BBC News: Nations & Regions

The studios (radio and television) at the former OUPC have been tottally gutted, though I understand, they still exist as shells. I don't think the BBC has any presence at the site at all anymore. The BBC does have a radio studio in MK for an opt-out breakfast programme on 3CR, but it's not at the OUPC as far as I know. I don't think there's a Newsroom Camera at MK (or even a wallbox), not even a vision circuit that I know of. It's a bit of a black hole for television actually, as both BBC Oxford and Look East cover MK stories relatively frequently, but have to bring tapes back to Oxford or Cambridge to edit. Even the OUPC itself never had sound/vision circuits to the rest of the BBC network, programmes produced there were always recorded to tape and sent to the BBC for transmission.

There was talk some years ago of combining the Cambridge and Oxford sub-opt operations to form a new 'Oxbridge' region. Obviously, had the studios at OUPC remained in some useful form, it would have been an ideal base (technically if not logistically). From what I've seen, the studios at the OUPC were built to a very high standard. However, the whole plan was shelved a few years ago, even though a site for the building of a new combined centre had been identified though not acquired. AIUI, BBC Cambridge is going to relocate to a purpose built broadcasting centre at some point soon, so it looks like the whole 'Oxbridge' plan won't ever happen.

We live in hope.

Hearing about places like Colchester, Ipswich, Norwich, or the east coast is of zero interest to me, here in the long-way-inland Northampton.

Anglia Tonight (West) always begins with the presenters saying "Welcome to half an hour of local news from your part of the region" - clearly capitising on the fact that the Beeb only offer a partial east/west split, leaving us with predominantly a hugely oversized region IMHO.

Anglia West may be able to boast that they've got one over BBC East at the moment, but if ITV gets permission to reduce its sub-regions to a 10(ish)-minute "news belt", then Anglia Tonight will be like Look East currently is.

And if, as you say, a full 30-min BBC Cambridge 1830 programme finally materialises, then we'll have a complete BBC/ITV swapover from the current situation.

Not the case - there were vision circuits from the OUPC to London until the early 90s. Look East used to use them to feed material from Milton Keynes to Norwich, via London (though it was quite an expensive booking ISTR) The OU studios were also used as the main studio for the BBC East Children in Need opts in the 80s at least once - I remember they painted a big map of the region on the floor and Stewart got to walk around it!

AIUI the circuits were ceased when there was no real production requirement for circuits out of the OU to London. It then became a real pain - as material then had to be DRed or carried to either Cambridge, or a nearer inject point (Luton may be closer)



Yep - the OU studios were quite well physically engineered. They were built when the BBC still had high standards for studio design (high ceilings, decent lighting grids, acoustically well designed spaces etc.) That said - ISTR that studio production quickly fell out of favour for OU courses, as around the same time the studio centre opened, single camera production using portable UMatic VTRs and then Betacam and Betacam SP camcorders became viable, and these quickly became the favoured production systems. ISTR that the OU never really got upgraded in studio terms - and the studio became more of a 4-waller for a small 2 camera OB truck they had?

Thanks noggin, I didn't know that there had originally been circuits from OUPC, the people I know who worked there were there in it's dying days, so clearly post the end of the circuits' lease.

I've got some photos somewhere of the OUPC studios in action from the early 80s and they certainly look well equipped and well built.

I didn't know that Look East had used the centre for CiN, certainly makes sense as I gather the original studio at Norwich was pretty pokey! I suppose this was in the days of huge regional opts for CiN where the likes of Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester would use the Network studios for their opts. I certainly have heard of one Bristol CiN production where Studio-A was converted into a Circus Big Top with the presenters dressed as Ringmaster and Lion Tamer!

Deejay - I think you might be referring to last year's Bristol CIN where Chris and Alex were dressed up as circus entertainers. That was not done in the main studio but at Circomedia in the St Pauls area of Bristol.

Nope - I'm referring to one donkey's years ago when Studio-A at Bristol was still a network production studio. That puts it at least before 1991! If they did it again with Chris and Alex then that just proves that there are no new ideas in Brizzle ! ISTR it was Chris and Susan as the circus stars last time!

Chris and Susan have done the circus stars thing but they certainly were at Circomedia last year ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/articles/2007/11/19/cin_vid_feature.shtml

As to the 1991 event, have to admit I don't remember that one, but if it was that year it would have most likely been in the studio they're using now when it was a network facility.

It is - and look at the problems they had a few weeks back when engineering work in the switching room went wrong!

Indeed the Studio currently used by Points West is the former Network Production Studio but it's much smaller than it used to be. After closure in 1991 it remained basically intact but mothballed for five years or so and was used for storage (even occasionally housing animals for Bristol Zoo I'm told!). The former Scenery Workshops and Scene Dock were converted into a new Bi-Media newsroom and Radio Bristol Studios, the adjacent Studio-A was divided into a space roughly similar to the old Studio-B, with the rest of the old studio floor partitioned off and turned into new production galleries, a presentation studio and auxiliary news production areas.

Interestingly the gallery looks much different after a recent refirb...

Now all flat screens in there - and more VT screens.

Just watched BBC Channel Islands online and they've started using the unused version of the music. I found this odd as when the relaunch occured they didn't use the unused version like LNE&C and BBC London.

Also, this (unused) version of the regional music is NOT the same as the 2000 version as many people have said - they are actually similar but the 2000 version sounds much better than the 2008 unused version to me!