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Granada Studios sold to Ikea

"Goodbye Granadaland" to air Sat 15th June (May 2013)

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IT
IndigoTucker
noggin posted:


The other is what was the main Anglia HQ - Anglia House. AIUI this is still owned by Anglia/ITV Plc and is the home to the regional news for the East. Don't think much else is made there, but there were quite a few non-news studio spaces there. It was quite a large site.

It always surprised me that Anglia needed (or had) so many studios. They did make drama (often studio based), as well as game shows and some regional studio shows, but still...

ITV Anglia are stuck at Anglia House as there is a clause in their tenancy that means they MUST refurbish the complex to its original condition when they leave... which would cost far more than any move to smaller premises.
WH
Whataday Founding member
IndigoTucker posted:
noggin posted:


The other is what was the main Anglia HQ - Anglia House. AIUI this is still owned by Anglia/ITV Plc and is the home to the regional news for the East. Don't think much else is made there, but there were quite a few non-news studio spaces there. It was quite a large site.

It always surprised me that Anglia needed (or had) so many studios. They did make drama (often studio based), as well as game shows and some regional studio shows, but still...

ITV Anglia are stuck at Anglia House as there is a clause in their tenancy that means they MUST refurbish the complex to its original condition when they leave... which would cost far more than any move to smaller premises.


Really? What an odd clause to still count these days. Surely there would be a way to buy themselves out of that if it meant a long term saving? I'm guessing they've weighed it up and it's not worth their while.

On the subject of TV studios, I never quite understood why ITV Plc bought back the ITV Wales site at Culverhouse Cross when they'd been happily leasing it, and then just a couple of years later start winding it down and looking to relocate.
DO
dosxuk
noggin posted:
Anglia had two studio centres until the 00s.

One is in Anglia Square off Magdalen St, which has been sold off and is now run as EPIC and has been equipped for HD production.

The other is what was the main Anglia HQ - Anglia House. AIUI this is still owned by Anglia/ITV Plc and is the home to the regional news for the East. Don't think much else is made there, but there were quite a few non-news studio spaces there. It was quite a large site.

It always surprised me that Anglia needed (or had) so many studios. They did make drama (often studio based), as well as game shows and some regional studio shows, but still...


It's been a long time since I wandered around Anglia House, so forgive me if any details are wrong, but IIRC they have had seven studios in total.

Studio A - Anglia House main studio - second largest of their facilities, used for virtually everything over the years. Was home to Trisha for several years, and is now the home of the two news studios (after being split)
Studio B & D - small (tiny) continuity type studios (I never saw these and I believe they were decommissioned in the 80s if not earlier)
Studio C - Original news studio, pretty small
Studio E - The Magdelen Street main studio - largest studio available to Anglia TV. Home to Knightmare, Trisha, Wright Stuff and many others. Several programmes used to be flexibly filmed in A or E depending on availability. Now the main studio at EPIC.
Studio F - News studio built at Anglia House in around 89/90 - it was built in the section of the building which has subsequently released when they sold off half the site.
"??" - The replacement news studio at Magdelen Street, converted from the car park / scene dock for Studio E (the studio is on the first floor) in the late 90s. I never saw this studio, but IIRC is was built from scratch as two spaces for the split news service.

Anglia also had a sizeable OB fleet in the 80s / 90s, including at one point the only purpose built and permanent graphics truck, which was regularly used by other franchises to support their own OBs.
GE
thegeek Founding member
Whataday posted:
IndigoTucker posted:

ITV Anglia are stuck at Anglia House as there is a clause in their tenancy that means they MUST refurbish the complex to its original condition when they leave... which would cost far more than any move to smaller premises.


Really? What an odd clause to still count these days. Surely there would be a way to buy themselves out of that if it meant a long term saving? I'm guessing they've weighed it up and it's not worth their while.
I don't think it's too unusual - I believe the BBC had something similar with Bush House.
GO
gottago
nwtv2003 posted:
amosc100 posted:
gottago posted:
I don't really see how it would have been appropriate for the Museum of Science and Industry to buy the Corrie site. The "television industry" really isn't the sort of industry they specialise in!


Are you sure about that. They feature most other industries and they have also held the Dr Who (New Series) exhibition there a couple of times and have had a few other TV industry related exhibited, plus don't forget Granada was one of the forefront on TV and ITV since 1955.


I last visited MOSI in December 2011 and they even have a separate building with exhibits for broadcasting, with many old pieces of kit donated from BBC Manchester and Granada, with other bits too IIRC, granted it's no National Media Museum (Bradford) but it's worth a look around if you're visiting the MOSI.


