The five main PSBs switching to 14:9

In terms of regional studios, is it not the case that a standing set is likely to be built more substantially than say a sitcom set that is only going to be up for a few hours?

Most newer regional studios are also less practical than say a TV Centre main block studio, no big scene doors onto a ring road to get stuff in and out. And no dedicated scene shifting staff in the region.

I've seen a clip of Look North doing a preview of their new look at the end of a Friday edition, the new set was built opposite the old one. Very few of the regions have the luxury of that amount of space now.

I find this a bit hard to believe, I don't really know what point you're trying to make either. That set builders are lazier these days?

I'm sure there are umpteen examples of shows in the past having to decamp to a temporary set for a while. The most obvious one came in the mid-eighties when Nationwide became Sixty Minutes, and then Sixty Minutes became London Plus, and in both instances the programmes went off air for two weeks and the South East got South Today in the meantime.

Up until the mid-nineties, Granada used to drop Granada Tonight for two weeks in the summer and just do short bulletins, as did other regional news magazines - plenty of time to change the set. And the Beeb only started doing regional news on Sundays fairly recently, they certainly weren't doing it twenty years ago so there was an entire day free. And as TV Studio History points out, before News at Ten started ITN did the late news from the independent Windmill Street studios for a fortnight while they set up and piloted News at Ten in the regular studio. In 1967!

I definitely reckon there were just as many extended studio refurbs and temporary set-ups in the past. That daytime bulletin from the end of the 1999 look is the perfect example, bar the ending the whole thing looks identical to the usual set-up. It's worth remembering that most news programmes were much simpler in those days and you could have probably done an entire weekend of virtual-era BBC News from a CSO set-up in another studio with nobody noticing. I'm sure they did.

So I don't really see the point you're making, to be honest. And dfferent sets and studios have different requirements, and different shows come to that.

In terms of set changes at ITN, of course they had the benefit of a brand new headquarters in 1990. I think they did the move over the Christmas period. The existing sets for the various bulletins were probably transferred in this period. I think Channel Four News was the first to go live from Grays Inn Road and then others followed. Of course, I'm pretty certain most bulletins went off air over Christmas anyway. I suspect they probably made sure the weekend/bank holiday set was ready and used that over the Christmas period. Certainly by January 1991 they were ready to go with everything else.

The next big change happened in 1995 and again this was staggered. I believe all of the bulletins moved into the basement studios while work was carried out in Studio 3 on the atrium. Some of them used CSO to emulate the old atrium studio. The next time this studio was redesigned was in 2000 for the launch of the ITN News Channel but by that time all the bulletins had moved back down to the basement.

Of course, more recent ITV News rebrands have been easier because they have swapped between Studios 1 and 2. Channel 4 moved into Studio 6 when it was brand new in 1999 so this would have been installed when the programme was still housed in one of the basement studios. Recent updates to Studio 6 have led them to use a virtual recreation, I think, in one of the basement studios.

The interesting thing will be when one of the programmes wants a big overhaul in the future. Now that 5 News/Jeremy Vine have taken over the previously vacant basement studio, ITN don't really have any spare capacity for doing temporary studio swaps to the best of my knowledge.

Notice I said "appear to happen" - I'm not disputing set changes sometimes took longer but from memory it appeared on screen far more seamless. Simpler sets could probably either be recreated or moved to vacant studios, something the regions don't have the luxury of now so they have to be more honest with their temporary home.

And the Six came from Scotland due to coverage of the first Scottish Parliament elections. It finished with a shot of the Edinburgh skyline.

Didn't News 24 spend quite some time in a CSO studio when they were changing from the red and cream mothership to the smoked glass look in N8? I seem to remember the recorded background wasn't quite long enough and the same person would appear on a fairly regular basis.

There was a period in the early-to-mid 00s when TC10 (aka N1) was the temporary home to an all-CSO News 24 operation for a number of weeks.

That looked pretty awful to be fair. Seem to remember Huw had to do the Ten from there due to a power cut on one occasion.

As a postscript to the conversation earlier in this thread about programmes being shot on film, Doc Martin returned last week and is one of the few (only?) primetime dramas still to be shot on 16mm, apparently a decision that Martin Clunes himself influenced…

It's always great to see TV productions continuing to shoot on film! We are very proud to have facilitated the ARRI 416 Cameras and @ZEISSLenses Ultra Primes (for 16mm) for Doc Martin, now filming its ninth series #shootfilm #16mm #docmartin https://t.co/WoFPZtmgXB

— Take 2 Films (@Take2FilmsUK) July 24, 2019

Cool that Clunes has an input about that.

Also surely sets are more complex now and have more... electronics and gizmos.

It's good that Doc Martin has managed to keep the same look after 15 years, many long running shows like Midsomer Murders, you can tell when they've changed from film to digital

He and his wife own the production company that make the programme, they are in charge of it