as analogue component studio.  Thomson 1647 Sportcams installed.  First refurbishment done under new 'Producer Choice' commercial regime.  Many so-called non-essential things left out of refurb but most carried out over following few years when found to be essential after all.  (However, this remains the only studio not to have cups on the lighting hoists that enable them to be raised or lowered using a pole.  This adds significant time and inconvenience to finelights.)   Gallery suite moved downstairs to ground floor after 'new customers' - independent production companies - requested this.  (Old gallery suite on first floor is now 'red button' interactive control room for digital TV channels.)  First studio to have all colour monitors fitted in production gallery.  (Previously, only the transmission and one preview monitor had been in colour.)  Galaxy Nova installed.  New Calrec Q-series sound desk with 60 channels.  Upgraded to digital widescreen in 1998 with Thomson 1657s.  Gallery monitors replaced.  TC6 was home of Saturday morning kids' TV from 1997-2006 with Live and Kicking, The Saturday Show and Dick and Dom in Da Bunglow.  Also very popular with independent production companies.  Never Mind the Buzzcocks a regular booking since 1996.  TC6 received TC8's 2-year old Sony E30 cameras in August 2006.  New sound desk installed summer 2007.  TC6 was planned to be given an HD upgrade around Christmas 2009, making it the fourth HD studio at TVC.  This has now sadly been postponed, probably to later in 2010.

TC7

62 x 40 ft.  (So 2 feet longer than TC2 and TC5).  Opened in 1962.  Originally Marconi Mk 4 black and white cameras but equipped with EMI 2001 cameras in July 1968.  Home of Play School from 1968 when it moved here from Riverside until 1988.  Refurbished in 1981 with Link 110 cameras with Schneider lenses (much nicer than Varotals.)  Replaced with Link 125s from another studio in about 1992.  In 1994 Thomson 1647s installed and a major refit carried out which included rebuilding and enlarging the gallery suite in preparation for it to be used for news-related programmes.  TC7 was home of Swap Shop, Saturday Superstore, Going Live and early series of Live and Kicking before News dept arrived in 1997.  Thomson 1657 widescreen cameras installed in 1997.  New Sony BVP-E30 cameras installed in 2004.  New Sony 8000 vision mixer installed over Christmas 2007.  Will be vacated by News dept around 2010/2011 when they move to new studios in Broadcasting House.

TC8

90 x 72 ft.  Opened in 1967 with Marconi Mk VII colour cameras.  Replaced early in 1968 with EMI 2001s and was first studio in UK with these cameras.  Designed as LE studio and the only one at TVC to have retractable audience seating designed from the outset.  No asbestos said to be used in its construction so only studio not to have had wall panels replaced.  Only studio with ventilation ducts spread all over grid so air conditioning usually very good here.  First studio with Q-File lighting console and Thyristor dimmers.  In 1978 fitted with Link 110 cameras.  New sound desk installed in 1981.  Link 125s ex TV Theatre installed in 1991.  Major refurb including rebuilding of gallery suite completed in November 1994.  (The visitor's 'well' in front of the monitor stack in the production gallery was removed.)  New widescreen Thomson 1657s installed.  This was the first serial digital widescreen studio at TVC.  Sound desk and dimmers not replaced at this time and major headaches caused to both sound and lighting departments for several years until eventual upgrading about five years later.  New Sony BVP-E30 cameras installed in 2004.  TC8 has been the favourite studio for comedy for many years and dozens of sitcoms have been made here.  After TC1 it has the largest working floor area when the audience seating is in use.  Equipped with Sony HDC-1500 high definition cameras in summer 2006 and full HD vision installation completed in January 2007.  New 5.1 sound desk installed in Jan 2008.

TC9

Was at one time to be the name of a new TV Theatre to be built as the second part of stage 5.  Plans abandoned in 1989.

Today's TC9 is an irregular shape, about 30 x 30ft average dimensions but also has a corridor and small seating area which can be used for interviews.  Converted from old make-up store on the ground floor of the Restaurant Block in 1996.  Fitted with Thomson 1647 sportcams which had been in use in Pres A for a year or two.  Used as continuity studio for children's programmes on BBC1 and BBC2.  Converted to widescreen in late '90s.  In 2004 became continuity studio for CBBC channel and CBBC on BBC Prime.  The studio no longer used for CBBC continuity from late 2006.  TC9 unused for about nine months even though it was on long-term booking by Children's dept.  However, from Sep 2007 it became the new home of SMart and TMi.  Old Thomsons said to have become unreliable and overdue for replacement.  Studio mothballed again early in 2008 but was brought back into use in autumn 2008 for another series of TMi using TC2's ten year old Thomson 1657s.  After several more months of inactivity it was used again for TMi from September 2009.

