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Revamp of Broadcasting house costing more than Wembley?

£800m (February 2006)

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NG
noggin Founding member
Inspector Sands posted:
TROGGLES posted:
Incidentally Birmingham now costs in excess of £2M per year in rent plus the drama centre which is a lot of money for a corporation spending more money on programming.


But as they owned the huge Pebble Mill complex, how much did they spend on it's upkeep?

It's like the diffrence in buying a house compared with renting a house - buying tends to cost more as you're responsible for all the maintainence


Yep - though it is important to remember that the BBC lease of Pebble Mill meant they paid very little in ground rent type terms, and it is widely accepted within engineerin circles at the BBC that it would have been significantly cheaper to refurbish Pebble Mill (including coping with asbestos issues) than the Mailbox move has cost...

Oh - and the BBC now realises it needs production studios outside London... Pity it closed the network production studios in Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester...
IS
Inspector Sands
marksi posted:

Though there aren't many people who would tell you that renting is a good idea in the long run.


No,that's true. it doesn't save you money in the short term though, just ask my bank manager Sad
DU
Dunedin
The fact that Five Live is the only BBC radio station to currently broadcast from the site of the BBC News operation (TV centre) makes its decision to move to Manchester all the more baffling.

Surely the "Home of Live News" should be part of the "world's largest newsroom" and at the heart of BBC News. And of course it SHOULD be in the capital.

I really hope this plan gets quietly dropped post-charter renewal, and replaced with a far more sensible plan...Radio 1 should be the big, headline grabbing move to Manchester- not only is the 'club scene' that it taps into arguable fresher in Manchester than in London, the output is entirely unconnected to the capital or other BBC resources.

Alongside Radio 1, BBC digital radio stations could easily move out of London- 6music, BBC 7. The Asian Network is already broadcast from the Midlands. Surely that's enough stations to justify being "non London-centric".

Hell, you could move Radio 3 up to Manchester and nobody would notice.
TV
tvmercia Founding member
Dunedin posted:
The fact that Five Live is the only BBC radio station to currently broadcast from the site of the BBC News operation (TV centre) makes its decision to move to Manchester all the more baffling.

Surely the "Home of Live News" should be part of the "world's largest newsroom" and at the heart of BBC News. And of course it SHOULD be in the capital.
you say "should", any chance you could expand on why it should? i mean technically 5 live could be based in shetland, given the access to enps and relatively inexpensive nature of down the line interviews and down the line contributions. several 5 live programmes come from bbc birmingham and it would seem they are equally as capable of operating from here as opposed to london, they still have the same access to guests and news.

Quote:

I really hope this plan gets quietly dropped post-charter renewal, and replaced with a far more sensible plan...Radio 1 should be the big, headline grabbing move to Manchester- not only is the 'club scene' that it taps into arguable fresher in Manchester than in London, the output is entirely unconnected to the capital or other BBC resources.
if anything i would rather see radio 1 regionalised for a weekly show, given the fact independent local radio stations seem to be networked half the time, and when theyre not theyre playing the same playlist anyway. the bbc have recognised the need to reflect the diversity of new music in scotland, wales and ulster, it'd be great if the regions of england had the same.

Quote:

Alongside Radio 1, BBC digital radio stations could easily move out of London- 6music, BBC 7. The Asian Network is already broadcast from the Midlands. Surely that's enough stations to justify being "non London-centric".

to be fair the only reason the asian network comes from leicester and birmingham is because it was created by bbc midlands to hang on to radio wm's/radio leicester's mw frequencies, not some attempt from london to spread operations around. and of course since the advent of DAB, part of the output comes from london.

shifting bbc 7 anywhere would be pointless as its an archive channel. 1/3 of radio 2 comes from birmingham as well as some radio 4 and 5 output which proves there is no real reason to stop the bbc increasing the number of shows coming from outside london.
NG
noggin Founding member
Dunedin posted:
The fact that Five Live is the only BBC radio station to currently broadcast from the site of the BBC News operation (TV centre) makes its decision to move to Manchester all the more baffling.


Depends what you mean by broadcast...

