The London Studios - new main studio

Yes - and if you are travelling out of London to Birmingham, there isn't much stopping you going to Salford.

When you are looking at scheduling a TV production one key element is travel and overnight stays. If your crew are based in London and your studio is in London people travel from home (under their own steam) and then go home at the end of the day. If your crew are based in London and your studio is in Birmingham - then you are going to have to pay travel (possibly a travel day as well) and overnight the crew and/or talent. Significant expenses.

Birmingham and Salford would both probably incur the same costs, so there is little benefit to being in Birmingham. It's not "close enough"...

Very good points by all, though if you have a Studio in Birmingham, would they look at gaining local crew to kill at least some of the expenses?

If not Birmingham, could places just outside Greater London gain more Studios? Not sure on if it would be cheaper or anything though...

From experience, productions go with people they know... If you look at a lot of ITV Entertainment shows (especially the BGT/XFactor or Ents shows based from TLS) they have a familiar crew.

What local crew? There hasn't been much multi-camera studio production in the Midlands since the closure of Pebble Mill and Central's studios in Nottingham. There are still some crew who still live there and travel to either Salford or London as and when the work appears - but they aren't getting any younger.

However there isn't a critical mass of good quality, current and experienced crew there, nor are there likely to be until you can have a full-time career based there (as you can within commuting distance of Salford and London)



Entirely possible - Maidstone Studios is a case in point.

Although big productions there seem to be few and far between.

BBC Music seem to quite like it. "Later..." has moved there. "Take Me Out" is also made there, along with a couple of daytime shows and the odd thing for Sky. I suspect it will get a reasonable amount of work, particularly if Riverside is closed for the Hammersmith redevelopment. (Which would be a shame)

I thought the Hammersmith thing had initially come from Riverside themselves and was going to be Riverside closing for a while but then opening bigger? Surely Riverside isn't closing completely?!

This is on the cinema bit of their website : "Following four successful decades of producing inspiring film events Riverside Studios is closing for redevelopment in September. Join us for one of the special celebratory screenings in July and August."

Badly worded, if as Wikipedia (always accurate of course) suggests a redevelopment including new cinema and production studios as part of a mixed-use project. Suspect you are right - though be interesting to know how long they will be out of action.

I didn't think it was that long since it had reopened.

Apparently because the sound desk there was particularly good... And not because it's near to Jools Hollands house!

Studer Vista 8 - same as TC1 used to have. Very nice desks.

The sound desk is an often quoted reason for moving. Proximity to Jools's house - less so!