ITV abandons the South Bank

Tom Jones, Kylie, Jessie J, Gary Barlow, Danni Minogue, Boy George, Rita Ora, Paloma, Will.I.Am etc all spent at least a fortnight in Salford for The Voice/Let it Shine etc Even Jeremy Clarkson will be spending a week there for Millionaire , a man who created the myth.The current series of SNT hasn't exactly been full with big names either, not that they need them.

The problem with Salford is that unlike those shows Saturday Night Takeaway is live and you cannot block record 8 weeks of shows in 10 days. So you cannot expect to move London based production teams up for nearly 2 months of the year. The Voice etc always had their live shows in London for that reason according to Moira Ross when she exec produced it.

HQ1 with the outside courtyard would have looked amazing on SNT. It looked really impressive during Sport Relief on a much smaller budget.

Precisely. Salford is never going to be chosen over TV Centre in London just because Salford may have more easily usable exterior space (though I wouldn't bet against there being stuff outside at TV Centre or in front of the new Westfield bit over the road)...

Yep - anyone who has tried to get to Media City to work knows how miserable that is. It's worse than Elstree...



Push the Button was a set-standing show though wasn't it? Not sure Pinewood or Elstree are well suited to a weekly set/strike, and I doubt SNT want to do a 7 day buyout of a studio for the run?

I expected Pinewood, there is a lot of sound and production restrictions on the new TVC, the donut and glass fronted fronted area cannot be used for performances/ Election night style projections for example.

Not true, the revived series started at Maidstone and then moved to TLS.

Not only that but the tens of thousands they’d have to add onto the cost of production thanks to shipping up and overnighting a London-based production team every week. Alright when 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown does it a few weeks a year and films multiple eps in one go with a much smaller team, but not for a weekly live show with a huge editorial team. And there isn’t anywhere near enough people with a games background based in Salford that could be recruited to produce it locally. This is also assuming that Ant and Dec would even want to move up to Salford each week for two months for no obvious good reason.

This idea certainly doesn’t sound like it’s been very well thought through.

Not sure there was any need for that dig. We're all entitled to our opinions thank you very much.

Dismissing the work of members of the show’s team based on absolutely nothing isn’t exactly fair either.

You guys could start an argument in an empty room Forget the on screen egos they're all in the galleries I don't know how such a big deal could be made of a big shiny floor show moving to the old BBC Television centre, one of the most experienced studios for such programming in the world. While I've always personally preferred TLS to TVC, nothing to be done about the former closing so Takeaway is going to have to 'settle' with an amazing studio in its own right. What can they not actually do at TVC they can at TLS? The outside stuff absailing down the building? Well that's been done. The stuff over the road with race cars etc? I'm sure they can work something out for that. A new location opens up new opportunities.

They seem quite happy to go all the way to Oz for a three weeks at a time ?

Yeah, but that's even further away from Byker so they're happy

Cats does Countdown probably does ok in Salford being a co-production with an ITV team based in Leeds, and as most of the guests are comedians who spend most of their lives touring the country, a stop off in Salford is not much additional hardship for them.

[quote="Markymark" pid="1107080"]

Salford or Australia...I know which one I'd pick