Certainly most, if not all, of the BBC Radio Four News output (Today, World at One, Radio News bulletins etc.) all come from the News Centre at TV Centre. Radio Five Live is the only channel that has its "presentation" from the News Centre - but this is partially because it doesn't actually have a presentation operation in the same way as the other networks. The Five Live studios "hand" the networks between each other I believe (using a router) - rather than being routed via a central presentation studio.
MO
Moz
Inspector Sands posted:
Moz posted:
I thought that ALL of BBC Radio was moving to the new BH complex, but according to Radio 2's website they're moving to somewhere called Western House.


Yes, this wasn't part of the original plan, the adding of studios and the refurbishment of Western House contributed to the extra cost for the project.

Radio 1 (and 1xtra) was never going to be in BH,

Quote:

Also, which bit is BBC News moving into and when?


All of BBC News in London is moving there - TV news, radio news, World Service, News Online etc (although 5 Live will probably end up in Manchester). They'll move in when everything's finished - 2010 or whatever the current date is

Quote:

There seems to be three bits to me. The original BH (left in the photo below), a new wing of similar shape opposite it (right, below), and a linking bit at the back. The first two seem to be almost ready, and the back bit has just been started. Is BBC News going in the new wing (right bit below), or the back bit? If the back bit, it can't be until 2011/12, but it has been said they are moving in 2007/8. Has this slipped?


News is moving into the back section, if you have a look at the broadcasting house website there's a picture of the large, multi-level newsroom that will be built there.

The new wing and the old BH will house radio, which has to move out of the back section so it can be demolished and turned into the new news centre

Thanks for that.

So, five more years of BBC News in the W12 News Centre! I can't see them keeping their current look that long. Yes I know that there will probably be tweaks soon, but I'd have thought at least one major rebrand of BBC News will be needed between now and when they move to W1.
LO
LONDON
Moz posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
Moz posted:
I thought that ALL of BBC Radio was moving to the new BH complex, but according to Radio 2's website they're moving to somewhere called Western House.


Yes, this wasn't part of the original plan, the adding of studios and the refurbishment of Western House contributed to the extra cost for the project.

Radio 1 (and 1xtra) was never going to be in BH,

Quote:

Also, which bit is BBC News moving into and when?


All of BBC News in London is moving there - TV news, radio news, World Service, News Online etc (although 5 Live will probably end up in Manchester). They'll move in when everything's finished - 2010 or whatever the current date is

Quote:

There seems to be three bits to me. The original BH (left in the photo below), a new wing of similar shape opposite it (right, below), and a linking bit at the back. The first two seem to be almost ready, and the back bit has just been started. Is BBC News going in the new wing (right bit below), or the back bit? If the back bit, it can't be until 2011/12, but it has been said they are moving in 2007/8. Has this slipped?


News is moving into the back section, if you have a look at the broadcasting house website there's a picture of the large, multi-level newsroom that will be built there.

The new wing and the old BH will house radio, which has to move out of the back section so it can be demolished and turned into the new news centre

Thanks for that.

So, five more years of BBC News in the W12 News Centre! I can't see them keeping their current look that long. Yes I know that there will probably be tweaks soon, but I'd have thought at least one major rebrand of BBC News will be needed between now and when they move to W1.


The BBC 1 set is about to have a major overhaul, which will probably be its last before the move to broadcasting house. I would not imagine anything major will take place in the News 24 studio, at least not on the same scale as the 2003 overhaul, which pratically rebuilt that part of the newsroom.
RT
Richard Taylor
noggin posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
TROGGLES posted:
Incidentally Birmingham now costs in excess of £2M per year in rent plus the drama centre which is a lot of money for a corporation spending more money on programming.


But as they owned the huge Pebble Mill complex, how much did they spend on it's upkeep?

It's like the diffrence in buying a house compared with renting a house - buying tends to cost more as you're responsible for all the maintainence


Yep - though it is important to remember that the BBC lease of Pebble Mill meant they paid very little in ground rent type terms, and it is widely accepted within engineerin circles at the BBC that it would have been significantly cheaper to refurbish Pebble Mill (including coping with asbestos issues) than the Mailbox move has cost...

Oh - and the BBC now realises it needs production studios outside London... Pity it closed the network production studios in Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester...


Ground Rent of Pebble Mill site = £175/year for another approx 50 years
Refurb was about to start when the property review was implemented. £30M/10years.

To justify the case to move out of PM, they made two assessments :
1. The BBC would renegogiate the lease and pay a "fair" rate! - i.e. millions more. What business does that?
2. Over 25 years. It didn't work in any less period.

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