Election 2010

I think it's just physical space, BH is (in normal times anyway) rammed full, there's little room for a facility like that for a week or two let alone having it sit there ready but unused for months or years.


At TV Centre space wasn't so much of a premium

No.

The first time they were at Elstree was for the 2014 Local and European elections.

The room in TVC used for election hubs in later years was, as far as I know, not used for anything else. (The kit might not have remained but I'm fairly sure the furniture did)

The sort of election where they wouldn't normally have a full scale set set, but they used one as a dry run of the next years' general election.

BBC Broadcasting House was really never built for television. It was originally constructed purely for radio. The extension added on in 2013 gave it more television studio space than it ever had in the previous 71 year history.

There's no 'really' about it, it opened 4 years before there was any defined TV system, and the building is actually 88 years old

Er yes, I was quite obviously talking about the large building currently called 'Broadcasting House' not the original structure, of which very little still exists


AFAIK the oldest bit of BH, known internally as 'Old Broadcasting House' doesn't have much in terms of TV facilities within it.

Yes exactly, they just had so much space they could have a room they only used for elections

Although I used to like seeing the large dramatic looking set-ups in TC1 (2005 was the best IMO) and Elstree D for election programmes, I think their time has passed. We all know how the information is gathered, we don't need to see it on screen, any more than we need to watch a video of a abattoir when buying a pork chop in Tesco.

In December Sky News showed how you can be quite dramatic by putting a desk in something that would normally look like an empty shopping centre. I enjoyed the AR graphics. It's the first time I'd ever veered away from the BBC on election night, and was most impressed.

Sky's coverage last time out though is surely an example of how a big dramatic space, even if empty, just makes the whole thing look much better.

I think with the BBC it was probably less about the space they had and more about how they used it. BBC Wales usually do their election coverage from fairly small sets yet they just look far better.

I think it's safe to say the efforts by the BBC Scotland team far outshone those of the main UK-wide team in London back in December. Their AR set-up was brilliant.