London's old (and present) ITV studios
Although the studios below are closely associated with the history of ITV they have in many cases operated as independent studios for a number of years. Rather than separate those periods out and put them on the 'independent studios' page on this site I have kept all the information about them together on this page for clarity.
This page looks at each studio in turn as it relates to the history of ITV. (Yes, I know that technically TV-am and GMTV are not part of ITV but they are very much part of its history.) Each new franchise period saw ITV companies come and go and these changes affected the studios and who occupied them. Confusingly, with some studios I have dealt with all these periods in one section, in others I have separated them out.
Studios and dates listed below in the order they appear:
The Viking Studio (early film days, Associated-Rediffusion, BBC studio M)
The Granville Theatre (Associated-Rediffusion, independent)
Television House (Associated-Rediffusion)
Wembley (early film days to Associated-Rediffusion, Rediffusion London)
Teddington (early film days to ABC to the demise of Thames)
Highbury Studios (early film days, High Definition Films, ATV)
Elstree (early film days to ATV, Central, BBC Elstree Centre)
Wycombe Road (Intertel, LWT, Joe Dunton Cameras)
Wembley (Lee, Limehouse, Fountain)
ITV history 1982-1992 (includes brief section on Lenton Lane, Nottingham)
Teddington (Pearson, Barnes Trust, Pinewood)
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NB - I have where possible given the dimensions of the studios. This can be a bit of a minefield. BBC studios, Fountain, Teddington, Riverside and even Pinewood TV have their plans drawn in metric 50:1 but for some reason The London Studios (LWT) still use the old 1/4 inch to the foot scale. This slight but significant difference can cause problems if a set moves from one studio to another with plans of a different scale as it might not fit! Also, for marketing purposes the size of a studio is often quoted wall to wall. However, most of them have fire lanes running round each side so the available space for cameras and sets is somewhat smaller. Where possible I have quoted sizes within firelanes and, except for TLS, in 'metric feet' where applicable. This curious measurement was invented by the BBC and is 30cm in length. (If you think back to your old school rulers, they had 12 inches on one side and 30cm, which is very slightly less, on the other.) It does mean that a studio that is marked as 90 metric feet long is actually 88ft 6ins long. Most TV studios have their length and width within the firelanes clearly marked along the walls and/or on the floor in feet or metric feet. This enables the scene crew to put the set up exactly where it was drawn on the designer's plan. This very useful facility is never seen on film stages which, incidentally, are always still measured in feet and inches. |
Whilst dealing with each ITV studio centre in turn it might help along the way to briefly explain how that channel came into being and how its various constituent companies came and went. Their story is very closely linked with several of the studios. There are some very good websites and books that cover this aspect of television history in detail so I shall simply summarise it here. We are used to referring to that particular network channel simply as 'ITV' (or, now more accurately, 'ITV1') but when it began in September 1955 it was a complex arrangement of 4, building to 14, regional companies - each with a remit to make and broadcast programmes to its own part of the UK.
When ITV was created there was a flurry of activity as in large towns all over the country, studios were constructed or converted from buildings such as cinemas to enable the new programmes to be made and broadcast.
The four companies set up at the start of ITV were given an additional brief. In addition to their local remit they had to make the big expensive programmes that would be networked over the whole country. These included drama, comedy and light entertainment but also a significant proportion of current affairs, news and religion as ITV had a strict public service requirement in those days.
Three of the four big companies decided to have studio centres in or near London. They were Associated-Rediffusion, ABC Television and ATV. The fourth, Granada, was based in the north of England and constructed its main studio complex in Manchester. This company always remained at arm's length from the others and nobody at the time could have predicted that fifty years later it would be the only one remaining.
Associated-Rediffusion was formed by a combination of Associated Newspapers and another combined company - British Electric Traction Company (B.E.T.) and 'Broadcast Relay Service' who traded under the name 'Rediffusion.' B.E.T. was a tram and bus company, believe it or not. Perhaps not the obvious people to become involved in the early days of television but it seems that they were a highly successful transport company who had been worried that they might be taken into public ownership by the 1946 Labour government. Therefore they diversified by taking over Rediffusion, whilst allowing that company to continue trading as a separate company. Their considerable financial resources were to prove crucial in the first year of ITV's activity.
Broadcast Relay Service, or 'Rediffusion' had been founded in the 1920s to offer their subscribers better reception than was possible with their own aerials. They were, in effect, the first cable company - although of course in those days it was radio not TV. They 're-diffused' the radio (and later TV) signal - hence their name and logo. Perhaps surprisingly, they were not initially keen to be involved in the new ITV venture. In fact on 9th January 1953 their board agreed unanimously that it would not be in their interests for commercial television to be introduced. However, they later reconsidered but only on the condition that it was in partnership with another company. Associated Newspapers seemed to be the ideal partner.
The new company was called Associated-Rediffusion and their familiar spinning logo (sometimes known as the 'adastral') was used as a break bumper before ads were shown and has since been imitated by countless comedy shows.
This company is credited by some as having 'saved ITV'. For the first few months of operation all the ITV companies were losing huge amounts of money. Fortunately, BET was wealthy enough to weather the storm and keep Rediffusion going. Associated Newspapers were horrified by the losses and got out of the business as soon as they could. Within six months they had reduced their holding to only 10% of the company. What a mistake. Within a year or two the ITV companies were making so much money they hardly knew how to spend it.
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The costs of running the new companies proved to be higher than anticipated and the advertising income far less. Partly, this was because it was months before the midlands and the north west had transmitters. The transmitter covering Yorkshire took even longer to build. Even then, only about half the population was covered. Advertisers were very wary and slow to respond to this new market. The early losses forced the companies to look hard at their costs. During 1956 they made staff redundant and closed down unnecessary small studios only months after equipping them. They also set up formal arrangements to regularly share programme time between each other, which originally had not been considered at all. It had initially been assumed that the companies would be in strict competition and would sell individual programmes to each other on an ad-hoc basis. As the weekday ITV supplier to London, A-R bore most of the burden of the early losses. Had the company been as lightly financed as some of the others it is possible that they could have gone under and taken the whole of independent television with them. Thus through financial adversity the 'ITV network' was created, dominated by the original big four companies. In fact, when ITV was first planned it had been assumed that within a few years, once the frequencies were freed up, each region would have several ITV companies broadcasting in competition with each other as was to be found in the US and some other countries. There was no such thing as 'ITV' as a channel name in those days. Independent television was a concept, not a name, and the channel was commonly known in each region by its number (in London it was channel 9), the local company name or sometimes people called it the 'ITA' - the Independent Television Authority. |
From the time Associated-Rediffusion got the green light to begin broadcasting in London they were up against an incredibly tight schedule. Not only did they have to convert existing buildings into television studios, they had to hire and train the staff to operate them. They only had from January to September to recruit at least 200 staff and be in the position to transmit seven hours of television per day! In May they began training in a small studio in Kensington known as the 'Viking Studio' that was fitted out with all the equipment that would be found in the new studios. Wembley Park film studios were being rebuilt for TV but the heads of A-R were worried that they would not be ready in time so they started filming some programmes in April at Shepperton just in case. (See the section on Shepperton on this website for more info on this.)
Associated-Rediffusion had also bought an old 1898 Frank Matcham music hall - the Granville Theatre, in Walham Green, Fulham - which had been undergoing conversion for three months. The first 70 trainees were due to move there from the Viking Studio but the Granville wasn't ready. The builders and engineers would apparently need a fortnight more. Nevertheless - ready or not, one week later the first batch of trainees went to the Granville and began work. It thus became the first operational ITV studio.
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The forbidding exterior of the Granville. Frank Matcham at his most gothic. with thanks to Louis Barfe |
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The conversion of the Granville to TV use was pretty basic and apparently the stalls floor retained its rake, making control of the cameras somewhat challenging. The Granville was officially known within A-R as studio 6. One of the early series made here was called The Granville Melodramas. This was a series of Victorian plays that proved surprisingly popular with the viewers. In 1956 - less than a year after its opening - the studio was closed along with studio 3 at Wembley. The ITV companies were in serious financial trouble and so began to share more programmes between each other to save money. Thus the Granville was no longer needed. The theatre probably remained the property of Associated-Rediffusion for a year or so but it was not used.
In 1957 the studio was purchased by Pye/Mole Richardson, who carried out an extensive refit. Bob Davis tells me that he worked there as a sound trainee for eight months around 1957/58 when it was operating as an independent studio. Information is patchy as to who owned and operated it over the following years but I have discovered a few clues... The studio was probably bought by the Robert Stigwood Organisation some time later and was used to make a few music-based programmes and various ads. A company called Airtime Productions is said to have been involved in making some commercials. I am told that a company called Fenestra Productions also used the studio - possibly for training purposes. Someone has also informed me that he recalls a cameraman colleague of his directing there. It seems that the Granville was a favourite place for quite a few people to do a bit of moonlighting. In fact, that cameraman who had probably better remain nameless, went on to become a very highly regarded drama director and in more recent years a producer on EastEnders. An ex-BBC sound man has told me that he was paid the princely sum of £9 for a day as a boom op in 1970. Mind you, you could buy a small car for that amount back then. Well, almost.
As you will come to see, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones seem to crop up in the history of many of London's TV studios and this one is no exception. On 2nd and 3rd October 1964 The Beatles rehearsed and recorded a performance for the British edition of the ABC (American) TV show Shindig. The producer was Jack Good, the executive producer Leon Mirell. The Beatles played `Kansas City', `I'm A Loser' and `Boys'. It was broadcast on in the US on the 7th October 1964. Some or all of the Stones were said to be at the recording too as the two groups had known each other for more than a year by then and often met up at each other's concerts and performances. Linda Kaye has been researching the history of the Central Office of Information. She contacted me with the following information: 'The Granville Studios were used by the Central Office of Information to produce a weekly series called London Line from 1964. It was initially made in two versions ‘Old Commonwealth’ for distribution in countries such as Canada and Australia and ‘New Commonwealth’ primarily for Africa. In 1966 a colour version was produced, effectively replacing the ‘Old Commonwealth’ version and this continued until 1969. Each programme consisted of around four topical stories often featuring live performances.' The cameras used to make these COI films were dual Marconi Mk IV video cameras optically linked to Mitchell 16mm film cameras. This system was known as Gemini and was also experimented with by ATV at Elstree, A-R at Wembley and the BBC at Riverside around this time. It enabled a programme to be made on film but using TV multicamera techniques. Interestingly, all the main TV companies abandoned it after a while - the Granville was to my knowledge the only studio that persevered with the system.
However, it seems that some programmes continued to be made on video and recorded on tape using hired-in video cameras rather than the Gemini film cameras. Andrew McKean recalls... '...I worked for Pye TVT 1962 -1963, based in London and recall the Granville Theatre. Pye TVT had a small Bedford van equipped with two Pye Mk3 3" Image Orthicon cameras. I remember setting up the equipment at the Granville Theatre on a number of occasions for Granville Television. On one occasion Richard Burton was making a documentary about the life of Dylan Thomas and Elizabeth Taylor was sitting just back from the cameras. She had her leg in plaster from an accident during the filming of the movie Cleopatra. My main memory though is of the strict union control at the site. Coming from Australia where we were used to doing many tasks, at the Granville there had to be individual staff for lighting, camera, video, audio etc. As a result there were far too many people there for efficient productions. Many of the staff were moonlighting, and I got to meet some colourful and interesting characters from the various stations in London.' Interestingly, Andrew adds... '...I cannot recall the Gemini cameras, we brought along our own Pye Mk3 Image Orthicon cameras and set them up in a makeshift control room overlooking the stage.' He believes that these cameras were possibly some of the original ones owned by High Definition Films when they transferred to Tottenham from Highbury. See the Highbury section on this page of the website for more info..
It seems that at some point in the mid 1960s a company called Granville Television was formed by William (Bill) Stewart and Peter Lloyd who both originally came from ATV. Peter Lloyd used to present ATV's Seeing Sport and he had an unlikely catch phrase - 'Don't forget Mum'. He was probably also associated with British Lion Films. He formed Lion Television Services at Shepperton - most likely in 1969. Bill Stewart had been a director at ATV, working on such programmes as Emergency-Ward 10 and Mrs Thursday. Bill Stewart's daughter Jane has kindly written to me with her memories... '...It was an exciting place for a child too. I remember meeting Lulu, Cliff Richard and a Dalek! I also remember it had plaques in the dome ceiling which I believe were made from marble and were the names of ballets performed at the theatre. I used to love running up the curved staircase which took you from the studio floor up to the control room. Also I remember a dear lady called Mack who used to sit in the old box office doing the accounts. We stayed in touch with her for many years until I believe she retired and emigrated to South Africa. My memory is that the lease ran out, and my father was unable to renew it. I can recall conversations at home about what the future would hold, and the heartache of having to let members of staff go. It was one of the reasons we left London in 1971, and it took my father a few years to recover and build up his new business, WSTV, William Stewart Television.' Thus television making ended at the Granville. The Gemini cameras were bought by Ewart Studios who also took over the COI work. The Granville Theatre was demolished in 1971.
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Associated-Rediffusion also moved into a large ex-RAF building in Kingsway called 'Adastral House.' During the war it was the headquarters of the air ministry. Its roof became well known to listeners of radio weather forecasts as the place in London where the air temperature was measured! Once A-R moved in it was quickly renamed Television House. (This building also became the first base for the studios of ITN.) It contained four small studios used for current affairs, presentation and 'talks programmes' and was also the headquarters of the company.
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The company was very keen to be seen as 'respectable' and as important as the BBC so they chose a site more for its prestige than its practicality. They moved in during 1955 whilst alterations were still underway which made life very difficult for the new staff. A-R's four studios in Television House were as follows: Studio 7 (33 x 24 ft), studio 8 (38 x 25ft), studio 9 (64 x 40ft) and studio 10 (26 x 12ft). (Studios 1 - 4 were at Wembley, studio 5 was in the planning stage and studio 6 was the Granville Theatre - mentioned above.) Studios 7 and 8 were used for 'talks' programmes and 10 was the continuity studio. The Viking studio in Kensington was not part of this numbering system, probably because it was owned by Marconi and hired from them on a daily basis. Apart from studio 9, which was in the basement and opened in November 1955, the others were all pretty small and apparently had very low ceilings. In his autobiography Leslie Mitchell complains that the studio they used for talks (7?, 8?) had a ceiling so low that they could not use overhead lighting. He also complains of inadequate air conditioning. Typical programmes made at Television House included The Frost Report, The Levin Interview, Three after Six and This Week. Studio 9 was used for the coverage of important events such as general elections. However, it was also used for some entertainment shows such as Ready Steady Go! before it moved to studio 1 at Wembley. The first two series of this ground-breaking programme were made here and some fans of the show believe that these were the best - the confined space in the studio helping to produce an electric atmosphere.
The building was very large and impressive and just over the road from the BBC's Bush House, which must have given the new owners some satisfaction. Its television studios were the first in central London. The Rediffusion logo was proudly displayed on the front and became known by some as the 'Adastral' - an appropriate name that echoed the previous owners of the building (RAF) whose motto of course is 'Per Ardua Ad Astra' ('Through struggle to the stars'.) Although it was the HQ of A-R, Television House was also used by ATV for office space on the 5th and 6th floors and the TV Times had its base here too. ITN had its studios in this building on the 7th and 8th floors. They were accessed by a rather unreliable lift, which added to the excitement of getting out live bulletins. Their main studio was 38 x 29 ft and was equipped initially with Pye Mk 3 cameras, later being replaced with 4 x Marconi Mk IV cameras. In the Pye days, one of the cameras was equipped with a Watson 3in-15in zoom lens (shown below) - quite an innovation in those days!
The picture above is thought to be of the main ITN studio in Television House. Certainly, the sloping wall seems to suggest that it is in the roof. (When Television House was closed in 1969 ITN moved to a building in Wells Street. Here they had two studios of 2000 sq ft and 700 sq ft respectively. They were equipped with EMI 2001 colour cameras. News at Ten came from the larger one.)
When Thames took over Television House in 1968 they converted the foyer into another studio which became 'Studio 4'. Since Thames was based at Teddington which had three studios, this made perfect sense. The daily local news programme Today, presented by Eamon Andrews, came from here and behind him commuters could be seen walking along the pavement and occasionally peering through the windows in the background of the shots. One of the reasons Rediffusion lost the franchise in 1968 was that they had neglected local news. The new franchisee, Thames, therefore thought it very important that their local news service was literally as highly visible as possible - hence the window looking into the studio.
As soon as Thames took over the building they started to look for something more suitable and in 1969 they moved to Euston Road. More on this later. |
A-R's main production centre back in 1955 was to be at Wembley Studios - taking over a film studio site then owned by 20th Century Fox and quickly converting the old stages into four TV studios.
