Broadcasting House, Salford Quays & TVC

Interestingly, that article states that the building was actually called 'BBC New Century House'.

What a waste of a building isn't even old. There are a very large number of much older buildings still standing within
the centre of Manchester, yet a building that's stood for less than 40 years is earmarked for demolition. True, it might
be far from being the most attractive building in town, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be revamped.

http://djgm1974.kitamuracomputers.net/images/Oxford-Road-development-in-place-of-BBC-Manchester.png

The artists impression (above) of what is planned to replace the former BBC Manchester building looks very ugly, and
even though it says in that article "residential and student accommodation" is planned, it's likely that the majority of
the residential accomodation will end up mainly consisting of posh flats no average person could possibly afford.

That artist impression isn't especially true to life - I mean, they aren't going to be transparent squares in the middle of the sky above the building.

I can see what you mean about the present building - but what would you do with it? Who would want it? Although it is filled with history and memories, it's no use sitting there rotting away when the space could be be used for something better for the majority of people (shopping and so on).

The reason older buildings aren't being knocked down is because this building is one of the many turds of '60s architectural design - it's a mess of pre-cast concrete that does nothing for the image of the city. Older buildings generally look nicer.



The artist's impression looks quite nice, if a little abstract with the floating green panels.

Surely it would be cheaper to revamp NBH as office space.

It's not necessarily about what is cheaper, more of what will make the most money for the new owners. If they can develop the whole site with apartments, top grade office space and retail, they can probably charge a lot more rent than just a re-vamped old office.

New Broadcasting House in Manchester is a horrible monstrosity I've walked past it many times, the sooner it comes down the better.

It's not that bad and no worse to look at than Granada. However, compared with Salford Quays, it's like comparing a Kia with a Jaguar.

It was purpose built for a very specific industry and therefore it's not that easy to do anything else with after that purpose has gone away. Not much of the site is office space and what there is is on a narrow strip at the front, the rest is studios and other non-office space. The office space is laid out on the site in a particular way to fit the needs of the 1970's BBC and so it's not flexible open-plan space like a modern office complex. The work needed to provide useful office space across the whole site just isn't worth it, it's much easier to just develop the site and maximise the use of the site

Central's old studio in Nottingham is an exception to this - the only big TV studio complex I can think of that has had a non-TV life after closure. It was very different to NBH, the building was much more modern and they were lucky enough to have a university interested. Education is actually quite a good new use for such a building - studio spaces make ideal lecture theatres, performance space and libraries. Having said that one of the studios is still a TV studio.

Yes, as the TV Studio History website points out, the TV Centre studios are actually pretty busy, certainly more so than a lot of other studio centres. The departure of sports and kids' shows has made little difference, sport had one studio and other than Blue Peter there aren't many kids shows that actually need a big studio, especially now the Saturday morning shows have ended. Most of the TV Centre studios have just been upgraded recently too so they certainly seem a far more valuable proposition than the likes of Teddington. And they've just built a bloody big shopping centre next door so it's not like they're in the middle of nowhere either.

Tyne Tees is now a large patch of brown earth on City Rd. It did become a call centre for a while, but the nature of the building made it impractical for other businesses.

I've just been reading on the TV Studio History website about the plan for TVC after March 2013. It sounds like the plan at the moment is to keep TC1,2,3 and maybe 4, but 5,6,7,8 will all be lost.

I'd be interested to know if anyone knows how the decision to keep/lose those studios was taken? For instance, has someone calculated demand for 2 small, 1 medium and 1 large studio wouldn't be needed in London?

Also, I'd be interested to know what will happen to them - are they to be demolished?

Hoping someone may know more about the plan.