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A Question of Studio Use

(January 2006)

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JB
JB
Inspector Sands posted:
Bail posted:
The "N" ones as has been said refers to the "News Stage" where all the BBC News's stuff is hidden away, along with Five Live I belive? And TC well im sure you can guess thats "Television Center"

edit: There's also quite a good bit on transdiffusion: http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/studioone/tvcentres.php


A site that is well worth reading is Martin Kempton's History of London's TV Studios: http://www.martinkempton.com/studio%20history.htm
He has a seperate page on TV Centre: http://www.martinkempton.com/TV%20Centre%20history.htm


Just lost about an hour at work looking through that...fascinating stuff! Particularly interested to hear about the original plans for stage 6 and a new TV Theatre, never heard about that before.
NG
noggin Founding member
deejay posted:
The BBC has always been (and still is) obsessed by acronyms and codes for it studios and equipment. All its studios were known by a code so that anyone working in the BBC knew that it was Manchester Studio A, not Birmingham Studio A, TC1 not Telecine 1 and so on. These codes are still used widely in the BBC mainly for identifying circuits between studio centres (as sadly most network studios outside London have closed.)


Yes - there was some confusion when the BBC launched their BBC One DSat regions - because someone, somewhere, didn't know the standard (and potentially slightly confusing) BBC regional centre codes used for circuits.

NC = NorwiCh (not NewCastle)
NT = NewcasTle (not NoTTingham)
NO = NOttingham (not NOrwich)

During testing - when the BBC One services were identified by their regional circuit labels NC carried Newcastle, NT carried Nottingham and NO carried Norwich...
NG
noggin Founding member
JB posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
Bail posted:
The "N" ones as has been said refers to the "News Stage" where all the BBC News's stuff is hidden away, along with Five Live I belive? And TC well im sure you can guess thats "Television Center"

edit: There's also quite a good bit on transdiffusion: http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/studioone/tvcentres.php


A site that is well worth reading is Martin Kempton's History of London's TV Studios: http://www.martinkempton.com/studio%20history.htm
He has a seperate page on TV Centre: http://www.martinkempton.com/TV%20Centre%20history.htm


Just lost about an hour at work looking through that...fascinating stuff! Particularly interested to hear about the original plans for stage 6 and a new TV Theatre, never heard about that before.


Yep - the TV Theatre was originally planned for Stage V wasn't it? Instead a TV Music Theatre (for sound only recording) was built. It was seldom used - and became TC0 (and TC12) AIUI
NG
noggin Founding member
Bail posted:
The "N" ones as has been said refers to the "News Stage" where all the BBC News's stuff is hidden away, along with Five Live I belive? And TC well im sure you can guess thats "Television Center"


AIUI N stands simply for News, not News stage or News centre. (BBC World's studio is prefixed by N but isn't in the News Centre for example)

The original N1-3 were in the Spur (aka Stage IV) extension at TV Centre along with news editing and other departments. They were all the news studios the BBC had at TV Centre.

Current Affairs had larger studios at Lime Grove - and were a different department. Breakfast Time, Newsnight (I think) and Nationwide (as well as London Plus) came from Lime Grove. The Nine O'Clock News came from TV Centre (and before that Alexandra Palace)

When News and Current Affairs merged in the 1980s, and Current Affairs moved out of the Lime Grove site (it eventually closed in the early 90s ISTR - with The Late Show being the last show made there?). there was a requirement for the larger ex-Current Affairs shows (Breakfast Time, Newsnight etc.) to have their own studio. This meant using one of the main, original, TV Centre studios in the "main block" - i.e. the doughnut.

Originally TC2 was used for Current Affairs shows (and Newsround for a time). Breakfast Time moved, for a while, into N2 (which also housed the One/Six and Nine in their cut glass virtual incarnations), but it then moved out into a new studio, also shared with Newsnight and Working Lunch (which had previously been in N3) when it relaunched as Breakfast News ISTR.

Currently there are 3 active "N" News studios, (there were 4 for a time but the interactive one shut a year or so ago) News still house the ex-current affairs shows in a TC studio on long-term lease from "main block".

Ironically N1 and N2 are now renamed as TC studios - and News have one on long-term hire that originally held BBC Three News shows, and is now empty-ish.
TR
TROGGLES
stevek posted:
in reply to westy2's question about the granada building work affecting coronation street i doubt it. the coronation street studios are separate buildings, stage 1 is behind the viaduct and was opened in 1990 and stage 2 is at the other end of the street set, off victoria street and was opened in 2004, this is on the site of the baker street set.

the only problem would be dust and noise affecting any outside scenes recorded on the street set.

anybody got any ideas what is being built on the granada site


They will proberbly build a hotel or expensive appartments, thats all they seems to be building in Manchester at the moment.
IS
Inspector Sands
deejay posted:
The BBC has always been (and still is) obsessed by acronyms and codes for it studios and equipment. All its studios were known by a code so that anyone working in the BBC knew that it was Manchester Studio A, not Birmingham Studio A, TC1 not Telecine 1 and so on.