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The early film years... Following the First World War it was decided to build a huge exhibition in Wembley to celebrate the British Empire. It cost 10 million pounds to construct and opened in 1924. No less than 26 million people visited it between 1924 and 1925. The famous twin-towered stadium dates back to this period. (Just pause for a moment to consider these figures. They are quite extraordinary!) Upon closure, 35 acres of the land was bought by two businessmen - Ralph J Pugh and Rupert Mason. They intended to develop the 'Palace of Engineering' from the Wembley Exhibition and use it as a base for creating an American style film studio complex. Sadly, their finance fell through but the site was taken over by a distributor who named it 'Wembley National Studios'. An ambitious title as there was only one small stage on the site at that time. As luck would have it, this was destroyed by fire in 1929. The 'studios' now occupied a much smaller part of the exhibition site than the intended 35 acres - and some years later BBC OBs would have their base here using some of the old exhibition buildings on the opposite side of the road from the film studios. Following the fire a much larger stage of around 8,000 sq ft was built by I W Schlesinger who formed a new company - British Talking Pictures. This company merged with Associated Sound Film Industries - a supposedly wealthy enterprise with great plans for making movies. They were of course hampered by only having one stage but this was said to have the advantage of possessing the most modern grid with an 'overhead gantry wiring system' - whatever that was. Sadly, the ambitious plans for making dozens of films did not materialize and Wembley was soon leasing out its facilities to independent producers making 'quota quickies.' Fox Films from the US also needed to make cheap films in this country to fill its quota so in 1934 it formed Fox-British Pictures and took out a lease on the studios - later buying them in 1936. It is likely that further expansion happened at this time and a second stage was built. In 1938 a new films act was passed by parliament and the Fox board in America objected to some of its proposals. They decided to reduce their commitment to film making in the UK and closed Wembley - although oddly they did retain ownership of the studios. Also, rather surprisingly they decided to lease space at Lime Grove studios to make some films rather than use their own at Wembley. During the war the studios were brought back into commission and used by the Army Kinema Corporation and the RAF to make training films. Rather carelessly, stage 2 was destroyed by fire in 1943 and it too was subsequently rebuilt. Following the war some film-making continued by independent film makers. In 1947 Wembley was said to have 2 stages with a total floor area of 12,252 sq ft. The last film made in this period was The Ship That Died of Shame, in 1954, starring Richard Attenborough.
The arrival of television... In 1955 A-R bought the site and unbelievably took only nine months to add the control rooms and other necessary facilities to enable the stages to be used for television. Stage 1 had control room suites built across the middle to form two new studios - 1 and 2 either side. They were ready for use on August 29th, just three weeks before transmissions began. The addition of control galleries therefore reduced the size of the old stages - the largest, studio 1, being 80 x 54 ft wall to wall. Studio 2 was 80 x 40 ft, studio 3 about 42 x 20 ft and studio 4 was 75 x 42 ft. There is a publicity leaflet published by Rediffusion in 1967 that states that the grid heights in studios 1 and 2 was 16 feet and an extraordinary 11 feet in studio 4. This is hard to believe, frankly. However, in 1980 (when the studios had become film stages again) another document has the grids at 30 feet and 20 feet respectively, which is much more believable. The old film stage 2 became studios 3 and 4, which were open by the end of 1955. Studio 3 was very small and only in use for a short time. However, Les Roworth tells me that it had the honour of producing the first show from Wembley. It was a children's programme called Small Time and was transmitted at 12 o'clock noon on 23rd September 1955. The studio also produced another show, Mail Call at 22.30 the same evening. The first transmission was not exactly problem-free as although the pictures looked fine in the studio they were 'ringing' horribly on transmission. A hurried investigation discovered that the output cable to studio 4 was connected to the cable from studio 3. Fortunately, the second programme in the day looked fine. In 1956 A-R were feeling the pinch financially - like all the new ITV companies - and they closed studio 3. The space was later turned into a telerecording area.
A-R were aware that none of the studios at Wembley was particularly big. To enable really large-scale shows to be made, the board decided in 1958 to begin the planning of a huge studio on the site, alongside the existing stages. This studio was to be capable of being divided in two using soundproof doors - enabling maximum use of the studio between the major productions. A contract for £500,000 was signed. The foundation stone was laid on May 7th 1959 and studio 5 opened in June 1960. This was remarkable progress - especially since there was a national shortage of bricks at the time (no, really) and construction was hampered by discovering some of the very solid foundations of old Wembley Exhibition buildings.
Studio 5 is still in use (as 'Fountain Studios') and is unique, consisting of two medium-sized studios each with a separate control gallery suite. The huge double thickness soundproof doors dividing it can be raised in 30 minutes. (A rate of one foot per minute.) Apparently the only motors that could be found that were powerful enough to lift the doors were some made for rotating the gun turrets on warships. I have climbed the ladders to visit the winch room at the top of the building myself and very impressive it is too - the huge doors being suspended on steel ropes wound round winches that have a SWL of 25 tons. Apparently the winch gear should be checked once a year but studio manager Tony Edwards has it checked every six months. I asked him if he worries each time he presses the button to raise or lower the doors whether it will work or not. The answer came as no surprise. The space that results is 14,000 sq ft - more than 130 metric feet long by 90 metric feet wide within fire lanes making it at the time the largest purpose-built TV studio in the world - and possibly it still is. It was originally equipped with 8 EMI Image Orthicon cameras (4 per half studio) and there were 140 motorised lighting hoists with a total of 340 lighting circuits. Production, lighting and sound control rooms were (and are) at first floor level, with vision control (i.e. camera racking), apparatus rooms and make-up etc on the ground floor. Note that vision and lighting control were originally in separate rooms - as in the ATV studios at Elstree. This was a union requirement - engineers and electricians were not allowed to sit side by side. I kid you not. The lighting director must have done a lot of running up and down the stairs. Today most of the ground floor rooms along the corridor have become star dressing rooms and the apparatus room and vision control are on the first floor. (As will be recounted later in this article, all that remains of the old Wembley studios is this large double studio. Fortunately, all the essential areas such as dressing rooms, production offices and production galleries were not lost to redevelopment and are still there - as is the restaurant which produces some of the best food of any studio in London. To the rear of the studio is now some covered scenery storage and a small car park. The galleries are well-designed and can either be operated separately, or each gallery can control both studios when the giant doors are raised.)
Associated-Rediffusion used Wembley Studios for such iconic shows as Hughie Green's Double Your Money, Take Your Pick with Michael Miles ('55-'68), the first series of Opportunity Knocks ('56) and perhaps (for those of a certain age) one of the most missed pop shows ever - Ready Steady Go. The programme was the first to ban miming in pop acts and made a star of teenage presenter Cathy McGowan. This show was made in studio 1. Rediffusion also created two shows that were the predecessors to Monty Python - Do Not Adjust Your Set and At Last the 1948 Show. Other popular programmes included Educating Archie ('58 - '59), The Dickie Henderson Show ('60 - '65) and Our Man at St Mark's ('63 - '66). Drama series included Seven Deadly Sins, No Hiding Place and The Rat Catchers.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the days of Rediffusion is that it is hard to discover many productions that really took advantage of the size of studio 5. The opening night, however, was certainly an exception. The studio opened on June 9th, 1960 with a spectacular play involving music and dance entitled An Arabian Night. This certainly made full use of the space. It had a cast of 300 together with 10 horses, 8 camels, 6 donkeys, 4 goats, 2 mules, 2 snakes, 1 performing bear and (possibly) an elephant. Imagine the mess in the car park. According to one source, as well as the obvious technical requirements one of the specs for the studio floor was that it should be able to withstand the weight of an elephant. This proved to be useful on at least one further occasion. Planning for the programme had begun six months before. The director Mark Lawton's brief was 'to produce a show of bigger dimensions than anything ever televised in this country.' By all accounts he certainly succeeded. The show was designed by John Clements and was lit by David Motture. In one corner of the studio was built a raised area for an orchestra - the space beneath being used for quick-change dressing rooms. Bob Hart was an extra working on the show. He was training as a vet at the time but found himself looking after the liberty horses on this unique programme. He has sent me his recollections...
A Midsummer Night's Dream was another of the major productions made in studio 5. The set consisted mostly of multiple layers of hanging gauze. It was directed by Joan Kemp-Welch and designed by Michael Yates.
However - the series that seems to really have made the best use of the size of the studio is Hippodrome. This was a series made in 1966 and proved to be surprisingly popular. It was an unlikely combination of circus acts and popular showbiz entertainers. A show might therefore amongst others include Dusty Springfield, The Everly Brothers, a high wire act and some performing bears. Extraordinary. During the ten weeks of shooting, the car park was typically occupied with trailers, caravans and cages housing - you guessed it - 12 elephants, 12 lions, 6 tigers, 2 pumas, 5 leopards, several dogs and all the various performing acts of acrobats, clowns, jugglers etc. And all while the World Cup was being played in the stadium next door! Each show was introduced by a big American star. Bizarrely, on one show it was Woody Allen. (Not the kind of entertainment with which one usually associates him.) The series made full use of the space and height of the studio and was a genuine spectacular of its day. Unusually, it was shot using two separate camera crews - the local crew using four EMI black and white cameras (the budget didn't run to using all eight), and a crew from Intertel (more on them later) using Marconi BD 848 colour cameras. The colour recording was for CBS in America, whilst the monochrome one went out on ITV. Amazingly, they somehow made each show simultaneously with two directors and two completely separate camera crews.
Despite the success in its day of this series, A-R seem to have used the studio mostly for far more modest productions. At Elstree, ATV were making big showbiz spectaculars in their somewhat smaller main studio but Rediffusion seemed to be happy making dramas, quiz shows and sitcoms. Arguably, the studio would not really come into its own until forty years or more later with shows like The X-Factor. I'm told that the cameras that Rediffusion were using at Wembley in 1968 when they lost their franchise were Marconi Mk IVs in Studio 1, Marconi Mk IIIs in Studios 2 and 4 and EMI 203s in studio 5. Before leaving A-R's time at Wembley it is worth including some information sent to me by Bill Lee - A-R's leading lighting director. As you will discover if you read more on this site, around the end of the '60s several studios in London were carrying out experiments in shooting programmes on colour film but using traditional television camera techniques. It seems that A-R were no exception...
Interesting indeed. A small postscript... A few years ago the restaurant was enlarged by creating a glazed extension about 10 feet deep along the wall facing the road. At one end a corner was formed and the original engraved stone marking the laying of the foundations of the new studio found itself indoors rather than outdoors. This stone is the only physical record of the old Rediffusion days. For a while it was hidden behind a chocolate bar vending machine but I am glad to say that when I last looked in May 2006 the machine had been moved and the stone is there for all to see. Oddly, the contestants of the X-Factor didn't seem that interested. |
The next successful company to win a franchise was ABC Television, which was to broadcast in the midlands and the north at weekends. They were initially reluctant to become part of the new independent television as they saw it as a competitor to their film business. Nevertheless, they were persuaded by the ITA to get involved when another company's bid fell through.
Their midlands service began in 1956, five months after ITV began in London. ABC TV was an offshoot of the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), which owned hundreds of ABC cinemas up and down the country and also made a number of modestly successful British movies. They also owned a large film studio in Borehamwood (Elstree) but decided to keep this new TV subsidiary completely separate. It is said that the unions did not want television programmes to be made in their film studios. For its Manchester base, ABC converted a cinema it already owned - the Capital Cinema in Didsbury. This contained one reasonably sized studio - large enough for the first series of The Avengers - and two very small studios. (ABC kept this site on until they lost the franchise and became part of Thames.)
In Birmingham they shared a studio centre with ATV at Aston, which had also been converted from an old cinema. This site was known as Alpha TV Studios and later became the HQ of BRMB radio. Neither ABC nor ATV saw Birmingham as being particularly important to their operation and each company concentrated their main productions in their other studios.
ABC TV did not have a London franchise but realising that most acting and showbiz talent was based in London they decided that they needed to have a London-based production centre with large studios to make their network shows. They converted some old film studios located in Teddington, on the western edge of London.
These popular studios are now part of the Pinewood Studios Group and the home of many well-known sitcoms and other big entertainment shows. The site contains two large production studios used to make many programmes for all the main network channels: Studio 1 - 8,900 sq ft (98 by 74 metric feet within firelanes) and studio 2 - an unusual T-shaped studio of about 5,700 sq ft (75 by 62 metric feet at its widest.)
There are also six small studios around the site: Studio 3 (2,098 sq ft) has a long history of children's programmes including Magpie and Rainbow, and has been used more recently by a couple of shopping channels and as the base for a roulette-based gambling channel. It currently (2011) is fitted with a hard infinity cyclorama which can be painted white, green or blue. The cyc extends around almost all four sides with one corner open. It is probably the only studio in west London with this very useful facility. Studio 4 (1,475 sq ft) was originally built as a music studio and band room and since conversion to a TV studio in 1994 has been booked by various satellite channels. From early in 2008 to September 2010 it was the home of CBeebies continuity. Studio 5 is a continuity studio used by the Chinese Channel, 6 was converted in 2004 from the old viewing theatre in the Admin Block and for a while was the home of the Jewellery Channel, 7 was built in the old prop store area near studio 2 in the summer of 2005 for the Quiz Call channel (the channel closed in 2007 but Quiz Call continued to air for a while on Channel 5). The studio currently has an infinity cyc at one end enabling it to be used for chromakey. Meanwhile studio 8 used to be edit 1 and is now a continuity studio for Turf TV. Since the autumn of 2007 Teddington has also housed the linking hub for the video feeds sent from race courses to the UK's betting shops.
Thus, as well as providing facilities for many independent production companies and even BBC Comedy department from time to time, Teddington is the playout centre for several digital channels. However, its origins were far removed from all this...
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Teddington Studios from the river. The photo was taken in January 1998 when the hospitality boat, restaurant block and production block were still part of the studios' facilities. with thanks to Paul Burton
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The early film years... The studios' history goes back to the end of the 19th century and the early days of filmmaking. Originally an impressive mansion called 'Weir House' stood on the site and its owner, wealthy stockbroker Henry Chinnery, took a keen interest in the early experiments in cinema. One version of the story goes that whilst walking in Teddington he took pity on a local film crew struggling in the rain and invited them to use his greenhouse. Another version has him allowing them to use his garden for filming as he was already fascinated by the new medium - and then they used the greenhouse when it rained. Either way, there was rain involved and they all ended up in the greenhouse. The site soon became a permanent base for film making. In 1912, a company called Ec-Ko Films used the grounds of the house to make a series of popular comedy films. They stayed for three years before moving on to another studio in Kew. A new company - Master Films - took over in 1916. This company built a silent stage in the grounds measuring some 60ft by 40ft. This was probably where Studio 2 now stands. Master made many films but apparently they weren't up to much and in 1925 the company went bust. The studio was unused for a few years and eventually the stage burnt down in 1929. In 1931 the studios were renamed Teddington Film Studios by Henry Edwards and E G Norman, who built a new sound stage on the site - this eventually became the present Studios 2 and 3. The stage was T-shaped and capable of being divided into two stages (A and B) if required. When used as one stage it was said to be 130 ft long.
Warner Bros were so impressed by the work that Edwards and Norman had done in fitting out the studios and associated facilities that in August of the same year (1931) they bought the studios - using them mostly to make 'quota quickies.' The studios were renamed 'Warner Brothers First National Productions Ltd'. I'm surprised there was enough room on the screen to fit all that in. Warners continued with the investment and between 1934 and 1937 they built another much larger stage (on the site of the present Studio 1) with associated dressing rooms, offices, scenery construction workshops etc as well as the admin block facing Broom Road. When war broke out Teddington remained busy making films for Warner and other production companies. It was unusual in remaining open - most other film studios had been requisitioned by the government for storage. The numbering of the stages on the site is somewhat confusing. The first stage was subdivided into A and B. The later stage - currently studio 1 - was called Stage 2 at which point the original stage was called Stage 1. In other words, the opposite of how we now refer to studios 1 and 2. Confused? Don't blame me. On the evening of July 5th 1944 at 8.10pm a V1 flying bomb bounced off the corner of the powerhouse and and landed in the space between the admin block and Stage 2 (the present studio 1). Curiously, the photo below seems to suggest that the blast happened at the back of the stage near the present dock doors. However, they do say that bomb blast affects buildings in strange ways. In any case, wherever it landed there were diesel oil tanks buried beneath the concrete and the whole lot went up with a huge explosion. Three employees including the studio manager, Doc Salomon, sadly lost their lives. It might have been many more but since the bomb fell in the evening most people had gone home. The main stage was completely destroyed and the other older stage, admin block and some other buildings were gutted by fire. The film in production at the time was completed in the studio garage, which had escaped damage and was hastily soundproofed.
