SW England news thread

What, quite seriously, surprised me tonight, was the simple one-liner about the move on the main Spotlight.

I'd have expected a couple of artist's impressions and a bit more detail about the whole thing.

At least you can't accuse them of being Points West, as they didn't even read out the whole BBC press release.

More to be revealed and reported in the future, I trust.

Now the window on the barbican behind the sofa makes a lot more sense!

The move is still a while off.... the design has to be finalised... contracts placed... construction completed and the building fitted out.

The move wont be until 2010, I doubt if we'll see many significant changes at Mannamead now.

You might get a small update a la reporting scotland and midlands today - things like desks etc which can be moved across to the new building

The simple reason should be because it makes financial sense; the actual answer may be a political fudge or anyone one of hundreds of reasons, but it could make financial sense.

While the BBC isn't like other businesses their practices also make sense for them....

Take a store that Sainsburys built and own - in the process of compiling the accounts for that store they will include a value against the 'lease' of the property - typically the value they could obtain for the property if they were to attempt to lease it to another company.

At first it is just an accounting value but it does have an important purpose. If the general running costs of the store plus the 'lease' value are greater than the revenue the store generates they should close the store.

If that lease value stops the store being financially worthwhile they should close their store and instead lease the store out. This is the same as the decision they would undertake when choosing if they should operate a store that they lease from a property company.

The next logical step is to get 'Sainsburys Property ltd' to manage all of this by technically purchasing all stores and renting back to the main company, if they end up being profitable that business could be sold off. Then in the future when they open a new store they can just go up to any property company who offers them a worthwhile deal.


To bring all of this back to the BBC; there is no reason why they should own a new building - they aren't a property management company. If it is worth them renting it they should, if not they shouldn't.

Another question would be do the BBC currently own their current premises outright, and will they generate a decent amount of capital from selling them? (Or are they like other BBC buildings, peppercorn land-rent type operations, which are probably no longer available these days?)

I'm not sure exactly where but Westcountry were intending to go for a waterfront development on winning the franchise. The legal battle with TSW (and uncertainty as to whether or not Westcountry would end up keeping the licence) meant building work was either started and abandoned or never began in the first place.

Serious question, does a quayside HQ have any broadcasting advantages? Everyone seems to want their studios there these days, as we have seen with STV and now BBC Scotland.

Think the advantage is that quaysides are currently some of the most common sites for relatively large parcels of undeveloped or brownfield site land suitable for building large new buildings on, with mixed use.

There aren't many large lumps of land (at broadcaster-affordable, rather than bank-affordable prices) in city centre locations, and out of town isn't really favoured for regional broadcasting these days (well not by the BBC - ITV have a different agenda, as they are not even planning to broadcast from within the region they are broadcasting to in many cases)

My ITV Westcountry umbrella broke.. so I'm going to ask for a new one. I know they are always trying to make budget cuts but shoddy umbrellas is really taking the micky!!

I think they're out of stock.

You might have to make do with an "ITV Greater West" version.

Spotlight seem to have a new look to their morning bulletins... they've got a different backdrop to the normal studio.

Incidentally, happy 25th birthday to BBC Radio Devon & BBC Radio Cornwall!

indeed! the anniversary was given a national mention this morning when bbc one closed down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55WIdhIGaPM