TC10

30 x 40 ft.  Originally news studio N1 - initially used for BBC1 news bulletins - opened in 1969 with Marconi Mk VII colour cameras.  In 1981 replaced by Bosch KCP 60s.  In the early 1990s replaced with Thomson 1647 CCD cameras.  Closed in 1998 when news moved to stage 6.  Renamed TC10 but not refurbished due to lack of funds.  Eventually reopened with JVC KY-29D cameras in 2000 for UK Play channel to use for The Phone Zone which then became TOTP@Play daily afternoon show.  This channel closed down in September 2002.  From 2002 - 2004 was used as VR studio.  During this period was also used to make new version of Treasure Hunt for Chatsworth.  From 2004, TC10 was used for presentation and continuity for children's programmes on BBC1 and BBC2 replacing TC9 in this role.  From April 2006 daily Level Up show based here.  This replaced X-Change on CBBC channel.  Level Up ended its run in Sep '06.  This studio is on long-term booking to Children's dept and various children's series have used the studio in recent months.

TC11

50 x 40 ft.  Originally news studio N2 - opened in 1969 with Marconi Mk VII colour cameras.  In 1981 replaced by Bosch KCP 60s.  Initially used for BBC2 and weekend news bulletins.  In 1985 the lobby area and props store between N1 and N2 was taken over by this studio and its size increased - although this addition has a low ceiling.  This studio then became the home of BBC1's Six and flagship  Nine o'clock News.  In the early 1990s cameras replaced with Thomson 1647 CCD cameras.  Closed in 1998 when news moved to stage 6.  Renamed TC11 but not refurbished due to lack of funds.  Opened again early in 2002 with JVC KY-29D cameras when Liquid News moved here from TC0.  60 Second News set built in the low-ceilinged end for the new BBC Three channel which replaced BBC Choice in Feb 2003.  Liquid News ended in April 2004.  The studio was then the home of BBC Three's 7o'clock news.  This was axed in December 2005.  The studio was used early in 2006 as a temporary news studio whilst the main studios in Stage 6 were being refurbished.  TC11 is now part of the BBC Studios portfolio again and available for general programming.  Used for Strictly Come Dancing spin-off It Takes Two in 2008 and 2009.  Sometimes now used as a rehearsal room.

TC12

About 30 x 20 ft.  Originally built as control room of music studio.   First used as TV studio in 2004 for interactive CBBC show Nelly Nut.  Later used for other CBBC shows including Sportsround.  Up to 2 cameras are borrowed from TC0 as and when required.  From late in 2006 became the continuity studio for CBBC using a CSO (chromakey) backing to overlay presenters on top of graphics.  New presenter/puppet CBBC continuity from summer 2007.  This moved to Newsround studio in East Tower early in 2008.  Studio now unused.

Pres A

32 x 22 ft.  Opened in 1960 as monochrome studio with EMI 201 vidicon cameras.  Originally intended as in-vision continuity studio but only used as this for a few years (until at least 1963.)  3 x Marconi MkVII colour cameras installed in 1968 ex TC6.  Became used as weather and trails studio.  Link 110s installed around 1980.  Weather left to go to new purpose-built weather centre in TVC around 1990.  Thomson 1647 Sportcams installed around 1994.  Used as continuity studio for children's programmes until closure in 1996.  Cameras moved down to TC9.  Was never converted to widescreen.  The studio no longer exists.

Pres B

32 x 22 ft.  Opened around 1964 as monochrome studio with EMI 201 vidicon cameras.  Originally intended as in-vision continuity studio for planned second channel (BBC2) but never used for this purpose.  Colour tests with 3 Peto-Scott (Philips) PC60s, then 3 different cameras in 1966.  3 x Marconi MkVII colour cameras installed in 1968 ex TC6.  Used for a number of small shows including Late Night Line-Up, Points of View and Barry Norman's Film 'xx series.  Famously, the original home of Old Grey Whistle Test.  Link 110s installed around 1980.  Due to fewer and fewer bookings the studio closed around the end of 1996.  The studio no longer exists.

with thanks to Mike Emery for collating much of the above information regarding cameras. 

If you spot any errors or can fill in any of the blanks do get in touch!

 

I am of course aware that there are a number of news and weather studios distributed around the building.  However, these do not come under my self-imposed remit of only including studios around London that make a range of different programmes.  I know I have included the old news studios N1 and N2 above but only because they then became used for general entertainment programmes when they were renamed TC10 and TC11.  Also, frankly, I don't wish to include any information here that some people planning unwelcome acts might find useful.