Is this why Telecine is known as TK?
IS
Inspector Sands
noggin posted:
Originally TC2 was used for Current Affairs shows (and Newsround for a time). Breakfast Time moved, for a while, into N2 (which also housed the One/Six and Nine in their cut glass virtual incarnations), but it then moved out into a new studio, also shared with Newsnight and Working Lunch (which had previously been in N3)


As you say N1 and N2 are still studios under diffrnt names, but what happened to N3?

Quote:
Currently there are 3 active "N" News studios, (there were 4 for a time but the interactive one shut a year or so ago) News still house the ex-current affairs shows in a TC studio on long-term lease from "main block".


I've never understood what it's N6,8 and 9.... N7 isn't used because of TC7, what happened to N4 and 5?
JA
james2001 Founding member
noggin posted:
AIUI N stands simply for News, not News stage or News centre. (BBC World's studio is prefixed by N but isn't in the News Centre for example).


Wasn't News 24 there originally, quite a while before the news centre was completed?
DE
deejay
Inspector Sands posted:
deejay posted:
The BBC has always been (and still is) obsessed by acronyms and codes for it studios and equipment. All its studios were known by a code so that anyone working in the BBC knew that it was Manchester Studio A, not Birmingham Studio A, TC1 not Telecine 1 and so on.


Is this why Telecine is known as TK?


Possibly - though I think ITV always referred to Telecine as TK as well. I might be barking up a very incorrect tree here. but Is it from a German word like like Telekino ?!
DE
deejay
Inspector Sands posted:
noggin posted:
Originally TC2 was used for Current Affairs shows (and Newsround for a time). Breakfast Time moved, for a while, into N2 (which also housed the One/Six and Nine in their cut glass virtual incarnations), but it then moved out into a new studio, also shared with Newsnight and Working Lunch (which had previously been in N3)


As you say N1 and N2 are still studios under diffrnt names, but what happened to N3?

Quote:
Currently there are 3 active "N" News studios, (there were 4 for a time but the interactive one shut a year or so ago) News still house the ex-current affairs shows in a TC studio on long-term lease from "main block".


I've never understood what it's N6,8 and 9.... N7 isn't used because of TC7, what happened to N4 and 5?


N3 was a very small CSO studio I think and was last used as far as I can remember for See Hear Breakfast News - a slot at 7.15am on BBC2. They basically took the first quarter-hour of Breakfast News (rememnber that in those days 0600-0700 was "Business Breakfast"), recorded it, found a suitable out point and then signed it live, broadcasting it on BBC2 before the CBBC Breakfast Club. This will have been in 1997 I reckon. What happened to N3 after that, I'm not sure.

There was never an N4 - someone once explained to me why but Icannot remember what the reason was. You're right in that there'sno N7 to avoid confusion with TC7.

N5 was originally the studio for the World Service Television Arabic news channel which closed in 1996. It wasn't terribly big but was later subdivided and made even smaller. It was most recently used for "Talking Point" on BBC World and BBC World Service, though it's now closed.

And finally, yes, News 24 originally launched from N9, which is now the BBC World studio. This was because the News Centre (Stage VI)hadn't been fully completed at the time. Domestic News still came from N2 and BBC World was still coming from N1.
DE
deejay
noggin posted:
JB posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
Bail posted:
The "N" ones as has been said refers to the "News Stage" where all the BBC News's stuff is hidden away, along with Five Live I belive? And TC well im sure you can guess thats "Television Center"

edit: There's also quite a good bit on transdiffusion: http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/studioone/tvcentres.php


A site that is well worth reading is Martin Kempton's History of London's TV Studios: http://www.martinkempton.com/studio%20history.htm
He has a seperate page on TV Centre: http://www.martinkempton.com/TV%20Centre%20history.htm


Just lost about an hour at work looking through that...fascinating stuff! Particularly interested to hear about the original plans for stage 6 and a new TV Theatre, never heard about that before.


Yep - the TV Theatre was originally planned for Stage V wasn't it? Instead a TV Music Theatre (for sound only recording) was built. It was seldom used - and became TC0 (and TC12) AIUI


Indeed - The Music Studio (TMS) was a terrific recording space with a very impressive sound desk - I understand one of only two of its type in the country. After it was closed, Presentation used it for a while to voice and version trails. This was because the Auxiliary Mixing Area where this had been done previously, was in the area where the old manual Network Presentation Control rooms were. It was, with Pres Studio A (CBBC), the last operational part of the old Presentation area. The AMA moved first down to TMS and CBBC moved from Pres A into the new TC9.

Pres then moved trails versioning into two new suites in the basement called the VCA (Versioning and Captioning Area !) and the old Music Studio became the virtual reality studio TC0 (making the last series of Record Breakers among a few other things). AIUI what was the Music Studio itself is now used as a four-waller for CBeebies and the old control rooms and voiceover booth was used for Nelly Nut.
ST
stevek
tell me i'm asking a silly question but what does the term four waller mean

i like this tv studio chat, there another post here somewhere that has been lost in the many pages of the forum

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