Over the last few days I've been indulging in a bit of retro Children's BBC stuff thanks to Youtube
Regarding the CBBC presentation studio
According to Wikipedia
"In 1997, CBBC moved again when 'Studio A' was decommissioned and CBBC moved to the purpose-built Studio 9 (officially 'TC9'), adjacent to the Blue Peter Garden on the roof of BBC Television Centre. The first broadcasts from Studio 9 were in June 1997; this was followed in September by the launch of the new-look CBBC branding. TC9 continued to be the regular home of CBBC broadcasts on BBC One and Two until 2005 and was also used to record CBBC On Choice links between 2000 and 2002"
I know it was actually October 1997 when the BBC relaunched, but does this mean that a set was built in Studio 9 with the old "Children's" logo for just 4 months use?
That's the way I remember it being. The Studio 9 logo was styled on the then outgoing Children's BBC logo and I seem to remember this was sprawled across one part of the studio years after the branding changed. The 'Childrens' logo itself only featured in a couple of places.
What always amazed me was just how old the video wall was by the time they finished using it, getting on for 15 years the same monitors had been used since the early 90s!
There's a clip on youtube with Otis taking us around studio 9 before they moved in. It shows men at work putting the new studio together, complete with widescreen testcards in the gallery.
There's a clip on youtube with Otis taking us around studio 9 before they moved in. It shows men at work putting the new studio together, complete with widescreen testcards in the gallery.
According to the excellent History of Television Studios website, the area that became TC9 was originally designed to be a foyer lounge for the restaurant block but became a builder's canteen and then a make-up store before becoming a studio.
It's not on the roof of television centre, but next to the Blue Peter Garden at ground floor level. It's in the same building as the infamous "BBC Canteen" - which is actually a whole block with kitchens and originally three restaurants (one egg and chips type self-service canteen, one waitress service restaurant and one slightly more upmarket self service canteen).
TC9 was built with it's own make-up room, VT area, gallery and 'studio', all comprehensively wired up so that any bit of it could appear on air. CBBC at the time was very keen on "going behind the scenes" - something Andi Peters used to do all the time from the broomcupboard and he carried that on to Live and Kicking. CBBC retained a bit of that ethos and would often do links from the VT area with Otis pressing play on the VTR... that kind of thing. The studio part had doors opening onto the BP Garden and with the garden's wallboxes and tielines it was easy to add that into the mix as a place to do links from. One of the major problems with TC9 was it's low lighting grid (makeup stores don't need much height!) and the glassblock wall to the garden which caused problems for the camera racking when presenters moved in front of them.
It originally launched with a large '9' made up of CRT monitors as part of the set ISTR...
Did they not used to do links from the roof back in the day they had the whole of weekday holiday mornings on 2 to themselves? They always claimed it was the roof anyhow and had BBQs on it. What part of the roof was that from if it was indeed from there?
Did they not used to do links from the roof back in the day they had the whole of weekday holiday mornings on 2 to themselves? They always claimed it was the roof anyhow and had BBQs on it. What part of the roof was that from if it was indeed from there?
Summer links would come from the roof back in the day of the 'HOT - Holidays on Two' days.
I'm sure they used to come from the roof much earlier than that as well, when they got the priviledge of being on BBC1 during summer mornings. They only went inside for the phone/computer game
The roof was out the back of the presentation area (which then contained the broom cupboard and Studio A. It's on top of Studio 4. Much later it was used for one of the Saturday Morning shows, possibly Theakston/Ball era Live and Kicking
I know it was actually October 1997 when the BBC relaunched, but does this mean that a set was built in Studio 9 with the old "Children's" logo for just 4 months use?
As you can see from the Otis video, there was quite a bit of yellow in the studio even before the set was in, maybe they knew what was to come? The actual bits of branded set would have come from the old studio and the rest like the furniture either didn't need changing or was easy to adapt. The 'Childrens' style '9' was still on the door for a long time after the branding was ditched, the lobby area with it's space theme lasted a while too
this thread gives me an opportunity to raise a question ... what was the point of the cbbc big bash? was it a bbc worldwide commercial venture, or done under the guise of public service?