In 1946 rebuilding began. Oddly, government regulations insisted that reconstruction had to retain the size and appearance of the original buildings. However - it would appear that when the original older stage was rebuilt, it was decided to divide it into two stages permanently. The division was not, however, where the two parts of the 'T' shape met but some way down the long 'leg' where the roofline became lower. (Thus the small studio 3 was created next to studio 2.) The intention at the time was that this small stage would become a sound recording studio and that a new large stage, 140ft x 100ft, would be constructed in the space between the existing stages and the production block near the river. However, this stage was never built. The fortunes of Teddington Studios might have been very different had it been constructed. If later converted to TV use it would have been the same size as studio 5 at Wembley! The restored studios were re-opened by Danny Kaye in 1948. For a brief period they were busy but by the early 1950s the British film industry was in crisis. In November 1951 the studios went into 'care and maintenance.' Film-making ceased and during the next few years the site was used by the Hawker Aircraft company, who had a factory just over the river in Ham, for storage. (One wonders how they transported things between the factory and the studios. Surely not over the footbridge?) Incidentally - I have discovered no record when the large 'production block' that runs across the back of the site near the river was built. One assumes that its construction dates from some time between 1934 and 1939, the Warner Bros era. It is not shown on an Ordnance Survey map dated 1934. I have read that originally the ground floor was used as a garage for film location vehicles . Observing it now, one can make out the frames of two or three large doors (now bricked up) across the front of the building. It is also referred to as the 'property block' in one document I have read. Later, a mezzanine floor was added and the building became purely an office block. This may have happened when the new scenery workshop was built in the area between the production block and the studios in 1973. The production block and scenery workshop area is now owned and occupied by Haymarket Publishing and has been completely gutted and refurbished.
The arrival of television... In November 1958 ABC television bought the site and began the task of adapting the studios for TV use. Although ABC did not have a London franchise they still had to supply programmes to the network. One of their most successful series was Armchair Theatre. This series was being transmitted live from Didsbury (Manchester) each Sunday night. The perils of live drama included actors forgetting lines and cameras breaking down. In fact, during one memorable performance of Armchair Theatre one of the actors actually died. The rest of the cast carried on like troupers and improvised their lines to keep the show going to the end. However, it was becoming difficult finding top actors based in London who were not working and would or could make the journey to Manchester. It became clear that the company needed some London studios so that actors could rehearse during the day and go to their theatres in the West End in the evening. ABPC Elstree was considered as it was of course owned by the parent company but the unions were not at all keen on letting TV production onto a film studio site. Teddington was empty and seemed suitable, although it was a few miles west of theatreland. As it happened, technology had moved on and by the time ABC had begun to occupy the site, the video tape recorder had been invented. Armchair Theatre and other shows would not have to be transmitted live any more. In 1959 ABC installed the UK's first RCA videotape recorder here. It was a TRT 1B for those to whom such things are important. A year earlier, Associated-Rediffusion had taken delivery of the first Ampex machines at Wembley. By 1959 the cost of an Ampex VTR had risen from £15,000 to £25,000 which might explain why ABC bought from RCA - who were probably offering a good deal on a brand new machine. By 1965 ABC had the first four RCA TR22 VTRs which were fully transistorised - quite something in those days. Back in 1959, the new VTR machine at Teddington enabled ABC to make programmes all round the week instead of having to broadcast them live at weekends from their studios in Birmingham and Didsbury. Of course, programmes were not edited - simply recorded 'as live'. To edit video required two or three machines, which for many years would be prohibitively expensive. The alternative was cutting and splicing the tape - a risky and time-consuming process. Also, very costly as the expensive reel of videotape could not be used again on another programme.
Initially studios 2 and 3 were converted - flat floors were laid, telescope lighting grids installed and a control room was built alongside Broom Road in the area formerly occupied by the viewing theatre. This initially serviced both studios 2 and 3. Armchair Theatre began to be made here from the summer of 1959 - sometimes using studio 3 as well as 2. Studio 1 was used as a rehearsal room before work began on converting it for television use. The studios were equipped with Marconi Mk III Image Orthicon cameras. A few years later these were replaced with EMI 203 black and white cameras, which lasted until colourisation in 1968/69.
Once the first phase of construction was up and running, the major building could commence. Weir Cottage and its garden were purchased which enabled the main site entrance to be moved to its current position between the cottage and studio 3. A new reception area was built on the site of the original vehicle entrance. Behind that and linking studios 2 and 1 was the site of the new technical block. This contained large control room suites for studios 1 and 2, videotape and telecine areas and a CAR. An innovative feature of this building was its raised 'waffle floor' that enabled cables to be easily routed around the building. This was one of the first uses of this 'computer floor' design in the country - along with BBC TV Centre, which was also being constructed at this time. The main block also contained rehearsal rooms and an 800 sq ft band room. (The latter is now studio 4 and was converted to a TV studio in 1994.) By early 1963 the new building was complete. Studio 1 opened with EMI 203 cameras - the other two studios had their Marconis replaced with EMIs soon afterwards. The first show made in studio 1 was probably The Avengers. The first two series had been made at Didsbury and transmitted live but series 3 was recorded at Teddington. (From 1964 onwards this popular drama moved to ABPC Elstree studios and was shot on 35mm film.)
In 1965 the restaurant block was built overlooking the river, providing excellent catering and social facilities for staff and visiting artists. There was more major building work on the site in 1973 when a new office building was constructed, filling in the one remaining gap in the buildings and linking with the production block at the rear of the site. Beneath and alongside this was a new scenery construction workshop. A floor in this building was used as the location for filming Ricky Gervais's comedy The Office in 2001 and 2003. This building is now part of the area occupied by Haymarket Publishing and is now an actual office again. I wonder if the people working in there realise...? The final stage of construction was in 1975 when the multi-storey car park was completed. Cars must have been much smaller in those days as this car park surely has the smallest parking bays with the least amount of space for maneuvering between them of any in the UK.
Of course Teddington Studios eventually became the headquarters of Thames Television (more on that later) and was the home of many classic series including This is Your Life, The Des o'Connor Show, Tommy Cooper ('73 - '74), Opportunity Knocks ('64 - '77), The Kenny Everett Video Show ('79 - '81), children's series like Magpie ('68 - '80) and Rainbow and of course, Benny Hill ('69 - '89). Between 1978 and 1983 Morcambe and Wise recorded several series at Teddington after they left the BBC. Although often remembered for its popular light entertainment and comedy shows, Thames made several highly regarded studio dramas here. These included Special Branch ('69 - 70) and Van der Valk ('72 - '73). In 1974 Lee Remick came to Teddington to make the distinguished drama series Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill. Further historic series followed... Napoleon and Love with Ian Holm and Billy Whitelaw and Timothy West as Edward the King, which won a Bafta as Best Drama series of 1975. 1978 was the year of Edward & Mrs. Simpson -another BAFTA winner - with Edward Fox best actor for his portrayal of the King. Rumpole of the Bailey ('78-'83, '87-'92) was another of Thames' great successes and as a contrast they also made the highly original musical drama Rock Follies ('76, '77) here at Teddington. For a long time the studios have been very popular with sitcom makers. From the early days of ABC, shows like Happily Ever After ('61 - '64) and Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width ('67 - 71) established a tradition of situation comedy in studio 1 that continues to this day. Thames produced many popular sitcoms including Father Dear Father ('68 - '73), Bless This House ('71 - 76), George and Mildred ('76 - '79), Robin's Nest ('77 - '81), Shelley ('79 - 92), After Henry ('88 - '92) and Never the Twain ('81 - '91). Leonard Rossiter's final sitcom Tripper's Day was recorded here in 1984, the actor sadly dying during the run of transmissions. Two years later, despite the original series not being well received, it was revived with no less than Bruce Forsyth in the lead and renamed Slinger's Day. This was the only time Brucie attempted a sitcom role but he can't have been that bad as it was brought back for a second series. More recent productions are listed in the section about the studios towards the end of this web page.
Teddington has one feature that is shared by only one or two other studios to my knowledge. Studio 1 is said to be haunted and several sightings have been made - even up to 2005. During the setting of As Time Goes By in January 2005 a figure was seen looking out of a window on a set but when the witness turned back to see who it was they had vanished. A few years ago a security guard was locking up a dressing room and apologised to the woman sitting inside. Realising that nobody should be there he opened the door again but nobody was inside. A photograph that used to be on the wall of the corridor outside the control rooms shows a figure standing on part of a set looking out of a window where actually there was no floor - it was just part of the set designer's illusion. Nobody can explain how the shadowy figure got on the photo. Some photos of the ruins of the building after the V1 explosion seem to show a figure (studio manager Doc Saloman?) amongst all the rubble. I understand there is even a spectral dog - but no figure with his head under his arm you'll be relieved to hear. I have been written to by Pete Rogers who experienced something 'interesting' in April 2007... 'Last Wednesday, I was in the audience for Brian Conley’s “Let Me Entertain You” recorded in Studio 2. I was situated on the second of two rows on the studio floor arranged around a semi-circular platform. The crew were operating behind me and the main audience seating was situated in a raked fashion further behind the crew. As I was watching an act on the platform, I felt something flick the top of my head. It felt like the sort of thing a headmaster might do to you if you were in trouble! I quickly looked behind me (I wondered if e.g. the corner of an autocue had just caught me as a camera was tracking past) and I also checked the floor to see whether it was something that had fallen on me. Nobody or nothing was in any proximity to me whatsoever at this time. It was not a ventilation related phenomenon, either, because the "flick" was distinct, impactful and very localised. However, I resolved to disregard the incident and thought to myself, “if the same thing happens again I'll have to put it down to a studio ghost!” As I thought this, the same thing happened again. It was a distinctive “flick” of the head/hair. I wasn’t “scared” – in a way it seemed quite “friendly” and I continued to enjoy the show.'
Teddington has a small permanent staff and a core of regular freelancers who make most of the shows here. (Plus, of course, the ghosts.) In my view it is one of the nicest places to work - partly because of the location but mostly because of the dedicated staff and regular freelance crews who make everything so easy. Click here to jump forward to the next section on Teddington
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Back in 1955, ATV was the company that won the franchise for London at weekends and the midlands during the week. This arrangement did at least enable them to show the same filmed programme at different times in the two regions which must have been a cost saving. They established a base in Birmingham that they shared with ABC TV - called 'Alpha Television.' However, most of their premises were to be in London.
The company had been formed by a merger of two others that had previously been competitors. One was called the Incorporated Television Company (ITC). This collection of individuals was steeped in showbiz and consisted of Val Parnell and Prince Littler (Stoll Moss Theatre Group), Lew Grade (one of the top booking-agents in the UK), Stuart Cruickshank (Howard Wyndham Theatres), Binkie Beaumont (head of H. M. Tennants, the most important producers of plays in London), and Dick Harmel who was the right hand to South African millionaire businessman John Schlesinger. Two thirds of the financial backing came from the Warburgs - a leading concern in the city. Harry Alan Towers, a film producer, was also associated with this group.
The other company was the Associated Broadcasting Development Company (ABDC). This was led by Norman Collins, Sir Robert Renwick, C O Stanley and the Pye electronics Company, combined with the Midlands Post and other business interests based in the Midlands. This group owned Highbury Studios - of which more below.
Initially, the ITA awarded the franchise to the ABDC - they did not want the ITC to get the contract as they thought they dominated the entertainment industry too much. The ITA considered that it would be better if ITC operated as independent programme-makers, supplying shows to all the ITV companies. However, the ABDC could not raise sufficient funds to operate as a contractor. ITC did have the necessary funding so the ITA reluctantly agreed to a merger of the two companies. ITC did very well out of this arrangement. They owned 50% of the new company but also remained a production company in their own right, so any programmes they made that were shown on ITV would earn royalties to them alone when sold abroad.
The new company called itself 'Associated Broadcasting Company' - or 'ABC' which unfortunately was almost the same name as - well - 'ABC TV', the offshoot of the Associated British Picture Corporation. Confused? Do keep up.
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The original logo that was in use for only three weeks. Possibly the double eye motif animating to form one eye represented the two merged companies - ITC and ABDC. |
Thus, the name was changed to Associated TeleVision - or 'ATV'. By September 1955 the company had established its presentation and control centre in Foley Street. It could use the theatres its partners owned (like the London Palladium) for outside broadcasts and its new OB units were of course built and equipped by Pye - also a partner in the company. (The first Sunday Night at the London Palladium was broadcast on 25th September 1955. It starred Gracie Fields and was introduced not by Bruce Forsyth - he came later - but by Tommy Trinder.)
As mentioned above, the owners of the new company already possessed Highbury Studios but ATV also converted two of their Frank Matcham variety theatres into studios - the Wood Green Empire and Hackney Empire. Highbury would not be used as a conventional TV studio until October 1956 and The Hackney Empire would not be ready until February 1956 but Wood Green made its first programme on the opening night of ITV - 22nd September 1955.
This first night was a weekday so normally would be the responsibility of Associated-Rediffusion. However, ATV (at the time called 'ABC' of course) were also involved on this one special night. There is a rather sad story surrounding this. It seems that there were several problems to do with sound feeds on the big night. ABC's Deputy Head of Sound took the responsibility for this upon himself. Apparently, he didn't turn up for work the next day - in fact he was never seen again and it was believed that he had jumped into the Thames. Hard to imagine quite that sense of dedication these days, frankly.
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Wood Green Empire as painted by Charles Cundall. This picture was on a Christmas card, sent to ATV's commercial clients. A little artistic licence may be evident - particularly with the lighting rig - but it shows beautifully how the studio was laid out. |
The Wood Green Empire originally opened on 9th September 1912 with a seating capacity of 1840 and stage 75ft wide wall to wall x 35ft deep. The property of Stoll-Moss, part owners of the new ATV company, it was used as a theatre until January 1955 when it went dark for a short while before being re-equipped by ATV. The first programme made here was on 22nd September 1955.
To cater for the needs of television production, changes were made to the interior including the enlargement of the stage area. The stage was built forward with a deep apron and extending on camera left all the way to the dress circle, giving a total stage area of 5295 sq ft. The control rooms and apparatus rooms were built under the camera right side of the dress circle. The audience was seated in the dress circle, which had a capacity of about 300.
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The studio plan for Wood Green. Below can be seen a more schematic drawing that also indicates the position of the control rooms beneath the dress circle. Note the orchestra pit on the right of the stalls - it is not too clearly marked on the studio plan. with thanks to Richard Greenough |
Lighting on stage was controlled by the theatre's Grand Master which was situated in the camera right corner behind the proscenium arch. Oddly, there was another lighting control for all the front-of-house lights, which was in the vision control room (nowadays called the production gallery). Within the auditorium were five lighting bars, each on a motorized hoist. The maximum lighting load was 300kW, consisting of Mole-Richardson 'scoops', and incandescent spots plus some Strand carbon arcs. The cameras were initially supplied by Pye and were Mk 3 three-inch image orthicons although only three plus a spare were in use. (These days entertainment shows use ten or more cameras.) However, later they were replaced by Marconi Mk IVs and I have received a note from cameraman Jeremy Hoare explaining why...
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'They were used at Wood Green up until the remarkable man I was proud to work for, the late legendary Lew Grade, did a deal with an American network to produce some Dick Cavett shows, live from north London to the USA coast-to-coast with a five hour time difference to New York of course. So the Pyes were replaced by Marconi Mk IVs as these were switchable from 405 to 525 lines. These were good cameras also and delivered excellent pictures, and from my use of them as a cameraman, I found the viewfinder sharp enough to give me confidence to try shots that I wouldn’t have dared with the Pyes.' |
Jeremy is currently writing a book which will no doubt be well worth a read when it is published. He has also told me about his experiences with the original Pye Mk 3 cameras...
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'The cameras at Wood Green, Hackney Empire and Foley Street Studios, and on Outside Broadcasts, were Pye image orthicons with four position turret lenses, typically 2”, 3”, 5” and 8”. In the studio, it was only the brave and foolhardy that used the 1½“ and 12” lenses, but everyone tried at least once, it was part of the learning curve. These cameras were way ahead of their time with electric lens change and focus demand, the latter switchable to either side, although the only person I recall anyone using the left side was my first Senior Cameraman, Ron Francis. When the focus control packed up on a live show, which was frequent, the side of the camera was opened up and the focus adjusted by sliding the tube carriage forwards and backwards manually. It worked and kept a camera going when the normal compliment was usually only three and sometimes, but rarely, four; so this was vital.' |
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Bill Brown on the camera at Wood Green. with thanks to Jeremy Hoare |
A telecine machine was also installed at Wood Green.
An unusual innovation in the studio was a cue-dot generator. This device enabled a small square dot to be placed in the top right corner of the screen 30 seconds before a commercial break, enabling ITV companies all over the UK to cue their commercials accurately. At first this was an experiment but later the system was universally adopted and is still in use.
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The floor of the Wood Green Empire in 1958. This still and the ones below are taken from a promotional film made by ATV. |
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The production control gallery - called the 'vision control room' on the plan above. According to the plan, in the corner of the gallery was a 'lighting control point.' One assumes therefore that the gentleman sitting in the background of this picture must be operating the lighting. I'm intrigued by the panel above the window. It has seven sections. Seven? What could it possibly have been? My guess is that it controlled the lighting hoists in the auditorium. Another source says that there were only five of them but maybe there were seven after all. |
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A shot looking from the stage towards the auditorium. The audience sat in the dress circle. The balcony above was not in use during the days of television. |
The Wood Green Empire was the home of ATV's scenery workshops and their OB fleet was also based there. In 1957 the studio produced about seven hours of programming a week. The theatre was linked to ATV's Highbury studios via landlines, whence the signal was sent to their continuity and playout suite in Foley Street.