Oh I had no idea. The site was so vast when I went I assumed they focused solely on steam trains and coal! Definitely would have made a detour for that building if I'd have known.

dosxuk posted:
Studio A - Anglia House main studio - second largest of their facilities, used for virtually everything over the years. Was home to Trisha for several years, and is now the home of the two news studios (after being split)
How come they have two news studios? Surely only one is in use?
MG
MikeGNE
noggin posted:
tightrope78 posted:
So will UTV's Havelock House be the oldest still in use studios once Granada finally closes? Havelock House have operated since 1959.


In "ITV" hands probably the answer is yes. Whether the BBC Elstree, formerly ATV Elstree, studios are older is a trickier question. ATV didn't buy them until 1962 (so they weren't "ITV" before Havelock) but they were built much earlier, and used for TV productions (though I guess on film?) before ATV occupied them apparently.


Just on this point, ATV bought them in 1959 and opened them in 1961 having built a huge extension onto the original 1920s/30s Neptune Film Studios.
DO
dosxuk
gottago posted:
dosxuk posted:
Studio A - Anglia House main studio - second largest of their facilities, used for virtually everything over the years. Was home to Trisha for several years, and is now the home of the two news studios (after being split)
How come they have two news studios? Surely only one is in use?


They moved News back to Anglia House when they disposed of the Magdelen Street site, and at that time they were still running fully split East / West bulletins, hence the studio was split in two. Don't know if both studios are still usable, or if one has been dismantled or just mothballed.
NG
noggin Founding member
dosxuk posted:

Anglia also had a sizeable OB fleet in the 80s / 90s, including at one point the only purpose built and permanent graphics truck, which was regularly used by other franchises to support their own OBs.


By the mid-90s they had merged with Thames's OB operation (and possibly YTVs?) I think to form "Global" which by the mid-00s had been bought by Visions. I think this was tied in, possibly, with the "Three on Four" ITV operation which provided Channel Four racing facilities, though I may be wrong.
GO
gottago
dosxuk posted:
gottago posted:
dosxuk posted:
Studio A - Anglia House main studio - second largest of their facilities, used for virtually everything over the years. Was home to Trisha for several years, and is now the home of the two news studios (after being split)
How come they have two news studios? Surely only one is in use?


They moved News back to Anglia House when they disposed of the Magdelen Street site, and at that time they were still running fully split East / West bulletins, hence the studio was split in two. Don't know if both studios are still usable, or if one has been dismantled or just mothballed.


I see, sorry I thought you were implying that they were both being used.
DO
dosxuk
noggin posted:
dosxuk posted:

Anglia also had a sizeable OB fleet in the 80s / 90s, including at one point the only purpose built and permanent graphics truck, which was regularly used by other franchises to support their own OBs.


By the mid-90s they had merged with Thames's OB operation (and possibly YTVs?) I think to form "Global" which by the mid-00s had been bought by Visions. I think this was tied in, possibly, with the "Three on Four" ITV operation which provided Channel Four racing facilities, though I may be wrong.


All correct - the normal racing trucks were a scanner ex-Thames, VT truck ex-Yorkshire and Anglia's old capgen & links trucks. Global built a new scanner specifically for the racing in the mid 90s, which continued to do the same job until last year under Visions. All the other trucks carried on until the early 00s when Visions replaced them, although some equipment still has asset tags from their originating companies.
NG
noggin Founding member
dosxuk posted:
noggin posted:
dosxuk posted:

Anglia also had a sizeable OB fleet in the 80s / 90s, including at one point the only purpose built and permanent graphics truck, which was regularly used by other franchises to support their own OBs.


By the mid-90s they had merged with Thames's OB operation (and possibly YTVs?) I think to form "Global" which by the mid-00s had been bought by Visions. I think this was tied in, possibly, with the "Three on Four" ITV operation which provided Channel Four racing facilities, though I may be wrong.


All correct - the normal racing trucks were a scanner ex-Thames, VT truck ex-Yorkshire and Anglia's old capgen & links trucks. Global built a new scanner specifically for the racing in the mid 90s, which continued to do the same job until last year under Visions. All the other trucks carried on until the early 00s when Visions replaced them, although some equipment still has asset tags from their originating companies.


Global were also stalwarts of ITV Morning Worship (when they did live church services on Sunday mornings), presumably because these were predominantly co-ordinated by Anglia. Think they might also have provided facilities for some of the BBC's City Hospital (and indie produced by Topical Television - which had links to TVS back in the day)

(Sorry for off-topicness)
ST
stevek2
trivialmatters posted:
That article suggest they're going to build an IKEA store on the land.

Also even if the museum next door bought the site, what's to stop ITV digging up the street and knocking the facades down before they hand the site over?


ikea is going into the corry studio building, stage one, the external set is being sold to private investors, not sure what for at it will be sandwiched between MSI, bonded warehouse, ikea and whatever is built on the granada studio site

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