Broadcasting House, Salford Quays & TVC

I was driving myself to Westfield and passed TVC. It is a lot bigger than in real life, can I say?

I know I asked about the stages of TVC and learned that they were the different stages of construction. Is there a map or floor plan showing the different stages? Also was the office donut built on top of the studios?

Have a look at the TV Studio History website - http://www.tvstudiohistory.co.uk/tv%20centre%20history.htm - It has an amazing wealth of information about the television facilities across the UK

I just read that like the old Radio Times plugs on BBC 1... '... you can read more about TVC and complete listings of all television studios and facilities in the UK and around the world, on TV Studio History.co.uk'

There are plenty of site maps - but I don't think they break them down into the stages, as really only Stage IV (Spur), Stage V, and Stage VI were ever known by their stage names day-to-day (and to honest Stage IV was really known as Spur most of the time).

Stages I-III weren't ever really used day-to-day as operational descriptions of the site.



No - the doughnut offices were 'inside' the ring created by the studios, and more above the dressing rooms, make-up areas, tea-bars etc. The lower areas of the doughnut contained the control rooms and apparatus rooms in some cases, with the upper floors being offices. The studios themselves were on the outside of the office doughnut- between it and the ring road.

With an "Other nostalgic broadcasting websites are available" Aston?

Thanks.

Read this makes me think what would happen to NBC if they knocked down 30 Rock? Which would be almost impossible as they own 40 floors and the owner of Rockefeller Plaza owns the remaining 19. But suffice to say Comcast and NBC have apparently redone almost everything there.

This probably has been discussed adnausem. I assume if they wanted to do a comprehensive rebuild they could do it in stages (as they were built). If they could they would have nearby swing office space for those displaced. They could do the donut first and if they had an aggressive timetable rent out nearby studio facilities for a year. At the same time they could be rewiring the place by moving the CCA and other equipment rooms to stage six. Then they could rip out the "engineering scar tissue". Yes I am making it sound a lot more simple but probably cheaper than rebuilding BH and moving to Salford.

I say this because when Flight 77 hit the Pentagon they renovated and rebuilt 400,000 square feet in under 12 months. A project of that scope takes on average 2-3 years. As TVC was a little over 600,000 square feet and I would hope they could do it in five years.

Yes, it has been here and other places!

The thing was that people talked about the loss of the studios which was sad but not the rest of the mishmash of other buildings and the low quality office space on top of the studios*. The concept of a TV factory where everything is in the same place is disappearing as things are fragmented and because technology has changed/shrunk it was much larger than they needed. When the various bits of it were built edit suites and VT suites were rooms of equipment. Now everything is done centrally in data centres, TVC had pokey apparatus rooms and operational areas with limited room for expansion. That's why the channel playout moved to open plan premises down the road about 15 years ago.

You say about relocating staff when a rebuild happened, well there weren't many left. Several departments - news, sport, childrens had moved to Salford or central London. Others were in newer offices down the road. Its telling that the newest part - dating from the late 90s - was the only bit other than the 3 studios to be kept

If they'd not gone down the road of selling the site it would have needed to have lots of odd packets of land around the outside sold off and then what was left rebuilt/remodelled to make it more useful. A massive cost when actually most of the studio time in what was left would have been rented out to rivals... which brings in money of course but I could imagine politically would have been a bit controversial.


I'd have thought so considering the US's military budget!



*other studio centres were more lucky, Teddington and Fountain were able to seperate and sell off part of their sites for redevelopment, keeping some or all of their studios. TVC wasn't as lucky, although there were several buildings attached to the main block because that is right in the centre of the site they were in odd corners between the main building and housing. Not that attractive for development
Of course not that it helped Teddington and Fountain... they've both closed

And that TVC article also contains a piece by Roger Bunce regarding its sale.

More than likely this piece has been read by forum members many times over in the four years since it was written - but it *is* an excellent piece, and I agree with just about all the points that Mr Bunce made...

I was thinking it could be thinking this if they kept all the departments there. You are right about the office quality - it look like a dump.

I was just suggesting the speed at which things could be done. If they renovation of a wedge is expected to take two to three years - I guessed five for a commercial project that won't have enormous late fees.

Its a very good article. I wonder how long it has been on Martin Kempton's site? I am aware he updates it periodically & cant remembering reading that bit - possibly because i'm lazy and didn't bother reading to the bottom. There are some new-ish pictures when the conversion of the basement took place. Its tarted up considerably now. If its possible to make that part habitable it would have been easy to do up the offices in the rest of the place instead of moving out to BH then back to rented space in the new stage 5.

As for Thames old studios I used to live over in Kingston and haven't been to Teddington for years. I'm surprised it had lasted as long as it had considering its location. A quick look on google shows it is definitely gone

And here is the demolition in progress