The studio was used to make all kinds of programmes including LE, drama and children's. I have also been told by more than one ex-employee that Emergency-Ward 10 began here before moving to Highbury. Examples of contrasting shows include Val Parnell's Saturday Spectacular, a sitcom called Joan and Leslie (starring Joan Reynolds and Leslie Randall) and various 90 minute plays. Rosemary Wenzerul has been kind enough to contact me. Her late father, Barry Molen, used to run the canteen and collected many photos of the stars who performed here. She has confirmed that Emergency Ward-10 was indeed made at Wood Green for a while. She has also sent a picture of the Randalls with a dedication from them to her father.
I must confess I hadn't heard of the sitcom but it seems to have been very popular and has its own page on the IMDb.
Amongst the plays was probably The Voodoo Factor - a spooky tale starring Maxine Audley based around her character's fear of spiders. There is a possibility that this was made at Highbury but Wood Green seems more likely. Other programmes recalled by people include The Sid James Show and The Strange World of Gurney Slade ('60) - a bizarre and sometimes disturbing comedy starring Antony Newley. Interestingly some if not all of the latter was filmed on 16mm. Jeremy Hoare has written to me about his not very happy experience on this show...
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'I was still an ATV Trainee Tracker when I was unusually scheduled to a film unit for a day at our Wood Green studio on the Anthony Newley show, 'The Strange World of Gurney Slade'. The sequences that were shot at Wood Green that day were on 16mm film using a blimped Arri BL mounted onto the manual Vinten Pathfinder dolly. As the sole tracker I was very much an outsider as they were superior 'Film' people and I was a merely a 'Telly' person, they made this clear from the start, I was being tolerated. One shot I remember particularly involved a track-in from Long Shot to Mid Shot. We rehearsed and I put my marks on the floor then we went for a take. "Camera!, Action!" and I pushed the Pathfinder in on cue and timed it correctly so I ended on the right part of Newley's speech although I was about an inch to the right of my mark but directly alongside it, fairly normal. I had just got there when the camera operator shouted 'Cut, no good!' stopping Newley mid sentence. He turned round and without looking at the floor said to me, "You're off the mark, we'll have to do it again!". He was right but this was normal because unlike film, we hardly ever use tracks or rails in television (which would guarantee a set re-position) so I mumbled something like an apology and he said in a flamboyant Prima Donna manner, "Okay then, I'll just have to unlock the pan if that's the best you can do!". I was furious because no television cameraman to my knowledge before and subsequently since has ever locked the head controls where it could be possible that a misframe would occur. It was and is normal for a cameraman to make small adjustments, actors are not always good at hitting marks, so often compensation in framing is needed. We did another take and I hit the mark exactly but the operator said nothing to me. We moved on to the next set-up but at the end of the day's shoot I went home more than a little upset that this had happened. I was still a trainee and just nineteen at the time so probably over-reacted as one does at that age. Fortunately I found out that not all Film Camera Operators were the same. I worked later with the terrific Frank Watts on a promo shoot in a tiny studio in the basement of ATV's Great Cumberland Place office block and he was good enough to show me a lot about how a blimped Arri functioned which more than compensated for my first experience. I thought better of film people after that!'
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It is perhaps worth reprinting part of an article from 'Practical Television' published in January 1957. The writer describes a visit to the studio:
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I drove my car up to the front of the Wood Green Empire - only to find it was not there! The entire facade, canopy and other front-of-the-house paraphernalia had disappeared, and in its place were brightly-lit dress shops. As I made my way around a side road to the stage door, I fancied that I heard the ghosts of [the] great illusionists [who had previously performed there] chuckle and say " Abracadabra! " Fortunately, the stage door was there, quite solid, almost hidden behind a pile of new scenery and stage properties, and the back of the theatre seemed to have been extended. I discovered at once that additions had been made to the backstage facilities, particularly as to make-up, wardrobe and dressing-rooms. The old music-hall atmosphere persisted; there was no dressing-room 13 - instead, there was 12A! Crossing my fingers as I went under a ladder, I wandered on to the stage to meet Bernard Bibby. ATV's Chief Engineer of studios and O.B.s. Mr. Bibby is an ex-BBC man (from Lime Grove and the Alexandra Palace) and he brought me down to earth rapidly with facts and figures, including lighting three cigarettes with one match. |
What surprises me about the above is that the foyer and main entrance appear to have been sold off and turned into shops by ATV. One wonders how they handled their studio audiences - some sort of entrance and foyer would surely have been needed. It does seem likely that there was an entrance in a side street that led to a foyer upstairs. After all, with no audience in the stalls, only the circle foyer would have been needed.
The theatre had its orchestra pit on the camera right side of the auditorium. However - for one show, designer Richard Greenough thought of another use for it...
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'At Wood Green I designed a show for Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warris. There was a sketch with them in a boat. For this we filled the orchestra pit with water. A plastic liner was made and this worked very well except I had designed steps to get down into the water but these were made of wood so they floated up! We also had an inverted periscope to get an underwater shot. This worked very well during the rehearsal but by the time of transmission the water had become very cloudy. As this had worked well we did it again in a later show but this time the plastic liner sprung a leak and the water began to get into all the electrical wires under the stage. Panic! Bob Craig, the stand-by carpenter, volunteered to go down into the water so I lent him my bathing trunks which were in my car. Somehow he managed to stem the flow and the show went out live. We did not repeat this mistake.'
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ATV used the Wood Green Empire through to 29th May 1963 - interestingly, well after all the studios at Elstree had opened. After that the theatre stood dark for a couple of years before the stage, backstage area and most of the auditorium were demolished to make way for a multi-storey car park. The facade is just about recognizable today, in the centre of a parade of shops. Last time I looked it was a branch of the Halifax but the original arrangement of foyer door and an entrance either side can still be made out - as can the typical Frank Matcham grand roofline with two small ornamental domes.
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The image below is a rare colour photo of the period taken by Jeremy Hoare. It shows the Arthur Haynes Show being recorded at the Wood Green Empire in 1962, shortly before ATV left. |
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Hackney Empire
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Hackney Empire, around 1960. The 'ATV Television Theatre' sign can just be made out behind the trees. with thanks to Louis Barfe |
This theatre dates back to 1901, having opened that year on 9th December. Built initially for a seating capacity of 2158 with a further 691 standing, the theatre remained on the variety circuit for some 54 years before closing probably towards the end of 1955. ATV took it over and made their first programme there on 29th February 1956. They initially extended the stage 15ft over the orchestra pit, although by 1958 the working area spread over the whole stalls area.
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ATV's plan of Hackney. with thanks to Richard Greenough |
The camera and lighting equipment at Hackney were similar to that installed at the Wood Green Empire.
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Hackney Empire in 1958. |
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The old Grand Master lighting control. Every London theatre had one of these - usually tucked behind the pros arch on a platform just above head height - as shown here. Its design dated from about 1930. This still, taken from an ATV film, shows the board still in operation in 1958. Incidentally, in London's theatres the Grand Masters began to be replaced with electronic preset boards controlling thyratron or thyristor dimmers during the 1960s but there were still some of them in use well into the 1970s. Others remained in operation in some provincial theatres for even longer. The Bristol Hippodrome's board was installed in 1948 and was not replaced until 1981! The trouble was that they were so well-built that there was nothing to go wrong - some might say unlike the electronic consoles that replaced them. |
Although ATV were the main occupants of the Hackney Empire, the facilities were leased to other ITV companies as and when required. Indeed before Teddington was opened for television in 1959, ABC used this theatre. Their most famous show made at Hackney was Jack Good's Oh Boy! and both series were made here. Rediffusion also hired the theatre from time to time. At one time Take Your Pick came from this studio - later moving to Wembley. The Carroll Levis' Discoveries talent show was also made here for a while. The last programme made here was on 21st December 1960.
Mecca took it over in 1963 and converted it into a bingo hall. The bingo operation closed in November 1986, the building re-opening as a co-operatively run theatre/arts venue just a month later, on the 85th anniversary of its first opening. It is now a Grade II listed building, and thanks to the Lottery and a high profile fund-raising campaign the auditorium has been restored to its 1901 condition.
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Highbury studios were to be found at 65A Highbury New Park, Islington. They were built originally as a music conservatoire in 1890, becoming a recording studio in 1926 for the Piccadilly label. The building was adapted into film studios in 1933 and bought in 1937 by producer/director Maurice J Wilson. There was one main stage - not very large - and a smaller one probably in the basement. For the two years until the outbreak of war they were leased to independent film producers making quota quickies and some modestly successful films for the British market. They were barely used during the war after which they were acquired by the Rank Organisation. Rank established his 'charm school' at Highbury. Young men and women were trained for stardom - or at least to be stars in J Arthur Rank's films. Film production continued from 1947 and several films were made with such stars as Christopher Lee and Diana Dors - both products of the charm school. However, it was not to last and when the company got into financial difficulties in 1949 they sold off all their properties except Pinewood. However, they did not entirely give up their interest in Highbury.
In 1950 the studios were purchased by Norman Collins, with the backing of British Lion, The Rank Organisation and Pye electronics. Collins was an extraordinary gentleman who began his career in BBC radio. He was the producer of Dick Barton: Special Agent, and by contrast also created Woman's Hour. He became controller of The Light Programme (the original name of Radio 2) and in 1947 controller of the BBC Television Service at the time it was establishing itself. In 1950 he resigned, with the strong conviction that the BBC should have a competing television channel. He campaigned loudly on this subject and formed a company called High Definition Films, based at Highbury. He planned to make television programmes - initially for the export market but always with an eye to becoming actively involved in the new commercial television, whenever that might begin broadcasting. It was five years before his plans came to fruition. The technique developed by HDF enabled a 30 minute film to be completed in 48 hours. Using traditional techniques it would take several days principal photography followed by a few more days editing. Sound dubbing would also have to be completed and finally captions, dissolves or any other effects added. It is easy to see how considerable savings could be made. The method developed at Highbury was to shoot using up to four television cameras, which were cut by a vision mixer. In other words - the usual technique at that time of making television drama. However, the cameras would have to produce far greater resolution pictures than the normal 405 lines in order that they could be projected onto a cinema screen. Initial experiments in 1949 in Cambridge using some American-made cameras had proved disastrous but the Pye electronics company were keen to make the system work. They employed Bill Vinten (inventor of the hydraulic camera pedestal) as DoP - he had lit the 1949 experiments and by May of 1952 a demonstration film had been produced at Highbury. Others followed, using progressively scanned pictures with around 625 - 834 lines. They settled on a resolution of 650 lines. This may not sound that sharp but it is not that much short of today's standard of 720 progressive lines. The overall resolution of the system was said to be an astonishing 12MHz. Greater resolutions were also tried out - up to 1,500 lines but the advantages were outweighed by the technical limitations of the components in use. In fact, publicity around the time claimed resolutions far greater - even up to 3000 lines but this was just wishful thinking! Still, it is amazing that these cameras were almost as sharp as today's HD cameras - although of course they were in black and white and suffered the limitations of tubes rather than CCDs. The technology was pretty cutting edge for its time. The cameras used by HDF at Highbury were Pye Photicon types called Photo Electric Stabilised or 'Pesticon' (the engineers named them 'pests'). Apparently when first switched on the picture "emerged over several minutes from a mush at the bottom of the screen".
The techniques for recording the image onto the film were also developed. This 'telerecording' technique was initially in its infancy but Collins' company worked closely with Pye to produce the best possible final image using a Moy RP30 film camera filming a low gamma, high definition display monitor. The field pulses were generated mechanically with a synchronous motor spinning an aluminium disc called 'The Whirling Spray' which had a small magnetic insert generating a pulse. The line frequency was adjusted by a variable master oscillator, set by hand. All primitive stuff but it worked!
High Definition Films was for the first few years little more than an experimental laboratory. Perhaps surprisingly, despite the obvious success of the system it was never used for its original purpose - making cheap feature films. Instead, by 1954 the company was going all out producing television plays and drama series. Some were exported to the US but the main aim was to produce a valuable 'bank' of material for the new ITV companies that would begin broadcasting in a year or two. The programmes were made far more efficiently than would have been possible using traditional film industry techniques but with picture quality much greater than telerecordings made by the BBC using 405-line television cameras. Experimental commercials were made too - and these were shown to MPs so they could see what ads on the proposed new ITV channels might look like. The plays filmed here starred famous actors of the day such as George Couloris, David Tomlinson and Dora Bryan. Bill Vinten was invited back to light an extract from Macbeth - directed by Orson Welles no less. Unfortunately, most of the 30-minute dramas were not particularly well received in America. Undaunted, the company pressed on with making series for the anticipated new ITV channel. Perhaps surprisingly, these are said to have included early recordings of Double Your Money and Take Your Pick for Associated-Rediffusion. These series later transferred to A-R's Wembley Studios as soon as they were up and running although Take Your Pick may also have briefly used the Hackney Empire. It seems hard to believe but I have been reliably informed that on at least one occasion the BBC 'lent' a camera crew to Highbury to work on an HDF drama. Whether the play was subsequently transmitted by the BBC is not currently known. However, a crew headed by Colin Clews also contained cameraman Ron Francis. Ron mentioned this to Jeremy Hoare, who was interviewing him and he was kind enough to write to me to let me know. Another somewhat unlikely series 'filmed' here seems to be Noddy. Certainly, this was shown regularly in the first months of ATV's transmission and Guy Caplin has written to me with some interesting info...
As it happens, I have lit many shows using the latest HD cameras and almost all have been made using interlaced scan. (That means that the pictures look like normal TV). I have however, also lit a few productions using progressive scan HD cameras. The cameramen did find it much more difficult to hold focus on moving actors but they coped! However, working like that every day must indeed become pretty tiring on the eyes.
Back in 1955, Norman Collins had hoped to gain an ITV franchise in his own right. His company - ABDC - did indeed win a franchise. However, he could not secure the necessary finance so his company was forced to merge with the Grade/Littler ITC company to form the 'Associated Broadcasting Company'. Nevertheless, this did mean that the new company already had a TV studio centre up and running - even though it was equipped with non-standard cameras and equipment. As it turned out, ATV didn't use the studio to make any programmes until a year later in October 1956. Highbury was busy making 'filmed' TV dramas produced by Harry Alan Towers and for the time being it made sense to let him complete his contract to supply this useful programming to the company.
It has proved quite difficult finding detailed information about the studios themselves. One couple, Jean and Cliff Ainsworth, joined ATV in 1957 and have given me some information. They recall one main studio (stage A) and a smaller one in the basement used for experimental and training purposes during the days of HDF. Richard Greenough - head of design at ATV - also remembers a second smaller studio. He has also provided me with a studio plan for studio A which I reproduce below.
Colin Russell has also contacted me - his father was an electrician at the studios and he recalls visiting as a small boy...
Steve Bailey was a 16 year-old runner employed by ATV. He worked mostly at Wood Green and Hackney but does recall one day he had here in late 1959 or early 1960...
As mentioned above, it seems likely that ATV took over ownership of the studios in 1955. However, they did not make their first programme there until 13th October 1956. It was an edition of the magazine programme Home With Joy Shelton. (Thanks to Richard Greenough for this information. He was head of design at ATV and drew up the daily schedules.) Thus, in the meantime Harry Alan Towers continued to fulfil his contract to make dramas using the HDF cameras, which one assumes were now owned by ATV. He was executive producer on a series called Theatre Royal - a series of 'filmed' plays that were made at Highbury between 1955 and 1956. However, as mentioned above, Towers probably left Highbury rather suddenly around March when this contract was completed. It is likely that the studio was closed for the next few months as a cost-saving exercise. ATV were in deep financial straits, as were the other ITV companies, and were looking to save money. However, fortunes looked up and within a few months the studio was brought back into service using conventional 405-line cameras, controlled by an OB scanner parked at the front of building.
It is probable that HDF had ceased operating as a company in 1955 when ATV became owners of the studios. Most of the staff are said to have had their contracts bought and they dispersed within the industry. Some possibly stayed on to work for ATV. Pye took over the small studio B for a short while as a demonstration unit for their equipment. What remained of the HDF Development Group moved into a back room in a Pye radio factory in Tottenham, probably taking some of the old HDF equipment with them. However, at Tottenham they used new Pye Mk3 cameras which they blimped with a sound reducing hood to reduce the turret motor noise. These cameras were capable of operating at 405, 625 or 819 lines. It seems they also painted these cameras army green for some reason. (One of them still exists and is owned by Paul Marshall.) An American entrepreneur had apparently convinced Norman Collins that there was still a market for films made using the HDF system. Thus the new studio was set up but the project collapsed. It is unlikely that any programmes or 'films' were ever made at Tottenham. Andrew McKean has written with an interesting postscript regarding what happened to the HDF cameras and equipment...
