BBC Breakfast

Is it not an unusual situation that Newsround (35 mins per day, no performances, most shots MCU with the occasional wide) has ended up with a bigger studio that Breakfast?

Now I know Newsround are sharing with Pres, but neither of them need a 'proper' studio with a full height lighting rig, especially considering both used to come from cupboards in the East Tower at TVC.

Makes sense for them to swap, no?

You want Breakfast to come from here?!

http://www.thisisfive.co.uk/presbits/bbc/stuff/newsround01.jpg

Correct me if I am wrong here but doesn't Football Focus, (Final) Score and MOTD come from a studio not owned by the BBC and the sets are not fixed, whereas Breakfast and NWT come from a BBC Studio with fixed sets?

Yes, you're right, and as far as I am aware, Newsround, CBBC and Cbeebies come from 'The Studios' too.

I wasn't suggesting they use the Newsround set! The Breakfast set would sit quite comfortably in that studio, and benefit from the greater ceiling height. Newsround don't need the full lighting rig, so I was suggesting it makes sense to swap.

There's a few meters to the left of that shot, not to mention the whole other half of the studio which would be available if CBBC and Newsround moved into the NWT studio - and of course, you'd build the Breakfast set along the longer wall anyway.

My mistake - I misunderstood!

The reason they are in there is because various other more important/larger divisions moved in first and got the better production spaces. Breakfast/NWT just have to make do and get on with what they've got which is vastly superior to London.

Yes the higher ceilings are better, and yes Newsround/CBBC don't need high ceilings... but NWT has been in there for less than six months and Breakfast... a week. They are not going to swap studios any time soon... if ever.

...anyway I thought the Newsround Studio was in a different building... hardly appropriate for Breakfast/NWT. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

A different building yes but they're a twenty second walk from each other!

God what a load of crap. You realise that the production spaces, and indeed the timescale for moves, were decided much higher up the food chain than at a production level. It wasn't a case of first in, first choice.

Serious holes in this logic. I very much doubt that this is how the facilities were allocated, and if it is that's ridiculous. I don't understand what you mean by "vastly superior to London" either. They have cramped, converted office space with a low ceiling for a studio when all the news output from London is about to move into a new building with six new purpose-built news studios.

Okay... so them being in a different building would not be a problem then. So it is dooable for Breakfast to get a different studio at some point in the distant future. Thanks for correcting me.


Okay so i made a pigs ear of that post... i'll attempt to clarify.

Breakfast was a late addition to the departments in Salford as we all know. Something to do with a big department (IIRC Vision) moving into BH requiring certain other departments to move out. Breakfast lost its BH office space and was sent to Salford. Thus leaving Breakfast to be shoehorned in to the Salford planning which i assume would have been quite advanced... long story short... they are in the "cramped" studio.

Whilst i am disappointed with the Salford studio, it is demonstrably fine, and vastly superior to TC7/ N6, albeit not meeting the exacting standards of some on this forum, and nowhere near as good as what we are seeing from the BH studios. ...and there are many solutions to hide the smallness of the set that don't involve moving to a proper studio. Painting the ceiling white would be a start.

I dont understand this dislike of converted office space studios... N8 & N9 have been fine for over a decade, with low ceilings and hardly any clearance for the lighting rigs. From the looks of the BH images, Studio E will be no different in clearance height.

Personally I think a lot of people just don't like change, or had too high expectations.

It certainly would not. A white roof against a black lighting grid, black cables and black lights would be messy, distracting and even more overbearing than it currently is. Not to mention that attempting such a thing would be the most intrusive and protracted thing they could possibly do to the studio. Imagine the downtime needed to remove and reinstall their entire lighting setup.