So Look East, Look North (x2) and Midlands Today have now all moved homes to new 16:9 equipped studios. Meanwhile Look North (NE&C), North West Tonight, Look East (W), Points West, Spotlight and South Today are all still sporting 14:9 black 'curtains'.
AFAIK there aren't any more big moves planned for any other regions, so does anyone know if there are plans for the remaining 4:3 regions to upgrade their kit to 16:9?
All of them will move over to new digital systems at some point and at the same time change to widescreen. No idea who's next though.
The diffrence with the ones that are left is that they either aren't moving buildings (which makes it more difficult to do as you need to have both old and new in parallel for a bit) or they might move, but nothing's been decided yet.
I suspect Manchester will be last as BBC Manchester is up for some big changes over the next few years. Similarly nothing will happen to Cambridge (Look East (W) as there are plans for a new region from Milton Keynes
BBC South West is going to move out of it's Seymour Road home to more modern purpose built facilities (which probably means a generic industrial unit located miles out of the city centre), although it's not yet been decided when or where.
Until the timeframe for the move has been established, I'd imagine that they will be at the bottom of the list for new kit.
BBC South West is going to move out of it's Seymour Road home to more modern purpose built facilities (which probably means a generic industrial unit located miles out of the city centre), although it's not yet been decided when or where.
The way things are going they'll probably move further into the city into a more visable public location, that is what has happened to all the other regional moves (London, South East, Leeds, Norwich, Hull, Birmingham)
BBC SW is in the same situation as Norwich and Leeds were - they broadcast from what is effectively an old house. Although it works perfectly fine on air isn't really suitable for their purpose any more or compliant to the BBCs policies for their buildings.
Also if they didn't move when they got their new system they wouldn't be able to move for many years as they won't be willing to invest massively in a region twice..... the whole thing has to be done at once
Well, North West Tonight get a new look on Monday, so I guess they are next.
Don't know what makes you think a new set or new graphics means a completely new gallery and production system is being installed?!
Sure - if an operation moves building then it is likely that a move to 16:9 digital production will be accompanied by a new studio, graphics etc. However if you are staying in the same building it may be that no major on-screen changes take place, and the picture just get wider, cleaner and sharper one day.
(The BBC One main news went from 4:3 to 16:9 on the day Breakfast launched, but the One, Six and Nine O'Clock News hardly looked much different)
AFAIK the remaining **4:3** (oops typo fixed by an edit!) regional centres are as follows :
BBC Plymouth
BBC Jersey
BBC Bristol
BBC Southampton (which also deals with BBC Oxford)
BBC Cambridge
BBC Manchester
BBC Newcastle
The following are now 16:9 - or have always been 16:9 :
BBC London
BBC Tunbridge Wells
BBC Norwich
BBC Birmingham
BBC Nottingham
BBC Leeds
BBC Hull
BBC Glasgow
BBC Belfast
BBC Cardiff
Now BBC Southampton is in a pretty good and pretty modern building, so I would imagine it will remain where it is and upgrade to 16:9 production. (Possibly they will sustain the existing operation using an OB truck whilst they replace the gallery - that is what Look East did when they re-equipped their previous premises 10+ years ago) There are always rumours that BBC Oxford will split to be a full half-hour - with a small studio in Oxford - whether this would still work into Southampton (as the small Hull studio did) rather than moving to a full Oxford production operation I don't know.
BBC Newcastle is also in a new purpose built TV production building - and has relatively recently installed new cameras that are 16:9/4:3 switchable (the cameras were replaced at the same time in Leeds and are the same as in use in Leeds, Norwich, Hull and Tunbridge Wells, as well as BBC Westminster I believe) I think Newcastle also have a digital editing system now as well - so it is probably just the other infrastructure (gallery, routing etc.) that needs to move to digital before they can switch to 16:9.
BBC Bristol are in quite an old building - but it is a large BBC production centre, and the network production there is quite high-tech (they have HDTV post production facilities for example). I suspect they will remain at Whiteladies Road and have to re-equip on-site.
BBC Manchester were thought to be upgrading on-site - however with the proposed moves of BBC Sport and/or CBBC to Manchester it may be that they delay any changes to the regional news studio until they have decided to relocate the BBC Manchester operation. (Not sure CBBC and Sport would fit in even if they re-opened the studios that are currently closed in Oxford Road)
BBC Cambridge are likely to be relocating as a TV operation to Milton Keynes, cositeing with 3CR - so would expect a move to 16:9 digital production when they move.
BBC Jersey - hmm... That is supposed to be relocating from the transmitter garage at Fremont Point to a new Radio Jersey St Helier location at some point. Although there is no DTT in the Islands yet, there is the possibility of broadcasting 16:9 on DSat - so there is a possibility of them re-equipping for 16:9 (even before Plymouth?) - though I suspect they would stay in 4:3 until Plymouth also moved to 16:9?
BBC Plymouth - last time I heard no decision had been taken whether to relocate or upgrade. I think the existing building was more accessible than Norwich (which was a similar vintage and completely failed to meet even the most basic disability legislation - it had no lifts and was on about 15 levels!) - but it might be that a decision has been made to relocate.
Wherever possible the BBC is trying to locate news operations closer to city centres rather than further away - as they feel the local operations should be part of the community rather than more remote. Amazing how quickly the BBC seem to have become more regionally committed than ITV.
Seeing as the others are called "BBC Birmingham", "BBC Southampton" etc etc, is it not called "BBC St Helier" then?
noggin posted:
BBC... Norwich... was a vintage [building] and completely failed to meet even the most basic disability legislation - it had no lifts and was on about 15 levels!
Didn't St Catherine's only have two/three actual "storeys" as such? If so, then I presume that the 15 "levels" you've stated includes "split-level" type stuff????
noggin posted:
Wherever possible the BBC is trying to locate news operations closer to city centres rather than further away - as they feel the local operations should be part of the community rather than more remote.
Amazing how quickly the BBC seem to have become more regionally committed than ITV.
I've been thinking that for quite a a while! It's basically a complete reversal of how things were (BBC regionality vs ITV regionality) in 1955!
Seeing as the others are called "BBC Birmingham", "BBC Southampton" etc etc, is it not called "BBC St Helier" then?
It will be interesting to see whether they change the name when they move into St Helier.
Currently, as noggin said, the BBC television studio for Jersey is in a converted NTL garage at the base of the Fremont Point transmitter, on the north coast and just about as far away from St Helier as you can get on the island without falling over the cliff.