It seems probable that the scanner continued to be used at the front of the building for some time. Nobody who has contacted me can remember the old HDF control rooms being converted to 405 lines and brought into use. The Pye cameras were employed for a number of years. However - more than one source has also indicated that the studio was at some time equipped with Marconi cameras. One cameraman, Jeremy Hoare, is convinced that he only ever operated Marconis at Highbury. (He joined ATV as a junior tracker in 1959.) However, the photo below clearly shows a Pye Mk 3 and Stephen Bailey, quoted above, is convinced that when he did a day or two at Highbury early in 1960 the studio had Pye cameras. This whole area has proved to be a bit of a minefield! However, by sifting through the clues it does seem likely that some time around 1960 the Pyes were replaced with Marconis. This seems an odd decision and would certainly not have been welcomed by the board of Pye, who were part owners of ATV. However, I am told that a possible reason for this was because Lew Grade was keen to export material to the US, and the Marconi cameras were switchable to 525 lines, unlike the Pyes. Thus Highbury, Wood Green and Hackney all received new Marconis. All kinds of programmes were made here with quick turn-rounds from one to the next. Most went out live with some recorded 'as live' from about 1960. I am told that these certainly included live adverts. It seems that an advertising magazine programme was a regular booking at Highbury each Saturday. It was called Home With Joy Shelton. Paul Faraday has sent me some memories of it...
Early in 1958 Highbury became the home of the most successful hospital soap for many years to come - Emergency-Ward 10. The series had begun its life at the Wood Green Empire in 1957. The show was broadcast live from the studios each Tuesday and Friday. It was rehearsed at the De Walden rehearsal rooms, St John's Wood. When Highbury closed on 30th September 1961 with an edition of E-W 10 the programme moved to Elstree.
Jeremy Hoare recalls his time working on E-W 10...
A small postscript...in 2001 George Lucas claimed he was breaking new ground by shooting his feature film - Attack of the Clones - using a high definition video camera. Well, in some ways of course he was - but fifty years earlier at Highbury they had been attempting to do almost the same thing. It's been pointed out to me by Mitch Mitchell that George wasn't even the first in recent times. A handful of films were made in the nineties using the Sony hiVision 1125-line analogue HD system. One striking example was Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books, made in 1991. I am particularly grateful to Dickie Howett for much of the above information on High Definition Films. |
In 1961 Highbury Studios were demolished to make way for a block of flats - 'Athenaeum Court'. ATV withdrew from these studios and the theatre in Hackney to concentrate their production at the National Film Studios in Borehamwood. ATV had purchased the studios in May 1958 but from late in 1960 the four stages were one by one brought into use as superbly equipped television studios - with the cameras and other electronics supplied by business partner Pye. These studios are now known as BBC Elstree Centre.
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The early film years... The studios had their origins in 1914, when three enterprising potential moviemakers looked for a site near London with a good train service that was free of fog. An area near Elstree village called Boreham Wood seemed ideal so the studios of Neptune Films were built. They were said to be the finest in England and the one stage was over 70 ft in length. It was described as the first 'dark' stage in Europe since, unusually for the time, it had no glazed roof but relied upon electricity for illumination. British cinema went into decline during the First World War (as so many technicians and actors had been killed) and production ceased in 1917, when the site was sold to the Ideal Film Company. Ideal Films used the premises until 1924. Ludwig Blattner, inventor of an early sound recording system, took them over in 1928. Ironically, his studios were the last in Elstree to be converted to sound so they lost a lot of work. In 1934 the studios were leased by Joe Rock, an American producer, the same year as Blattner committed suicide. Two years later he bought the studios outright and constructed the four main stages - still in use today as studios A - D. This major investment ensured the future use of the studios for decades to come. However, in 1939 the Rock studios were taken over by British National Films. Their timing was poor as almost immediately the government took over the stages for war duties. Then British National continued to make films here until 1948 when the studios went dark for five years. American film actor and producer Douglas Fairbanks Jnr bought them in 1953. Fairbanks renamed the studios the National Studios and used the four stages to make filmed TV programmes for the American company NBC. His initial contract was for an astonishing 39 films as well as many commercials. It is not known how many he actually made but by the end of his first two months he had completed six 26-minute films. From 1955 Associated-Rediffusion ran a series called Douglas Fairbanks Presents. It is likely that this used many of the half hour dramas that had been originally made here for the US. Fairbanks ran the studios for about five years before ATV took over. One of the oldest buildings on site is the two-storey block with the green-tiled roof near to studio D containing dressing rooms and offices. It probably dates back to the 1930s. Much later when the BBC took over they named the building 'Fairbanks'. The man himself visited the site during the 1980s to see what had become of his old studios.
The arrival of television... ATV acquired the studios in May 1958. It seems likely that they originally intended to keep them as film studios - using them to make TV dramas on 35mm. One of the first series they made was the popular Adventures of William Tell. It employed many of the features and techniques seen in The Adventures of Robin Hood - purchased by ITC and shown on ATV but not actually made by them. (That series was made by Sapphire Films at Walton Studios. Those studios are covered elsewhere on this website.) ATV continued to use Highbury, Wood Green and Hackney for TV but realised that they needed a new, properly planned TV studio centre. Seven and a half acres of land was purchased in Kennington on the South Bank near the Oval cricket ground - once part of the 17th - 19th century Vauxhall gardens - and plans were drawn up. However, by 1960 they realised that it would take too long for those plans to be realised so they decided to convert their Elstree film stages into TV studios. Thus they began the enormous task of converting them with telescope (actually 'harp') grids similar to those at Teddington, and control room suites with plush overlooking viewing rooms suitable for all the US TV executives that would be invited to watch programmes being made. Perhaps inspired by the success of Fairbanks, Grade knew from the beginning that he wanted to make shows that he could export as well as sell to the ITV network. Many new buildings were constructed to support TV production. In fact, it was only the stages and existing buildings adjacent to them containing production offices, make-up, wardrobe and dressing rooms that survived from the original film studios.
As it turned out, the various filmed dramas made by ITC for ATV were made over the road at ABPC Elstree Studios. This television work over many years arguably kept those studios afloat.
Enough 'what ifs' - on with what actually happened...
ATV also constructed a large L-shaped office headquarters building on the site, which is still known as 'Neptune House' - named after the original film company. Viewers of Holby City may be familiar with its appearance. It was also used by Gerry Anderson in his 1969 series UFO where apparently it represented the secret HQ of 'Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organization'. Obviously. Staff began to move onto the site during 1960, although the studios would not be ready for use until the end of the year. The work involved in converting the stages into television studios was considerable and it was not until late in 1960 that any of them was ready for business. All four studios were equipped with Pye Mk V Image-Orthicon cameras. These were said to give the best pictures around in their day. Pete Simpkin tells me that they were also ground-breaking in that the OCPs (operational control panel) for each camera were grouped together enabling one operator to match iris and sit levels, using one monitor. This is taken for granted nowadays but previously each camera had had a separate racks operator. The studios were also unusual in that it was theoretically possible to have three studios operating on different line systems at the same time (405, 525 and 625). Local generators were also capable of supplying mains power at the US standard of 60 Hz, enabling programmes to be made in NTSC for America. However, I'm told that when shows were being recorded onto the early generation of VTRs, they had genlocking problems if different standards were in use at the same time so this was avoided whenever possible! The cost of converting the studios was £4m. This was a huge amount of money in those days but of course by 1960 ATV could well afford it. The first show to come out of the studios - from D - was a drama called The Man Condemned - which was made on 29th November 1960. Studio C opened a few weeks later on 3rd January 1961 with a play called The Jason Group. One of the first big LE series at Elstree was a six-part spectacular starring Cliff Richard and the Shadows. At that time, audience seating was moved in and out of the studios when required but took up much of the useful floor space. It was not until a few years later that an 'auditorium' would be built behind one of the long walls on studio D. Studio A opened on 3rd October 1961 with Call Oxbridge 2000 - an Emergency-Ward 10 spin-off. E-W 10 itself was in the studio on 6th October, having made the move from Highbury. Studio B was ready for business a few weeks later on 24th November 1961 and opened with The Warning Voice - a drama I assume. The studios were soon all busy producing top quality entertainment and drama. The first of many US co-productions was The Jo Stafford Show, made in 1961.
Incidentally - there is a very interesting video that was made by ATV/Central just before they left Elstree, which details their history there and includes many clips from shows. It would appear that quite a few dates on the video are incorrect. Maybe their research wasn't quite as good as it might have been. Anyway - Richard Greenough, who organised the studio schedules, has confirmed the above dates and first programmes. I met him a couple of years before he passed away and he still possessed all the studio schedules for every ATV studio from their first day of transmission in September 1955 to the last day at Elstree on 29th July 1983, when Family Fortunes was made in studio D. Thus, studio D was ATV's first and last at Elstree.
ATV's regional programmes came from their Birmingham studios - including, of course, Crossroads. Elstree, meanwhile, produced a range of drama, comedy and light entertainment for the network - typical examples being The Braden Beat ('62), Hancock ('62), Love Story ('63), Sergeant Cork ('63), The Larkins ('63), The Plane Makers ('63), Morcambe and Wise ('63), Mainly Millicent ('64) and in 1964 the Arthur Haynes Show moved to Elstree from its previous homes at Hackney and Wood Green. Popular dramas included The Power Game ('65), Mrs Thursday ('66), Fraud Squad ('69), Camille ('67), Timeslip ('70), Edward VII ('73), Father Brown ('74), The Cedar Tree ('75), Sapphire and Steel ('79-'82) and Shine on Harvey Moon ('81). One-off major dramas included Hamlet ('70) starring Richard Chamberlain, A Long Day's Journey into Night ('72) starring Laurence Olivier and Antony and Cleopatra ('73). All of the above were of course shot on multi-camera video. Comedy included George and the Dragon ('66-'68), Young at Heart ('80-'82) and music shows included Singalongamax ('73 onwards) and specials and series with Des o'Connor ('71) and Val Doonican ('71). The children's series Inigo Pipkin and Pipkins ran from 1972-1981. Popular gameshows made at Elstree included The Golden Shot ('67-'75), Celebrity Squares (from '75) and Family Fortunes (from '80). The 'glory days' of ATV at Elstree were full of happy memories for the staff that worked there during the '60s and '70s. The following sums up the period perfectly, and was kindly sent to me by Colin Russell:
The site has two large and two medium studios (A-D). In later years the BBC added one studio converted from workshop space for EastEnders (Stage 1), one regional news studio (built for Newsroom South-East which ran from 1989-2001), a small training studio (E) converted from the original band room for studio D, the top floor of Neptune House currently used to film Holby City, and on the back lot they built 'Albert Square' and its surrounding streets. Until the show moved north, Grange Hill was also based here, and its playground and some school buildings occupied part of the car park alongside Neptune House. For many years this show had a regular booking for six months of the year in studio B.
Studio A made its first programme on 3rd October 1961. It is 66 x 62 metric feet within firelanes - with a corner lost for the gallery suite and technical equipment store beneath. The opposite corner also loses a few square feet as a doorway protrudes into the floor area. From 6th October 1961 the twice-weekly drama series Emergency-Ward 10 continued a 10-year run in this studio that had begun in 1957 at the Wood Green Empire, then at Highbury Studios. When it was axed the viewers made it clear that they missed it, so from 1972-1979 the soap General Hospital was made in A and B. (Clearly, Holby City is continuing a fine tradition of medical drama on this site.) During the black and white years ATV used the studio for various entertainment programmes including the David Nixon Show and the Dave Allen Show - live on a Friday night. The children's show Inigo Pipkin, which after the first series became Pipkins occupied studios A or B from 1972 - 1981. An astonishing 313 episodes were made! The studio was never colourised so from around 1970 its galleries were no longer used. However, programmes continued to be made on A's floor at first using a colour OB scanner and later using B's galleries, which were converted to colour in 1972. Nevertheless, the studio had briefly seen a colour camera a few years before then - as Jeremy Hoare recounts... 'Summer 1966 - England won the World Cup against Germany in 1966 in a never to be forgotten Wembley Final, broadcast by the BBC in B&W as the debate was still going on about line and colour standards. The very next day the entire England squad attended a live broadcast luncheon, which was set up in Studio D at ATV Elstree. I had the job in Studio A of getting the first Philips PC60 literally out of its box, mounting it on a tripod set onto a rostrum so the lens height was around eight feet, then operating it so that the players who had been so victorious the day before could see themselves in colour. It was a great moment for me but the heroes of English soccer didn’t seem impressed. I didn’t get lunch either. But at least I get to did operate ATV's own first ever colour camera!'
Cliff Hughes recalls that during the '70s and into the '80s it was quite common to do a sitcom in B on a Saturday and then another in A on the Sunday, using the same cameras and of course controlled by B's galleries. An interesting aside. ATV briefly considered bidding for the proposed ITV breakfast franchise. It was to be called Sunrise and studio A would have been its home. The bid was probably abandoned before any serious work was done on it. As has often happened during the research for this history I have conflicting information about what happened to the studio in the months before ATV left. I have been informed by an ATV staffer that towards the end of ATV's time here the studio was used as a rehearsal room and for storage. Certainly, my correspondent is sure he accidentally barged in on a rehearsal to his considerable embarrassment. However - this may simply have been on a day when a programme wasn't scheduled and the floor was being used for a rehearsal. Oddly, the evidence seems to suggest that before ATV/Central left Elstree the lino TV flooring was removed as according to a BBC engineering document ('Eng Inf' spring 1984) written shortly after they moved in.... 'It has not been used for production for a few years and is unequipped. It has a wooden floor which makes it unattractive for television use, though it should become a useful BBC film stage.' However, according to Richard Greenough, the head of ATV design (who kept copies of the studio schedules), the studio was fully utilised right up to the end and the last programme to be made in A was Blockbusters on 17th May 1983 - only two months before ATV/Central moved out. Certainly the galleries hadn't been used for many years but what's all this BBC stuff about a wooden floor???
Whatever the state of the floor, one of the first uses by the new owners was to hire the studio out as a film stage to the Children's Film Foundation early in 1984. Later, the studio became the home of a huge model of a city for the sc-fi series The Tripods. The City was and probably remains the largest single model ever built by the BBC, at about 1200 square feet. It took 18 months to construct and was largely the work of Simon Tayler, of the BBC special effects department. During the next few years studio A used facilities provided by OB units or simply to shoot single-camera drama or comedy. In 1987 Jim Henson returned to Elstree (more on him later) to make The Tale of the Bunny Picnic - a Muppet-based one-off special for children. This was shot single camera and occupied studios A and B for several months.
In 1989 studio A was completely refurbished by the BBC with a new grid and monopoles (the first in any BBC studio as all their others have motorised lighting bars.) The gallery suite was brought up to the standard of the day including a GVG 200 vision mixer and new dimmers were installed. The old mechanical dimmers were not removed however and still remain (disconnected) upstairs in the huge dimmer room in their wire cage, the replacement thyristor racks sitting nearby. The control room still had ATV's old Strand System C lighting console in it, which was carefully removed and - because nobody knew what else to do with it - placed inside the dimmer cage, where it remains to this day. The dimmer room shared by A and B is now a small museum of television dimmers! At one end is the huge cage containing several hundred motorised resistor dimmers installed in 1961, next to them are A's thyristor dimmer racks which were state of the art in 1989 and at the other end of the room is a small cabinet containing the digital dimmers for studio B - each one the size of a cigarette pack - which were installed in 2003. Well, I find it interesting anyway - sad old git that I am.
Following A's refurbishment, the BBC's intention was then to carry out similar work on the other three studios. However, the new regime of austerity under DG Michael Checkland (popular nickname amongst staff - 'Michael Chequebook') and his successor John Birt brought an end to all major capital spending, so studios C and D were given the bare minimum to make them useable. In fact, B has never had its galleries equipped by the BBC and those rooms still sit there in dust much as ATV left them. Because since the BBC refurbished it A has had the best equipped gallery suite, it has often been used to remotely control programmes being made in the other three studios. A was used as a proving ground for a couple of new technologies when it was refurbished. The first was to use existing TV36 camera cables as a BBC-designed enhanced triax. This proved very problematic and did not last long. Secondly, the cameras that were initially installed in A were Link 130s with some NEC lightweight cameras. The Links were highly sophisticated for their day with automatic line-up processors. Unfortunately they were very unreliable. They had been around for a few years in development and the idea was to use studio A as a test bed to try to make them work! However, they were soon rejected - the software in the 130s was simply too complex for the technology available at that time. Sadly, this unreliability caused the downfall of the company and the UK lost its sole remaining camera manufacturer. The Schneider lenses were kept - and a camera was sought that they would fit. This turned out to be the French Thomson TTV-1530 - one of the last tubed cameras. These were modified by the BBC (surprise surprise) and this variant supplied to the Beeb was known as the 1531. Around 1994 these were updated with Thomson TTV-1542 CCDs and 1647 lightweight cameras. The studio went widescreen in 1999 and was equipped with Philips/Thomson LDK 100s. Despite the studio being one of the best equipped in the country (although rather an awkward size), I can find no record of any programmes being made in it from 1989 to 1998. Of course, its galleries controlled a number of shows made in C and D but apart from Double Dare in 1992, Incredible Games in 1994 and a few occasions when EastEnders spilled into it... nothing. Any clues anyone? However, from 1999 the Kilroy programme began a three-year contract in this studio. Thus TOTP, which had used A's gallery facilities for most of the nineties now had to use an old OB scanner parked in the car park as a control room. Once Kilroy left, studio A became part of the EastEnders empire. One other aspect unique to studio A - it was the first studio to be fitted by the BBC with a resin floor. Previously, studios had floors consisting of lino mounted on asphalt. However, it was thought that the cameramen might find the resin too hard to stand on all day so lino was laid on top! To my knowledge, this is the only studio in the UK with both types of flooring.
