YouTube Gold

Wow, I didn't know Chris Jarvis had ever presented from the Broomcupboard!

Could Andi's show be in Pres B if A was being refurbished? Presumably the rooftop bits would be via one of those two galleries. On your second clip, Zoe mentions that the afternoon bit is in the Broomcupboard.

I imagine the BBC1 broomcupboard had already been dismantled at this point, so they would have had to use the roof set for all BBC1 content regardless.

Yeah - me neither till I saw that.

Yeah, could be Pres B for EEK. I wouldn't have thought it would take 6 weeks to change from one CBBC set to another, though.

Ok, amateur theory time. I think that week (w/c 18th July) was the final "normal" week of afternoons as the schools would have been breaking up at some point during it. (the holiday mornings had started w/c 11th July, presumably for Scotland's benefit). This clip is from the Afternoon on the Moon the day before on 20th July:



And then here's Flipper's last day, which according to Genome would have been the following Sunday 24th July:



This was presumably timed for Josie to be unveiled the following day, Monday 25th July (though she's not in the listings until 8th August). From that Monday, Ratz is credited alongside Toby Anstis on Genome, would would suggest they moved to the roof at that point. As I've put in the comments, there is an argument that that Philippa clip could have been the final appearance of the (BBC1) broom cupboard if we assume that all continuity moved to the roof from the start of the full summer holiday service on 25th July - though the Jarvis clip casts doubt on that theory (as does the power cut delay, which I don't remember myself but have heard elsewhere).

I'm sure I read somewhere that it was kept on for a bit "in case". I think the main logo in the BBC2 broom cupboard is the same one though so that alone would have been moved across. The larger "BBC" logo is one that used to form part of the Pres A set.

I beleive the BBC2 broomcupboard is the original BBC1 one, as I think BBC1 and 2 switched transmission suites around 1988 for whatever reason.

For stereo fit out in advance of Nicam I think

That's right, they did swap them over as part of a refurb programme, there's an article about it in https://www.bbceng.info/Eng_Inf/eng-inf-files/EngInf25.pdf

I can't see any reason not to have kept the Con1 set in place for contingency reasons as long as the analogue continuity areas were in use, although once PresA was up and running there was a self-op area within the studio that could be routed to NC1 without the gallery needing to be staffed.

(That was quite a clever move, previously the birthdays slot had needed the studio to be staffed and the afternoon Broomcupboard slot was done on the cheap. Doing it that way meant they got to use the studio for the afternoons and do the less-watched birthdays slot cheaply with a similar level of staffing overall.)

Yes, and I vividly remember this happening on air, it was May 1988. On the Friday there was a running gag about them being kicked out of the Broom Cupboard - big "FOR SALE" sign, the walls being stripped bare and so on - and then on the Monday they did every link from a different part of TV Centre, I remember the first one from the scenery lift, and then the fire escape and so on, before they ended up in the new Broom Cupboard at 5.35. I was totally taken in by the whole thing. Would love to see it all again but presumably it's long been wiped.

That's a different project, it's from 1986. The article there says that BBC1 moved into sub control while NC1 was rebuilt and then moved back again

This is when they swapped https://www.bbceng.info/Eng_Inf/eng-inf-files/EngInf33.pdf
Presumably the reason they did it that way was because NC2 was older, as explained in the 1986 article

I'm sure it wouldn't, if it did take that long it's going to have been for a technical refit rather than just a new set. Possibly some technical work to accommodate the mini-Broomcupboard arrangement for the Birthdays slot? But if they were doing that, wouldn't the work have been scheduled around the holiday morning commitments?

Was that Afternoon on the Moon show using the same bit of roof as CBBC used for pres?

Afternoon on the Moon was on the roof of TC1, I think the bit of roof CBBC always used was further round the back where the presentation department was.

There are clips on YouTube of CBBC back in NC3 in the summer of 1989 - previously I thought it was this occasion they were installing stereo but must have been something else entirely.

I always thought the stereo upgrade was the time when they decamped to "The Boiler Room" - NC3 Con but with Andy Crane standing in front of the monitor stack instead of sitting at the desk.