Closure of BBC Television Centre?

I'm sorry you and that other one are a member of this forum and yet you have not heard of pebble mill? morons.

I'd hope that a broadcasting house style refit would be on the cards. As has been said before with large studio productions on the decline there is no real need for a big studio complex like TVC.

However the building itself is an icon of the BBC. So you'd hope that they could refurb the smaller studios into offices to replace some of the other buildings in their estate.

Having never visited TVC I have to admit my own ignorance of it's geography. I was wondering - say they ditched all but TC1 and perhaps one more studio - could all of White City be fitted into the remaining space?

At the moment SCAR is the MCR/Apps area for the news centre but there is another bigger area at the back of TV Centre - CCA - that deals with everything else (the studios, international & regional feeds, Eurovision etc) There are deicated lines back and forth from one to the other, AIUI SCAR itself relies on CCA for all its sat downlinks.

I assume at BH the situation will be the same - they'll just longer pieces of wire!

You do have a good point, TV Centre is much more than just studios. Channel playout has gone but a lot more goes on

Not going to quote the full post, but comment on most of it - and snigger at the prospect of a live channel dedicated to the five pound note.


Agree with children's programming - could be done from anywhere.

Radio 5 Live - like it or not the news is generally pretty London centric and although it doesn't really impact on the listener if the host and their guests are in different studios, it's likely alot of shows would still require a link to a studio in London for some of their guests.


Sport - you can say that for any city but the Olympics should really swing it for now at least. Surely London has more sporting events than any other UK city - Manchester really only have the two Premiership teams, the occassional cycling event and a cricket match not shown by the BBC.

London, along with the Olympics, will have all the Wembley and Twickenham Cup finals, the England home rugby games, Masters Snooker, the Stella Artois Championships and of course Wimbledon. In addition, in the run up to the Olympics London will host a series of test events, many of which would probably end up being shown by BBC Sport.

The bigger events such as Wimbledon and the Olympics don't just provide work for a couple of people either - hundreds are often involved and if BBC Sport is based in Manchester, that's weeks of London hotels we'll be shelling out for too!


P.S. Off topic: Stadia - it's only the FA that have a problem with building stadia. Dozens of football grounds have been built on time and too budget over recent years, along with other facilities - i.e. for the Commonwealth Games. And ironically ditching the 2005 IAAF Championships is the best thing London ever did!


And how strange we've kind of gone full circle in the argument - White City was the venue for the 1908 London Olympics!

The Wright Stuff is a very good example (although it was originaly built for RISE). Princess Productions built that studio and use it for their own programmes as well as rent it out. It a perfectly good studio and it seems it is far more cost efficent that way

The urge to move out of traditional studios has probably always been there, it's just that the technology allows it now. There probably is more studio production on air today than ever, but the majority of it is quiz and shopping channels doing it in tiny, custom built studios

Must admit when I viewed the post and noticed I put "fiver" I sniggered myself and thought , "yeah, leave it there for a laugh!!!!!"

I did think that you were talking about Five Live Sport, rather than Five Live in general. So, partially I do agree that Five Live should really come from the same centre as the news centre - would make much more sense.

Manchester only has 1 football team - Manchester City, Manchester United play in a town called Trafford, Bolton Wanderers (a top 7 premiership football team for at least the last 3 seasons!!!! - which most people seem to forget and the fact that Bolton has been in the Premiership more than out since the inception of the Premiership and in fact Bolton IS more succesful than Man C, except for the fan base of which Man C's is one of the best in the world no matter which division they are in) is less than 10 miles, so is Wigan Athletic.

London may havemore events (but which city in London?) - if you take London literally then there are NO sporting events that actually come from the city!!! But London in general, then probably yes it does have quite a lot of sporting events. If you take the North in general I would say that there is more in the North than in London, and within easier reach due to Motorway links that very rarely get snarled up. From Birmingham/Nottingham to Middlebrough - Salford is about 2 to 2.5 half hrs away from the different extreme points.

The Commonwealth Games helped a lot with sporting events in the North - Manchester has the only competitve velodrome in the country and its part of Sportscity (in Eastlands in Manchester - same area as the City of Manchester stadium, Man C home ground, and next to the more recent athetics stadium.

Must admit the Olympics to most people in the north is a very sore point due to the fact that Manchester put on the most successful Commonwealth Games ever (but fandom and financially) without a penny coming from the National Lottery and yet the Olympics are going to be partly funded by the Lottery, why???

Why pay for London's Olympic build when Manchester was rejected quite a few times by the Lottery Committee. It's a DISGRACE!!!!!

So there are strong links for Sport which can be situated outside London. Also, if anything, BBC3 should come from Manchester as most of the programmes for the channel are commissioned from Northern indepedents, especially from Manchester.

I think they just need to revamp the building. Perhaps give it a huge overhaul with an atrium style effect and a huge glass front sporting the BBC logo in huge letters. (Have I used the word huge too much? ) Anyway... something like Channel 4's building but more attractive but of course there is the whole license payers issue.

If the studio is undersued then why waste tax-payers money in revamping and still being under utilised. Just move to smaller premiese which are more cost effective and then use the newly found money in creating quality PSB programming.

It would be a very commercial decision, but BBC now has to survive in a commercial world and be very open as to where they spend/waste their money.

Others might say childrens' output has too much of a Northern identity ATM, without moving the department there

ASTON you hit the nail on the head... the main building is listed and cannot be knocked down. I agree with you... they may sell some bits of land but NOT the whole lot.

If it happened it truly would be the end of the BBC... they can just about get away with selling Technology, Broadcast and tendering out lots of other bits... but to sell BBC Television Centre in West London... that is one sale too far.

To be fair Hyma, he's not from the UK so he's just learning about Pebble Mill.

One thing in Manchester's favour, is that it is the nearest major city to geographical centre of Great Britain (Dunsop Bridge, Lancs). Scotland, Wales and the rest of England are easily accesible by the rail and motorway network from Manc. For N.Ireland you have docks just down the road; also Manchester International Airport to get to get any main city in the UK and beyond.

The Manchester Commonwealth Games of a few years ago showed what top class sport facilities are present in Greater Manchester.

As for Radio 2, I think Aled Jones's Sunday programme is/was produced by BBC Manchester, also I believe some of Mark Radcliffe's programmes are too

The thing I'm wondering is, will splitting up the BBC's various 'national' departments up between lots of locations make it less efficient?

Really interesting website about TVC here