The Midlands Today studio isn't particularly small, but is smaller than Studio B at Pebble Mill was. The smallest in English regions are Oxford and Jersey (however both are sub opts). The largest is Newcastle, followed by Southampton. Both are late 80s/early 90s in vintage and were designed to have occasional network productions in them, so have decent grids, lamp stores, scene docks etc (plus second studios for regional output when the main studio is in use for something else).
It is larger than it was orginally when launched in 2001. In 2003 they extended further back into the newsroom.
Yes, it was originally open plan at one end of the newsroom then they enlarged and enclosed it.
BBC London did the same thing at roughly the same time, they had two tiny 'studio' areas at launch (though one was just a seating area in the middle of the office) then took over part of the newsroom and put some walls up to make one bigger (but still not that big) studio
I wonder how their current studio compares with their previous ones and the one at Elstree before that?
Doesn't Tunbridge Wells have some interesting audio issues where they can't have more than one mic fully open without it sounding awful? Something to do with the cheap and cheerful conversion from newsroom to studio.
It was causing issues on Breakfast opts with live weather IIRC because the gallery setup doesn't let the single operator do sound and vision mixing simultaneously. Apparently experiments with the presenter having a mic fader were a disaster, they kept forgetting to fade themselves up - quite a difference from the Peter Levy style self op!
Doesn't Tunbridge Wells have some interesting audio issues where they can't have more than one mic fully open without it sounding awful? Something to do with the cheap and cheerful conversion from newsroom to studio.
It was causing issues on Breakfast opts with live weather IIRC because the gallery setup doesn't let the single operator do sound and vision mixing simultaneously. Apparently experiments with the presenter having a mic fader were a disaster, they kept forgetting to fade themselves up - quite a difference from the Peter Levy style self op!
Sounds like an automix might be a useful solution. They're a very useful weapon in your arsenal in less-than-ideal environments when you need multiple people in the mix. (They are in wider use than many people may realise. The latest Calrec mixers can do it internally with no need for any outboard kit - though I doubt that is relevant to TW.)
If they also have issues with constant aircon noise - then Cedar or similar can be useful to reduce background ambience - though it's not a panacea.
Basically any region that moved in the last 10 years or so got a tiny studio.
But saying that N6, the national news studio at the time, was pretty modest in size - the cameras were surprisingly close to the desk in pictures I've seen.
You also got regions who hadn't moved moving into former network production studios ending up with an unusually large studio meaning it's an even more stark comparison with those that have moved.
I think only Bristol has moved into a former network production studio, but they actually only moved into a bit of the old Studio A. They partitioned up the old studio floor into new studio space, a couple of edit suites, graphics area and the galleries (one Pres, one Main). I believe the floor space of the current Studio A is roughly comparable to the old Studio B.
Unless you're talking about Newcastle and Southampton who, as mentioned further up the thread, now almost exclusively use largeish studios which were built for occasional network use, but by the time they were actually opened Producer Choice had come in and the BBC had to start charging itself unrealistic rates for its own studios. A very few network productions came from Studio A Newcastle (early Byker Grove interiors were shot there for example) and, it is thought, only one network show from Studio A Southampton.
What makes a massive difference to the look of programmes isn't necessarily studio floor size though, it's grid height. The breakfast studio at Salford would look a hell of a lot better if the lighting grid wasn't touchable.
You can see in this photo how much higher the lights are. This not only improves the lighting angles but helps wide shots as you don't get acres of black and lights in the top of frame.
I don't believe they ever went to air, though in the late 80s when Newcastle and Southampton were commissioned, that was the sort of production that was envisaged to be a booking. Producer Choice, where the BBC started charging itself for things like studio bookings, put paid to a lot of things like that. Happy to stand corrected if anyone can recall QT from regional studios, but I think they've been OBs from town halls and so on for many years.