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TVC Fire Alarm evacuation

(September 2003)

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RT
rts Founding member
Square Eyes posted:
RTS posted:
Was there actually a fire or was it a drill/false alarm in the end.

Honestly, TV Centre is a big place, how will he know if it was an actual fire or not ?

I'd just tell Rod that Moira Stewart's hair was on fire due to excessive use of hair spray just to keep him happy.

My school's a f**cking big place but everyone still found out pronto that the Head of Years car had been smashed up. How? People talk about things like this. Or hadn't you realised that Laughing
WH
Whataday Founding member
RTS posted:
My school's a f**cking big place but everyone still found out pronto that the Head of Years car had been smashed up. How? People talk about things like this. Or hadn't you realised that Laughing



I'd say that TVC is a little bit bigger than your school. Laughing But, I see your point. It still wouldn't take long for the gossip to spread.
RT
rts Founding member
Whataday posted:
RTS posted:
My school's a f**cking big place but everyone still found out pronto that the Head of Years car had been smashed up. How? People talk about things like this. Or hadn't you realised that Laughing



I'd say that TVC is a little bit bigger than your school. Laughing But, I see your point. It still wouldn't take long for the gossip to spread.

Well yes, Matt Wink But I'm glad you can see what I was getting at Smile
PE
Pete Founding member
Square Eyes posted:
I'd just tell Rod that Moira Stewart's hair was on fire due to excessive use of hair spray just to keep him happy.


I think you'll find BIG MOIRA has her own fire prevention system built into her wonderful hairdo. It's unlikely a fire would damage more than 3 sqare acres of her hair before being extinguished.
NG
noggin Founding member
Corin posted:
Is it just me and false impressions, or are there many more incidents of alarms, evacuations, and fires, occuring on a regular basis nowadays, than there ever used to be during the previous millenium at the BBC TV Centre?


Bit of both. There are now "evacuations" and "invacuations" and drills to rehearse both. "Invacuations" are where there is a suspected bomb threat external to the building, and involved moving to an "Internal Safe Area" - a place with no external windows that face the exterior of the building. "Evacuations" are your common or garden fire alarm situations. Obviously both styles of alert have to be drilled - in the case of fire alarms it is a legal requirement. However broadcasting should not be disrupted by a drill - only a real event, or a suspected event.

I don't think there have been significant increases in the number of fires and fire drills. However there was the major bomb attack - and as a result invacuation alerts are now more frequent (though not that frequent) The most visible on-screen disruptions have really been caused by power disruptions - and they are nothing new. ISTR that the launch of BBC Two in 1964 was hampered by a major power failure!
NG
noggin Founding member
Phileas Fogg posted:
Why do they have to put on tapes when things like this happen?

The BBC has so many studio locations that you think someone might be able to go on air from a different place, explain the situation, and try to improvise the show as best as possible. Sort of like what they did during the power outage in 2000.


Within the BBC there are separate plans for News and non-News production. The News ( a three way service for BBC One, BBC World and BBC News 24) continued from BBC Westminster studios. However there is only one TV studio there, and it is geared really for News production.

To mount a show like the XChange live from a secondary location - which would probably need to be Cardiff, Glasgow or Belfast as these are the only major production centres outside TV Centre (Elstree is effectively tied to TV Centre in many infrastructure terms - like comms)

(It might be possible to relocate some output to the BBC/Granada joint 3Sixty studios - but these are not guaranteed to be available?)

Given that XChange is a live show - with guests - it would hardly be feasible to move the show elsewhere, crew a studio, get the insert tapes fed etc. - especially as it is on a minor BBC digital-only channel.

More important would be to sustain the BBC One and Two networks, and any live shows on them?

It may seem like the BBC has loads of production studios (12 in TVC, along with 4 news only ones) - but in reality the only centres that have production (rather than local news) studios are London, Belfast, Cardiff and Glasgow. Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol used to have production studios - however these were all closed in the 90s to allow resources to be more cost-effectively concentrated and utilised in London and the Nations.
RT
rts Founding member
Hymagumba posted:
Square Eyes posted:
I'd just tell Rod that Moira Stewart's hair was on fire due to excessive use of hair spray just to keep him happy.


I think you'll find BIG MOIRA has her own fire prevention system built into her wonderful hairdo. It's unlikely a fire would damage more than 3 sqare acres of her hair before being extinguished.

I did once try to copy BIG MOIRA 's hair style, yet in all honesty it was a rather feeble attempt.

http://www.rtsnet.tv/temp/photos/changes.jpg

noggin posted:
Within the BBC there are separate plans for News and non-News production. The News ( a three way service for BBC One, BBC World and BBC News 24) continued from BBC Westminster studios. However there is only one TV studio there, and it is geared really for News production.

Not wanting to be pedantic but aren't there two. One where Dateline London goes from and the other were the daily politics goes out from.
PE
Pete Founding member
RTS posted:
I did once try to copy BIG MOIRA 's hair style, yet in all honesty it was a rather feeble attempt.


indeed it was.
RT
rts Founding member
I was on Page 3 of the local paper went it went mind.

http://www.rtsnet.tv/temp/photos/hairshave/hairshave.jpg
NG
noggin Founding member
[quote="RTS]
noggin posted:
Within the BBC there are separate plans for News and non-News production. The News ( a three way service for BBC One, BBC World and BBC News 24) continued from BBC Westminster studios. However there is only one TV studio there, and it is geared really for News production.

Not wanting to be pedantic but aren't there two. One where Dateline London goes from and the other were the daily politics goes out from.[/quote]

To be really pedantic - there is one main production gallery, with associated studio floor. This is the home to The Daily Politics (and has in the past housed Dateline London). There is also a newsroom set - though this is not in a studio - where Westminster Live used to come from, and which currently houses Dateline London. The newsroom set uses the same cameras and gallery, as well as the same graphics and transmission areas, as the main studio - it would be difficult to mount different shows from the two sets.

There is in fact a second studio at Millbank - but this is the single camera CSO studio used for down-the-line interviews (it has a small vision and sound desk in the actual studio)
NG
noggin Founding member
RTS posted:
I was on Page 3 of the local paper went it went mind.

http://www.rtsnet.tv/temp/photos/hairshave/hairshave.jpg


Would that be the Desborough School in Maidenhead?
RT
rts Founding member
noggin posted:
There is in fact a second studio at Millbank - but this is the single camera CSO studio used for down-the-line interviews (it has a small vision and sound desk in the actual studio)

Forgot about the CSO one. I dont suppose the area down the corridor with the two sofas sometimes used for interviews counts either lol. Although last time I did actually trip over a huge mass of cables which were just dumped on the floor. Was in a rush to get to the pub round the corner from Tory HQ lol.

And yes that is Desborough School in Maidenhead. Are you familiar with the town?

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