Studio B is almost a mirror image of A but slightly longer at 70 x 62 metric feet within firelanes. It opened on 24th November 1961. ATV used it for a variety of small dramas and children's programmes. Originally it was equipped with Pye Mk V image-orthicon cameras but from 1969 it was also used as a 4-waller using a colour OB scanner. In 1972 it was fully colourised with four Philips PC60s. As mentioned above, following colourisation the studio was used to make dramas such as General Hospital ('72-'79) and children's series such as Pipkins ('72-'81). Late in the 1970s four EMI 2001s were transferred from studio D into this studio when D's cameras were replaced with LDK 25s.
Cliff Hughes has sent me an interesting snippet... 'Studio B was fully equipped in the late 70s and early 80s and in fact had a brand new Grass Valley mixer installed in I would guess late '79 early '80 in preparation for a live action series of "Dan Dare" which never actually materialised as is often the case! My memory of this is it was to be heavily a blue/green screen production and Ultimatte was also fitted. I believe this might have been the first Ultimatte install in the UK. I remember the boys in Tech being very excited about it.' B's last ATV/Central programme was I Thought You'd Gone - a sitcom starring Peter Jones - which was recorded on 18th May 1983. Interesting that a studio this size should be used for a sitcom. The audience must have been very small. These days sitcoms are made in studios around 90 x 70 ft and have audiences of at least 300 people. Since ATV left it has never been fully equipped by the BBC but treated as a 4-waller. It did, however, have dimmers installed in 2003 and is currently used as one of the EastEnders studios, controlled by the gallery suite for studio A. B's gallery suite is unique in all London's TV studios. They were built in 1962, converted to colour in 1972 but since the BBC never equipped them they sit there as they were left in 1983, gathering dust - no carpet on the floor, just the plywood flooring panels. The production gallery, vision control, lighting control and apparatus rooms still have the original monitor racks dating back to the early 1970s and in the huge vision control room the control desk is sitting there in all its blue formica and polished veneer glory. Sadly, all the monitors and equipment were removed long ago but one still gets a sense of how these old control rooms looked. I visited in May 2006 and it was bizarre, walking from room to room in studio A's control suite which is very smart and well-equipped - then walking through a door into B's galleries and stepping back 30 years or more. I have been back since, most recently in 2012 and it is all still there - although the dust is thicker and the ceiling seems to be about to collapse in one or two places. The images below were photographed in 2006. Click on them to see them in high resolution and for some further information...
Incidentally - the reason that the sound gallery is not illustrated above is that it has become a producer's room for EastEnders.
From 1985 studio B was occupied by the set for the Grange Hill school corridor along with its various classrooms, each room being re-dressed to become the art room/ history classroom/headmaster's study etc. as required. Previously, the show had shot its interiors in a studio at Television Centre and I was occasionally on the camera crew. When it moved to Elstree, Grange Hill was served by a three-camera OB unit supplied by BBC OBs. Then in 1998 a new producer, Diana Kyle, was appointed and the show adopted a more contemporary technique - being shot on single-camera Digibeta. I was involved in implementing this new shooting style and lit many of the episodes that year - including the one where a child fell from a window and died. I remember how upsetting the scene was and how emotional the cast were. The sequence involved a fire which we shot in a set built in the scenery construction building as using real fire in studio B was not practical. Then we moved to the permanent set in the Elstree car park for the actual fall from the first floor window. Tragically and truly bizarrely the actress who played her, Laura Sadler, suffered the same fate in real life just five years later when she fell from the balcony of her boyfriend's flat. She had become a regular character on Holby City for three years playing nurse Sandy Harper before her death. During this seventeen year period, part of the car park next to Neptune House had been turned into the school playground and a permanent two-storey set of a section of the school was built at the end of the 'playground'. This had an entrance lobby, stairs, corridors and a small classroom at first floor level. with rooms off it. Another permanent set of a cafe was also constructed at the end of the workshop building opposite the studio site main entrance. The series moved from Elstree to Liverpool in 2002 when Phil Redmond's Mersey TV took over direct control of it, following that company's loss of Brookside. The series finally ended in 2008 after 30 years.
Studios A and B are medium sized but can be linked. They have sliding doors about 10ft x 10ft that enable cameras to move between them. I am told that ATV frequently used the doors for a number of shows when programmes spread across the two studios. These were controlled from either gallery during the black and white years and from studio B after colourisation. The pair of studios was used by the BBC in Feb '92 for the last series of Double Dare - the popular kids' gameshow. The question and answer rounds were played in front of an audience in A whilst the games were played in B. This saved huge amounts of time as the games could be set up and cleared away behind the closed doors, which then opened to let the cameras through. This series was one of the first things I lit when I became an LD.
The first floor corridor behind the gallery suites to studios A and B is quite interesting. It has been decorated in NHS blue as an area within a hospital - complete with signs to various medical departments - this for Holby City of course. The space is surprisingly large and has a nurse's station and several chairs for waiting patients. Hopefully eagle-eyed viewers will not notice the old ATV transmission lights above the doors! The corridor on the ground floor is similarly decorated - which means, one assumes, that EastEnders actors pass through a Holby set on their way to and from the sets in their studios. Not whilst Holby is actually filming, one assumes. Could make for some interesting background action though. Other areas on site are similarly signed and decorated - the lift lobby in Neptune House for example. Studio M and the corridors around it have also been Holbyfied and the old South East regional TV studio on the ground floor of Neptune House is now a hospital ward. The rear of the exterior of the building at ground floor level is dressed as a hospital entrance complete with space for ambulances. It is all very convincing!
Studio C is 102 x 68 metric ft within firelanes. Again, one corner of the studio is taken up with the overhang from the gallery suite so about 475 sq ft is lost here. The first programme was made in C on 3rd January 1961. During the days of ATV, C was the home of a number of big prestige dramas. This was the period when more TV drama was made in studios than on location and Elstree made many of ITV's top plays with some of the great actors of the day including Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson. Occasionally, it was used for audience shows with mobile seating if D was also in use for an LE show. For example, during a Christmas special recorded for American TV in 1977, David Bowie and Bing Crosby were recorded here singing 'Drummer Boy' in the middle of a July heatwave with the scene doors open because the ventilation system couldn't cope! In fact, this turned out to be Crosby's last ever performance.
The studio was initially equipped with monochrome Pye Mk5 cameras. Around 1969 the studio was colourised with EMI 2001 colour cameras. These remained in service until ATV/Central left. The last programme made by ATV/Central in C on 27th July 1983 was Getting On.
C was the first studio at Elstree to be used by the BBC when EastEnders started in February 1985. Work began on the series in 1984. The studio was equipped very much on the cheap with old kit from TV Centre that would otherwise have been chucked away. Any old ATV equipment that was left behind was brought back into use and the missing bits were sought from spares at the Centre. ATV's old EMIs were considered to be 'past it'. (I have read they had been left deliberately damaged, along with other technical gear - as the BBC had only bought the building, not any equipment left behind. Can you confirm this?) Fortunately, TC4 at TV Centre had just received brand new Link 125s so its 13-year old EMI 2001s were trucked to Elstree. Amazingly, the venerable EMI 2001's still produced great pictures right up to 1991. Not bad for a camera designed in the mid-1960s. By the time they were retired the five cameras in C had seen daily use for some twenty-one years. In fact - their cool, slightly desaturated and relatively noisy pictures were perfect for the gritty look that EastEnders sought.
The original plan was for the old ATV vision mixer (a Pro-West?) to be replaced with the BBC-designed EP5/512 from TC4. However, the mother-board was found to be cracked so Ian Trill informs me that a GVG 100 was installed instead - the monitor switching used banks of the old ATV mixer. In July 1991 EastEnders moved to the newly created 'Stage 1' and Top of the Pops took over residence in C. The EMI 2001s were deemed unsuitable for TOTP so studio A's Thomson cameras were trundled across the roadway and used each week for most of the '90s. The production and sound galleries were much better equipped in A so the show was remotely controlled from that studio. The lighting gallery in C was used, however, and a Celco 90 took up residence alongside a Galaxy. This was joined each week by the latest moving light console - controlling the ever-increasing number of automated fixtures used on the show. The cameras were racked from A's vision control room which was a far from ideal situation (back to the old separate ATV arrangement!). The lighting gallery was very cramped and since the production and sound galleries were unused it was decided in the late 1990s to knock them into one and create a new lighting and vision control room. The camera controls were moved to this room and there was space for every type of lighting control desk you could imagine. It became the largest and best appointed lighting gallery in the country! Bizarrely, its walls were painted a pinky-purple - not exactly the neutral grey usually found in such areas - but then this was for Top of the Pops. In 1999 the Kilroy programme moved into studio A which meant that TOTP could no longer make use of that studio's cameras or sound and production galleries. An old OB scanner was parked permanently in the car park to become the show's production gallery and its rather long-in-the-tooth Sony cameras were used for the show. Sadly, the cameras had to be racked from there too so the camera control position in the new control room became redundant after only a few months. Sound could not use the scanner's control area of course so the gallery in studio D was brought up to spec. This meant that D could never be used at the same time as C but with TOTP being so loud, its music could be heard on the other studio floor anyway.
'Pops' came from the studio for most of the 90s and to my eyes this was the period when the show had some of its best lighting. (But then as one of its LDs I would say that wouldn't I?) Much of the PARcan rig stayed in from one week to the next - usually with a colour change and a few tweaks - whilst the ever-expanding number of moving lights were rigged differently depending on which acts were on that week. For a few years the record companies made a contribution to the lighting budget so that LDs were able to really show off. Sadly, this practice ended and more modest rigs ensued. TOTP left studio C in 2001 to tour clubs around the country, then go to Riverside for a few months and was then made each week in TC3 at Television Centre - the set and lighting rig being rigged and derigged for each recording. EastEnders moved back into C (as well as occupying Stage 1) where it still resides. TOTP did not survive well the move from Elstree and audiences began to dwindle. Under producers Ric Blaxill and then Chris Cowey between 1994 and 2003 it had become a highly regarded show throughout the music industry in this country and indeed worldwide. Top acts took no persuading to appear on the show - I can remember lighting some shows in the '90s with the most extraordinary line-up of artists sharing the studio. Chris in particular was highly respected in the music industry. He also had some ambitious ideas that nearly happened - including knocking the wall down between studio C and studio M - the music studio next door - to create more space for bands to perform. The two studios were linked by a small door and Chris turned M into a grungy bar area where guests could be interviewed or simply glimpsed chilling out before performing. When the show moved to TC3 at TV Centre, the red tea bar was turned into the 'TOTP Star Bar' in an effort to recreate this. In 2003 Andi Peters took over as producer and his approach was to turn it into more of a light entertainment show. Unfortunately the quality of acts diminished - so inevitably did the viewers. Mark Cooper took over as producer in 2005 but sadly it was too late. The final regular show from TC3 was in July 2006.
Despite the expensive refurbishment that was carried out to C's lighting gallery, it is no longer in use. In fact, none of the control rooms in C are used any more. EastEnders uses studio A's gallery to control studio activity in A, B and C. I'm told that directors usually work on the floor, seldom communicating much with the vision mixer as all cameras are recorded on separate iso feeds. The LD too works on the floor, relying upon the console op to balance the pictures. It was never like that in my day! I was one of the regular LDs on the show for most of the 1990s working on it for 3 or 4 months each year. We only had 3 episodes a week to make back then so had much more time than now to light the sets and rehearse the scenes. Most recording blocks usually included at least one day on location too which was a great experience. Considering the rate at which they now make the show, the production values are extraordinarily high. In more recent years I often used to copy the lighting for TV Burp for the sketches where Harry Hill appeared to join the action in clips shown on the programme. Since this involved me analysing how the scenes were lit so I could match them I can say that EastEnders has remained one of the best lit soaps in my opinion. The huge, beautifully furnished lighting control room in C currently has two rather lonely monitors in its otherwise empty stack and is used as an EastEnders producers' viewing room. Incidentally, studio C, not surprising given its film history, has a tank beneath the floor. This did come as a surprise to a workman from the Elgood company in 2001 when the floor was being re-laid. He was digging up the old lino, which had been laid on the timber film stage floor, when his Kangoo hammer suddenly shot out of his hands and disappeared into a large hole. Fortunately, he let go.
Studio D is 98 x 66 metric ft within firelanes, again with a corner lost for the gallery suite. (TLS studio 1 by comparison is 90 x 68 metric feet plus its audience. In case you were wondering.) Built as a film stage around 1936, It re-opened as a television studio on 29th November 1960 and was the first of the four studios to be converted. The others followed soon after. Back in the days of ATV, D was used for major showbiz spectaculars starring the likes of Cliff Richard, Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdink, Julie Andrews (and Sesame Street), Max Bygraves and many big American names like Liberace, Barbra Streisand, Lena Horne, Carol Channing, Tony Bennett, Glen Campbell and Sammy Davis Junior. The early Morcambe and Wise series were made here between 1961 and 1968. Of course, The Muppet Show also famously came from this studio. Apparently, standards converters were such poor quality in the '60s that it was common to record programmes twice - once in 625 line PAL for the UK and again in 525 line NTSC for the US market. The first colour production was a star-studded benefit show called The Heart of Showbusiness in 1966. It was made to raise money for the Aberfan disaster relief fund. A temporary 'colour control room' was built in the technical area on the studio floor beneath the existing control rooms. The show was recorded and shown in colour in the US and in b/w in the UK. Three colour cameras were used alongside the normal four b/w studio cameras. Sounds like a director's nightmare to me!
The studio is very well equipped for making big showbiz spectaculars. It has a permanent seating area with comfortable plush audience seats. This 'auditorium' was constructed along one of the long walls of the studio around 1968 at the same time as the central technical area. The width of the seating block is 70 ft, making it the same size as a standard studio audience with about 350 seats, but of course it doesn't take up any valuable floor area. I'm told that sound supervisors like the fact that the audience is somewhat boxed in like this as it enables a better separation of live sound and audience reaction. Astonishingly, audiences did not use the seating from 1993 to 2010 - the chairs simply gathered dust hidden behind a black drape, smelling of rats - or so I'm reliably informed. This area was previously occupied by a plasterers' workshop as Richard Greenough recalls...
The studio also has a groundrow trough sunk into the floor enabling a cyclorama to be lit with an invisible join between it and the floor. This facility is not available now in any other studio. (The abandoned TC9 at TV Centre was going to have one and the only other example in the UK is in Studio 7 in the old Central Studios in Nottingham - now part of the local university but kept as a 4-waller studio.) There was also a counterweight flying system installed but that has not worked for many years. Jim Henson's Muppeteers arrived in 1975 from New York to make their first series and stayed for about 6 years. According to staff who worked there at the time they were very happy days for everyone; a family atmosphere existed throughout the studio site. The Muppet workshop was established in the equipment store area under the seats and it extended to the area around this area which is now used as a green room, editing suits, a seating area and a small kitchen. Very rarely did the Muppets leave D, on occasions they migrated to B or C for logistical reasons but D was their home, where audiences were treated to sketches and large production numbers featuring big name guests - a different one every week. The show might use a live orchestra and if so, they'd be out of sight in the Music Studio (now studio E) with Jack Parnell in charge. Typical guests included Bob Hope, Elton John and Raquel Welch.
ATV initially equipped D with Pye Mk V image orthicon cameras. Towards the end of the '60s a few programmes were made in colour using an OB unit but in 1969 the studio was equipped with its own EMI 2001s. In the mid 1970s these were replaced with dual-standard Philips LDK 25s. Apparently, the US channels preferred their pictures, finding the EMIs too cool and desaturated. The EMIs were moved across to studio B, to replace its old PC60s. In researching this website I have discovered that towards the end of the '60s most TV companies seem to have explored the possibility of making programmes on colour film using combined film and TV cameras. It seems that ATV were no exception. Guy Caplin has sent me this...
Somebody else has also written to inform me that the 35mm cameras used for this experiment were borrowed from Gerry Anderson's Slough studios where he made Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet. And you thought those series were filmed on little miniature cameras.
The last show made in D before the BBC arrived was Family Fortunes, on 29th July 1983. After that, the whole site was left in the care of a handful of maintenance workers until a buyer could be found. The BBC took over the site at the beginning of 1984 and Ian Dow has sent me some recollections of how he found studio D.
For the first four years of BBC ownership Studio D was used as a training studio using the old LDK 25s ATV had left behind. Dave Buckley worked with the Television Training Dept and he recalls his early days at Elstree:
For those who don't realise - this use of 'applause' signs was never found in the BBC where audiences were and are encouraged to clap by the floor manager waving his or her arms about. To my knowledge it has not been used in the UK for many years and even then was probably only used by ATV. (Unless you know different!) Dave doesn't recall things being left in quite the same working order as Ian Dow does...
The first broadcast BBC show to use Studio D was 'Allo ''Allo in 1988. This popular programme had been given a unique commission in the history of BBC sitcoms. No less than 26 episodes were ordered in one series. Previously the show had been recorded at TV Centre in the usual 6 week runs. However, there were hopes of selling it to a US network so the set took residence in studio D for several months. Since the old ATV Philips cameras were well past it and the mixer only half worked a GVG 100 vision mixer was installed and the 18 year old EMI 2001s from TC3 were brought to the studio for the last few months of their working lives. The village square was built as a semi-permanent set in the end of the garage building - the space that in future years would become Stage 1 for EastEnders. In the summer of 1989 the studio's sound desk was replaced with a Calrec M series - the previous 20 year old Neve desk was sent to the film and TV museum in Bradford. The sound gallery itself was extensively rebuilt. According to the BBC Engineering department's quarterly magazine 'Eng-Inf', Thomson 1531 cameras were also installed. Going For Gold was in the studio from September of that year. The show itself ran from 1987 to 1996 - it was first made at TV Centre, later moving here to studio D and series 7 - 10 were made in Studio A, BBC Manchester. A few useless Going For Gold facts... The first winner was Daphne Fowler - now of course one of the Eggheads. The title music was written by Hans Zimmer - now a Hollywood film composer with titles like Gladiator to his credit. The opening shot of the show was a wideshot behind the audience but this was always the same shot as there was no audience at each recording apart from the friends and families of the contestants. To record the shot they scoured the Elstree centre to get people from the kitchens, offices, cleaners etc to sit in for 10 mins and the backs of their heads were seen on every show.
The new cameras and improved sound facilities enabled the studio to be used for Opportunity Knocks with Les Dawson which was recorded from March to June in 1990. It followed the three previous series with Bob Monkhouse that had been recorded in TC8. This show utilised all the facilities of the studio - its floor size and separate audience seating proving ideal for a big Saturday night show. I was console op on this show - the last few were lit by me when Dickie Higham, the LD, gave me the opportunity to see what mess I could make of it. (This kind of training never happens now sadly.) The studio had also shown how suitable it was for comedy and between 1990 and 1993 it was used to record You Rang M'Lord? - a spinoff from Are You Being Served set in a stately home and made with very high production values more akin to drama than the typical sitcom of the day. As a contrast, in 1993 and 1994 studio D was the home of Hanger 17 - a kids music and variety show. 1993 also saw children's gameshow Incredible Games being made not only in D but also occupying A and B. An unknown David Walliams was the voice of the lift in this series. I kid you not. The second series was made at Shepperton. Jim Davidson's snooker gameshow Big Break was made here from 1991 before moving to TC1 at TV Centre. Martin Kisner, the LD on Big Break, has informed me that the final edition recorded in D was on 16th November 1993. This was probably the last time an audience sat in the seating - until 2010. In 1994 EastEnders went to three episodes a week and studio D was required in addition to Stage 1. I was LD on EastEnders at the time and had the dubious honour of lighting the first scenes recorded in this studio. According to my diary, I lit the sets on 18th March and we recorded on 19th. The programme had to record on different days from TOTP as the noise penetrated from C next door. EastEnders' own Ikegami HL 79s were used during this period. In 2001 EastEnders moved back to C. Studio D was put on a five year hire contract to BBC Children's department. In 2002 the studio was given a much-needed digital widescreen refurbishment and equipped with four LDK-100s. In 2004 VR 'targets' were installed in the grid and the children's virtual reality gameshow Bamzooki was made here, as was at least one series of SMart and several series for the CBeebies channel like Tikkabilla. Around 2005 the studio was hired out as a 4-waller to a production company making a single-camera children's drama. Often, however, during the five years of Children's TV use, studio D was empty for long periods between productions and 'mothballing' it was seriously considered.
The contract with BBC Children's department ended early in 2006 and the studio became available to be hired by any production company for all kinds of programmes. It was a while before production companies cottoned on to what a superb studio this is and frankly it was very poorly marketed by BBC Resources. (Things have since improved.) The amount of useable floor available is similar to studio 1 at TLS and greater than TC1 with its full audience seating pulled out. Meanwhile, for sitcoms there is much more space available for sets than in - say - TC8 at TV Centre, studio 1 at Teddington, or TV2 at Pinewood. In the middle of June 2006 I was lucky enough to light the first show in the studio since its 'reopening'. It was a gameshow pilot for ITV1 on a huge scale - also using studio E. Sadly, a series was not commissioned but I understand that a panel game series was recorded in the late summer of 2006. One or two other shows used the studio but none making use of the audience seating for the next few years. A children's drama was using the studio for several weeks early in 2007. In 2009 the studio made its first HD multicamera programme - using hired in 'flyaway' kit. It was the Children's series Relic - Guardians of the Museum. Some of the series was shot on location but the games and chromakey sequences were recorded here. Thirteen 30-minute episodes were made over two weeks.
Finally, some sense prevailed. BBC Studios and Post Production (S&PP), who manage the studios here, discovered rather late in the day that they had a superb studio sitting here doing very little. The studio is being marketed more aggressively now and in 2010 won a very interesting booking. It was a show called Odd One In - a new gameshow transmitted on Saturday nights on ITV1. It featured a large studio audience so the seating block was at last brought back into use. Not only that, but some serious money was spent. The musty old brown chairs were replaced with smart new red ones and the walls of the 'auditorium' were painted black. For this show there was also seating on the studio floor and on camera it looked huge - bearing comparison with Studio 1 at TLS. The sound desk too was replaced with a Studer Vista 5 and 'key customer areas were refreshed.' These included production gallery, dressing rooms and green room. In 2010 the studio was also used as a 4-waller for Sadie J and Rock and Chips. The follow-spot gantry across the front of the audience seating was removed at the end of 2010, opening it all up and improving sight lines and camera shots of the audience. Further bookings followed. 2011 saw A League of Their Own for Sky 1 in HD, Show Me Show Me for CBeebies, another series of Odd One In for ITV in HD and the return of Sadie J.
On this website I have banged on rather boringly for several years that this studio is ideally suited to making sitcoms. Well, fancy that - in April 2012 I was asked to light a new sitcom pilot here - for ITV1 as it happens. (Lew Grade would approve I'm sure.) The show was a great success and whether it is commissioned or not I think my point was proven. Three big sets were spread across in front of the studio audience with loads of space behind to build more if the script had needed them. In fact, I can't think of any sitcom I have lit where there has been so much space around the sets. Fingers crossed this is the first of many comedies in this studio. Early in 2012 it became apparent that when TV Centre is closed for reconstruction - officially in April 2013 but likely to be many months later - studio D will be one of several studios in London that are intended to hold the fort while the builders are busy at the Centre. The galleries will be refurbished - production and lighting swapping over - and a permanent HD installation will be carried out, using cameras and equipment from TV Centre. Probably from TC8 which is the only studio at the Centre that will definitely close in the long term. It is even possible (watch this space) that TC8's motorised lighting bars might be moved here. Whatever happens, for a couple of years or so, this studio is likely to be very busy indeed!
Studio E During ATV's days at Elstree this space was used as the band room for Studio D so was constructed in 1968/9 as part of the audience seating/central technical area development. It has a heavy, soundproof door leading into the corner of D and also access to the covered roadway between the studios. It is about 30 ft square with a relatively low ceiling. It was originally L-shaped with the extra section separated by a partition. This was used as a booth for vocalists and backing singers. The floor had a number of troughs criss-crossing it that enabled microphone cables to be laid round the room without creating too much of a trip hazard. This was all covered by a very basic vinyl floor when it became a TV training studio. When the BBC first moved into Elstree in 1984 the Television Training Department moved to the site from their very cramped facilities at Woodstock Grove in Shepherds Bush. For the first two years or so they used studio D but then E was converted into a fully equipped TV studio. The lighting grid uses short bars that slide on runners giving a surprisingly good degree of flexibility - although not much height! The original vocalists booth was converted into a combined production and sound gallery. Much of the studio equipment was brought to Elstree from the old studios in Woodstock Grove. Dave Buckley helped to fit out the studio... 'While Studio E was being built, Television Training's handyman had to sort out the cyc cloth. To take the creases out of it, he hung it from a spare cyc track in Studio D. We all had a laugh as the cloth was not more than 15 feet in height and against D's full size cloth, it looked like a pelmet.' As well as training the television directors of the future, the studio was on rare occasions used to make some 'real' programmes... '...the first time being in 1987 when Cecil Parkinson MP was interviewed down the line during the General Election programme. (In addition, the studio also took part in the two rehearsals on the Sunday/Monday evenings prior to election day). The other times were for Newsroom South East when their studio wasn't large enough for the item concerned. (When the NSE studio was being refurbished, they moved their cameras into Studio E and presented the programme from there. However, the overall programme was still controlled from NSE gallery in CTA). The studio was also used for a number of pilot programmes.' In 2001 the studio and control room became part of the BBC Children's Department 'production village.' James Taylor has written to me with his experience of this period... We used it for the very last series of Short Change (children's consumer affairs programme like Watchdog) as a 4 waller. It was the summer of 2005 and with the lights and low ceiling it was ridiculously hot to work in! We had it kitted out a bit like a cool attic in a converted warehouse with funky Ikea furnature and fake bricks on the wall and a wood-effect lino floor. The show had previously been filmed in the Short Change office in East Tower, but producers wanted a change - we ended up with Studio E at Elstree because it came as part of the long-term CBBC lease on Studio D, hence much to the delight of the penny pinchers, we effectively got it for free. I had the experience of working in there in 2006, making a gameshow pilot with Jerry Springer that used both D and E. I can certainly vouch for the inefficiency of the air conditioning! At some time during the CBBC occupation, the control room was converted into an off-line editing suite, which it still is. The studio is thus now only a 4-waller but holes have been punched through the wall enabling cables to pass to studio D. Thus, it is possible to use the studio as an annexe of D - or even stand alone using D's galleries if need be. EastEnders occasionally uses the studio to build a set when they run out of space in the four studios they normally occupy. On these occasions they treat it as a location and shoot using Betaback cameras.
Studio M This was a large music studio situated alongside studio C. It was capable of accommodating a full concert orchestra and had its own control room with mixing and recording facilities. It was also connected to the sound desks in all four studios so could work as a band room. When the BBC moved in it was simply used for storage for a few years but TOTP producer Chris Cowie brought it back into action during the late '90s as an overflow from studio C. The studio was dressed as a fairly grungy sort of bar - with sofas and odd-looking chairs and it became an interview area for brief chats with the stars on the show. It was connected by a small soundproof door and often the DJ would go through the door on camera and discover the members of the other acts lounging around in the 'bar.' When the programme moved back to TV Centre they insisted that they had a similar arrangement so the red assembly area was transformed into the 'Star Bar.' Studio M is now part of Holby City's empire.
Stage 1 This space was originally part of a huge warehouse, used for scenery storage, workshops and an OB garage by ATV. The building itself is very long (444 ft) and stretches across almost the whole Elstree site, divided into several internal areas, some about 100 feet long or more. Although it was designed as a workshop and storage space it would later become the location for many thousands of hours of prime-time programme making. ATV used part of it as a 'studio' between 1963 and 1965. David Petrie wrote to me and explained how... One of the better home-grown British dramas of the 60s was ATV's The Plane Makers which told of the life-&-death struggle in the fictitious Scott Furlong aircraft factory. Created by Wilfred Greatorex, the series was built around the late Patrick Wymark as John Wilder - the company's bullying managing director. Wymark was a gentle man in real life. His wife once said that he was "the most inefficient, dreamy muddler in the world". Not a ruthless and dynamic tycoon then. Wymark himself confessed that he disliked Wilder, calling him "a bastard". His 12 year old daughter Jane was also unimpressed, claiming the series was boring and adding "I'd rather listen to The Beatles". The plane featured in the series was the 'Sovereign'. Viewers wanted to buy it but inside the 5½ ton aircraft was just scaffolding - no engines, no controls and no room for seats. The only time it ever "flew" was when it was once towed across Hendon aerodrome in a high wind. It got three feet off the ground and nearly landed on the jeep that was towing it. After 50 episodes about management and union disputes, ATV boss Lew Grade agreed with Jane Wymark that The Plane Makers was boring. "Who wants machinery and the noise of a factory when they get home at night? 'Move out of there' I said". So the action switched entirely to the boardroom, where it improved further as The Power Game in 1965.
Within a few years of the BBC's arrival, they too began to use the workshop building for more creative purposes: At the end of the building nearest the main gate, the cafe set for Grange Hill was built and used as an on-site location for a number of years. Behind that is a badminton court that was used as a holding area for TOTP audiences. Further along the building is a large space that was turned into a 'prison' for an EastEnders storyline in the late '90s. Back in 1988 the far end of the building was converted into a studio space by constructing an internal Plettac (scaffold) frame which was padded with soundproofing. This was in order to create an area where the village square scenes could be shot for 'Allo 'Allo. No galleries were built but a lighting rig was suspended from the frame and the set built inside. The reason it was not constructed outdoors was because so many night scenes had to be shot for the 26 episode series. In 1991 it was decided to move EastEnders out of C and into a dedicated studio of its own, equipped with Ikegami HL79s. These had to be fitted with Promist filters to try to emulate the gritty 'look' of the old EMI 2001s! The Plettac frame was increased in size, a new roof built and a studio 154 metric feet long by 60 metric feet wide was created. (These dimensions are within the Plettac frame - the fire lane surrounds this and there are several openings in the frame giving access. This is, incidentally, a greater working floor area than TC1.) A resin floor was installed and a suite of small control rooms built alongside on the ground floor. Beside the studio in the area where the ATV OB scanners used to park a new prefabricated block was constructed containing dressing rooms and green rooms for the cast. This building sits between Stage 1 and the Lot so much time was saved in getting actors to and from sets. The control rooms were originally used when shooting on Stage 1 and after a year or two also on the Lot - cables and weatherproof boxes were installed all round Albert Square enabling cameras and sound leads to be plugged where convenient. (Around 2000 another control room suite was built on the Lot so that both areas could be used simultaneously, but the Stage 1 control room is still used in preference.) The lighting rig on Stage 1 hangs on drop arms from the simple scaffold grid and lamps have to be rigged and derigged via ladders. This has always been very slow but fortunately the studio has a number of permanent sets in it including the Vic, the launderette, the cafe and for the first few years, the Fowlers' house. About a third of the studio has sets that come and go from time to time depending on the changing storyline.
The Lot: Amongst London's television studio centres, BBC Elstree is unique in having a large back lot. For the past twenty-five years this has been occupied with the exterior set for EastEnders. Three sides of Albert Square were the first part of the set to be built and as it was assumed that it would only be there for a couple of years it was not built to last. The steel frames of the houses are of course very solid but the facing was only plywood and plaster and after a few years this all had to be refurbished. The set was extended in several phases until by the end of the nineties it included the tube station, fish and chip shop and other shops/restaurants that have changed hands in the story over the years. The site is now effectively full so it is unlikely that any more construction will take place. Most of the buildings are simply facings with no rooms inside. This has made shooting scenes in front doorways very tricky! Scenes in the cafe are usually shot in Stage 1 but in the late nineties the set on the lot was rebuilt so that in theory it could be used for shooting interiors. Matching the look of the two sets proved to be the nightmare everyone had said it would be so it has rarely been used this way. The garage under the railway arch is on the lot as is the fish and chip shop, the community centre and one or two other shops/restaurants but most interiors are shot in one of the studios.
Walking round the Albert Square set is an impressive experience. The railway bridges are very realistic but of course the only trains ever seen on screen are added later as a CGI effect. (This has happened on only a handful of occasions, as it is of course very costly and hardly crucial to the storyline.) The buildings are all very convincing and the sheer size of the site is astonishing. The only thing not quite right is the width of the roads and of course the lack of traffic. (It is perhaps worth noting that the Lot is not open to the public. Tours are not available and security is very tight!) Originally a small van known as a 'Studio Insert Unit' was employed as a 2-camera control vehicle when shooting on the Lot. This was also used for location work off-site for a number of years. The van was incredibly cramped. For shooting, the driver's seat was reversed and small uncomfortable chairs were crammed in the tiny cab to provide space for director, PA, vision mixer, sound supervisor and racks engineer. The legs of the three behind wrapped round the two sitting in front. It had to look as little like an OB vehicle as possible. The BBC's outside broadcast department were known to be very suspicious of any vehicle resembling an OB scanner taking what they considered was their work away from them. However, the EastEnders production department were insistent that they should use the same studio crew for the Lot and location work so this was the way round this little political problem. A second SIU van was constructed a few years later - ostensibly for use on the location work on 'Allo 'Allo but it saw use on several other comedy and drama series subsequently - much to the chagrin of the OB department at Acton. Both Studio Insert Units were garaged at Elstree and because of their sensitivity were never officially mentioned or referred to except by those in the know!
Interestingly, Albert Square is not the first East End set to be built on the lot. In 1969 ATV made a drama series that they hoped would run and run called Market in Honey Lane. A cobbled street was constructed but the show did not catch on after all and only six were made. The cobbled street was rebuilt in 1974 to become Victorian Stoke-on-Trent potteries for Clayhanger. These roads and buildings were converted into sixteenth century London Streets for the six part major drama Will Shakespeare in 1976. For this big-budget series a complete Shakespearean theatre was also constructed which was adapted to become the various theatres he worked in during his career. Finally, in 1983 the lot became the building site in Auf Wiedersehen Pet. The remains of this set were still there when the BBC moved in. Eagle-eyed viewers of old repeats will have noticed that Albert Square shares the same skyline as a construction site in a distant German town!
The ATV film department Glen Cardno was an assistant editor at ATV Elstree and has written to me quite rightly pointing out that the studios were also the base for ATV's film department. It was responsible for many award-winning network documentaries during the ATV years. Although the documentary head office was in in Portman Square and then Charlotte St W1, the editing block was situated opposite the canteen at Elstree. Award-winning documentaries by Ken Loach, Tony Snowden, Antony Thomas, Denis Mitchell and Norman Swallow were made here. ITV won its first Golden Rose for The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine and that was edited here, as well as the exterior inserts for many studio-recorded plays and comedies in the years before lightweight video cameras replaced film for that kind of work.
postscript: During the nineties I spent many months at Elstree working on EastEnders, TOTP and briefly, Grange Hill. In my experience it was a very pleasant and relaxed environment. Even the air is fresher than in Shepherds Bush. (Actually, too fresh at times. Albert Square in January has its own microclimate and I know for a fact that it is the coldest spot on the planet!) Elstree was - and still is - a very busy studio centre with an atmosphere quite different from TV Centre. In the 1990s the management at TVC always seemed to view it with varying amounts of confusion or indeed suspicion. It was - shall we say - misunderstood. With the exception of Studio A and Stage 1, for many of the early years it never got the proper investment in equipment it deserved, and relied upon the dedication and good will of the staff based there to make it all work. During the mid nineties there were plans to sell it all off, then to sell only a part of the site - with an infamous blue line being drawn on plans down the middle. As the practicality of this was investigated the line moved further and further until sense prevailed and the idea was quietly dropped. To be fair, in recent years the studios have received quite a bit of investment. Unfortunately, the lighting grids in B, C and D are still very slow to operate but the control room suites in A and D are well-equipped and are of course now HD. ATV/Central were making programmes here from November 1960 - July 1983. The BBC took over in Jan 1984 and therefore have now been at Elstree for an even longer time. Interestingly, for many years the BBC Studios website made no mention of Elstree, all the information related to TV Centre. However, from summer 2010 Studio D has been marketed more strongly and with its brand new audience seating is now a very attractive venue for set-standing gameshows or sitcoms. post postscript re Channel 5 at Elstree (shock horror!): Mike Emery has sent me a couple of very interesting documents. One consists of a written application from Channel Five Holdings to the ITC to take over the franchise for the proposed Channel 5 and the other is a plan of an area within the BBC Elstree Centre that the company intended to occupy. In November 1994 an invitation was announced by the ITC, hoping to attract some takers to run the new Channel 5 and there were several applicants who met the deadline of May 1995. These included Virgin, UKTV, New Century Television and Channel 5 Holdings Ltd - who won. (Which begs the question - if they won, why did they not move into Elstree?) The document and plan shown below indicate that Channel 5 Holdings were hoping to occupy most of the Central Technical Area as well as taking over the studio that was currently housing Newsroom South-East. They also, it seems, intended to occupy three floors of Neptune House. The document includes the following paragraph... 'The centre will contain a dedicated studio (Studio 1) with a useable floor area of 964 sq ft capable of fulfilling all presentation and promotion commitments, together with any live current affairs or other production if required. A small single camera studio, (Studio 2) with a floor area of 310 sq ft will also be available to the presentation control room. We will also have access whenever required (my emphasis) to a 5,795 sq ft studio adjacent to our own premises. This studio is indicated as Studio D on the plan. A number of other large studios on the site are available for hire as required when studio D is in use.' As a BBC staffer I had absolutely no idea that this was in the wind, even though I was working regularly at Elstree on EastEnders and Top of the Pops at the time. I wonder how many of the Newsroom South-East people knew about it. That programme occupied their studio at Elstree from 1989 - 2001 so they would certainly have been affected. One wonders in fact just how many people actually knew that the BBC were planning to sell off part of one of their studio centres to a rival broadcaster. I do remember that around that time there were rumours of part of the site being disposed of but none of us suspected that it would be to C5. Extraordinary! Can you shed any more light on this? In particular, why did Five not move into Elstree after all???
Note that as well as taking over studio D, this applicant for C5 apparently planned to occupy 'studio 1' in the bottom right of this plan, a small 'studio 2' in the CTA and, it would appear, move into three floors of offices. Imagine if it had happened. Actually - it might have been a very good thing! At least the excellent studio D might have seen some proper use over the past decade. click on the plan to see it in higher resolution
Final postscript...the end of BBC Elstree? Not quite yet. During the summer and autumn of 2007 stories began to circulate that the BBC was seriously considering selling Elstree to developers. These were not just rumours but were supported by articles in the Metro and the Sun, no less. The story was that most of the site was to become housing but the old Fairbanks building would have to be retained as it is listed. This unfortunately came as no surprise, since following a disappointing licence settlement the BBC had to find several millions to pay for all its plans. This, it seems, coincided with a need for EastEnders to replace much of its technical equipment which was worn out after many years of continual use. The programme also planned to move into High Definition and to a system of tapeless recording and post production. In addition, the exterior Albert Square set on the lot was apparently in urgent need of refurbishment. It seems that a choice had to be made either to spend a great deal of money on new sets and new HD equipment and stay at Elstree, or to do the same and move elsewhere. Since the first option would only cost money but the second would also raise money from the sale of the site it is not surprising that the latter was looking quite attractive. However, the cost of rebuilding Albert Square and renting new studio space over the coming years would also have to come into the equation so it was not quite that simple a sum. The timescale was not said to be immediate but possibly within the following two years. Setting up a new base and reconstructing Albert Square would itself take about a year. Pinewood was said to be the most likely option - there is plenty of space on site for constructing a new exterior set and three existing stages would be converted into TV studios to take the interior sets. I became aware that discussions were indeed taking place with Pinewood in the autumn of 2007 and the various options costed up. Regarding Holby City, the plan apparently was for this to move to Cardiff to join Casualty which transferred there from Bristol in 2011. These stories re-appeared in national newspapers in February 2008. However, an article in Ariel, the BBC's staff newspaper (19.02.08), attempted to clarify the situation. The official line was that EastEnders and Holby City 'are not about to be relocated.' The paper stated that 'it is likely to be at least another year before final plans are known.' Zaril Patel, group finance director, was quoted as saying...
So - maybe eventually - but not yet. In fact, in March 2010 new Sony HSC-300 HD cameras were ordered. These have allowed EastEnders to move over to tapeless HD production. Interestingly, they use triax cables - enabling the existing infrastructure between control galleries and the Lot to be retained as well as the cabling within the studios themselves. Most significantly, a new five-year resources contract was signed by the production with BBC Studios and Post Production. This suggests that Elstree will remain the home of the programme until at least 2015. Perhaps with this date in mind, Studio D was refurbished in the summer of 2010 with new audience seating and smartened up galleries, dressing rooms and green room. An interesting story emerged in September 2011. It was reported that the BBC had for months been in secret negotiation with the Olympic Park Legacy Company over taking over the Olympic Media Centre after the games. This, it was said, would have included moving EastEnders there from Elstree. However, the BBC said that they could not commit to that site in the medium term and that there were no plans to relocate any time soon. So what will happen to Elstree and for that matter EastEnders and Holby City after 2015 remains a mystery. My guess - but don't quote me - is that Elstree is safe for a number of years yet.
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Before leaving ATV I must make a brief mention of Foley Street. I have been contacted by several people - all somewhat miffed that originally I hadn't included Foley Street in this history. The main reason was because I have tried to limit it to medium to large studios. However, it seems that the studio punched well above its weight and produced a significant output - not just continuity announcements.
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plan thanks to Richard Greenough |
Foley Street opened in 1955 and its studio made its first programme on 24th September. It was ATV's playout centre. The building was called 'Britallian House.' There was indeed a small studio here which was originally intended to be used for continuity. One source states that the studio was only 23 x 25 ft but Richard Greenough has a plan (see above) that shows its size as being 37 x 27 ft, which is not exactly tiny, although it certainly had very limited headroom. It opened with two Pye Image Orthicon cameras plus a spare and 20kW of lighting on 24th September 1955. The building was a central hub of switching between studios and contained several telecine machines manufactured by EMI and Pye enabling films of various gauges to be shown. The following from a 1957 edition of 'Practical Television' is an example of how Foley Street operated:
Here, for instance, is the control which enabled Granada's "My Wildest Dream" to be televised from the stage at Hackney, via Highbury, Foley Street and the Museum Telephone Exchange, up to AR-TV at Wembley, where it was telerecorded. The tele-recorded film was later put out at various l.T.A. stations at different times.
What is particularly interesting about the above is the level of cooperation between the different companies. For this one programme - Granada, ATV and Associated-Rediffusion all seem to have been involved in various ways.
Paul Faraday has sent me an interesting recollection of the studio...
'When we started there it was only two cameras - The 'Jack Jackson Show' was done there, how I don't know as they had dancers! After a while they removed a wall into a corridor, making the studio wider by three feet and installed a third camera. When video recording arrived there was no room in Foley Street so the machines were installed in a building around the corner in Ogle Street. We were told that our Advertising Magazine was the first programme to be video recorded by ATV and as there was no playback available in the Foley Street control room we all trouped round to Ogle Street to view a playback but the men in white coats wouldn't let us in - they said it was a 'clean area' and nobody else was allowed in there!!'
Veteran lighting director Bill Lee has sent me his recollection of a visit to this studio...
'I was an enthusiastic admirer of the 'Jack Jackson Show' you mention and was astonished to find, when I had reason to visit Foley Street one day when it was in rehearsal, that it came from such a small studio of such limited space, as they continually found ways to give the impression of it taking place in a major production centre.'
Guy Caplin has also informed me that this studio produced a live Saturday night horror serial in the late '50s.
Foley Street was closed in 1968 when ATV lost its London weekend franchise although the studio made its last programme quite a bit earlier on 5th June 1962.
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Foley Street master control in 1966 |
I wrote earlier that of the four big ITV companies that provided network shows when ITV began, three had their main studios in London with the fourth - Granada - building a brand new TV centre in Quay St, Manchester. This is partly true, and the first studio in the Granada centre opened on 3rd May 1956. (The same year the foundation stone of the main block at BBC TV Centre was laid.) By 1958 they had five studios open including studio 12, which is still one of the largest in the country at 98 x 70 ft within firelanes. (This is the studio regularly used today for Stars in their Eyes.) The head of Granada, Sidney Bernstein, decided to number his studios with even numbers only, to give the impression that they had twice the actual number. Thus, in Manchester were studios 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12. So where was studio 10? Studio 10 was in London and was actually a theatre known as the Chelsea Palace in the King's Road.
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For once, this building was not designed by Frank Matcham but by the architectural practice of Wylson and Long. It had opened in 1903 and was a very successful variety theatre in its day. It had a large auditorium - one source states a capacity of 1624, another 'about 2500'. It fell under the ownership of Granada Theatres in 1951 when the company that ran it came under the control of Bernstein. Granada was of course a cinema chain - however, the Palace was never converted into a cinema but remained as a theatre for a few years. In August 1957 Granada decided that they had to have a London studio to stage the acts that would not make the journey to Manchester, so conversion began for TV use. Granada used it for shows such as The Army Game and, perhaps surprisingly, some advertising magazine programmes or 'admags.' However, it was best known for its popular variety show - Chelsea at Nine. A typical early programme from Chelsea included Yehudi Menuhin, Charles Laughton, Zsa Zsa Gabor, a skiffle group, vent act Edgar Bergen and 'Charlie McCarthy', choristers, chorus and a ballet. Whew! Sounds like they got their money's worth in those days. Several one-off spectaculars were made here including a concert in 1963 featuring the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Incidentally, Dennis Weinreich has informed me that Edgar Bergen was Candice Bergen's father (fancy that) and that he and his puppet Charlie were a very successful radio act between 1937 and 1956. And you thought that Peter Brough and Archie Andrews had it all to themselves. It seems that some plays were also made here. (Not an ideal studio acoustically for drama I would have thought.) The picture below shows The Iceman Cometh in rehearsal and was sent to me by sound man Michael Harrison.
The Chelsea Palace stage had an area of 2373 sq ft and was extended forward over the original orchestra pit and first few rows and to the back of the stalls on camera left. This additional area of 820 sq ft was to allow space for cameras to track in front of the performers. The audience was thus restricted to dress circle and gallery, giving a total capacity of 669.
The lighting arrangements were extensively changed. As a music hall, the total lighting load was 50 kW. This was increased to 150 kW. with 20 kW available in direct current for arcs. The old liquid dimmer pot switchboard was superseded by a Strand Grand Master switchboard and a saturable reactor dimmer board. This gave a total of 60 dimmable circuits. The lights used were almost wholly Mole Richardson incandescent units - mostly 2Ks, scoops and 4-lights, from looking at these photos. Pye 3in. Image Orthicon cameras were used at first, three being operational and one spare, with a fifth retained for maintenance rota. (Following a refurb, probably in 1959, the cameras were replaced with Marconi Mk IIIs.) Houston pedestal camera dollies and a camera crane were used. Sound channels were by Pye, with an assortment of different types of moving coil and ribbon microphones of various makes. There was no telecine or slide equipment. A high quality cable route was utilised to the Museum Telephone Exchange, for connecting vision, sound and control circuits with Granada's Manchester headquarters and also the lTA network.
There was a permanent staff of 70 at the Chelsea Palace. Sydney Berstein is said to have taken a close interest in the appearance of the studio - insisting that it looked 'spick and span' at all times. A report in the February 1958 edition of 'Practical Television' describes a visit by its reporter. He is most impressed by the 'smart grey-shirted uniforms of the camera and floor crews.' However, David Hounsell has written to me and denied all knowledge of this! He worked there between 1958 and 1963 so he should know. The photos above certainly seem to confirm this. Maybe the crew uniforms only lasted a few days from when it opened or more likely it was just the ushers and usherettes who had to dress up. However, one of Bernstein's ideas I have had confirmed was that each member of the studio audience was presented with a stick of peppermint rock after each show. Naturally, it had the word 'Granada' running through it. The studio was in operation until the mid '60s. When Granada left the site it was sold to developers who built a Heal's furniture store.
Incidentally - there was a period of about six weeks, probably in 1959, when I am told that Granada moved its London operation to the Metropolitan Theatre in Edgware. This was to enable a technical refit and the reconstruction of the control rooms to take place at the Palace. (Six weeks is an astonishingly short time for such major work to take place!) The Met was originally a music hall, opening in 1862 but extensively reworked by Frank Matcham in 1897 with a capacity of 1,855. It survived until April 1963, when it was demolished to make way for a road scheme. The interior can be seen during a scene in the classic Ealing film The Blue Lamp.
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Back with the ITV story... big changes happened in 1968 when the Independent Television Authority (ITA) renewed the franchises. The midlands were now to have ATV all week and in the north Granada would also broadcast every day. Thus ABC Television lost both its franchises. The north region was split into east and west and Yorkshire TV began to broadcast from Leeds with Granada looking after the north west from Manchester.
ATV lost its weekend London franchise but decided to stay on at Elstree, making many big entertainment shows there for ITV and under the entrepreneurship of Lew Grade exporting many to the USA. They also changed their name to 'ATV Network'.
London Weekend Television was the new company in town. ATV had been thought to be going a bit downmarket by the ITA, and LWT were seen as being likely to be more highbrow and produce better quality programmes. Fancy that.
Surprisingly to many people, particularly themselves, Rediffusion (they had dropped the 'Associated' in 1964) lost its London weekday franchise. Rediffusion were not only very upset at losing it, they were forced into a merger with ABC to create Thames but with only a 49% stake, so were the underdogs in the partnership. They were thus hardly in the mood to be cooperative regarding handing over their studios. There was a period of several months after the announcement when they seemed to be reluctant to dispose of their Wembley studios to LWT, who were desperate for somewhere to make programmes in the short term. There were ugly words exchanged in the press with LWT blaming Rediffusion for being difficult. However, others claimed that this was all a smokescreen and it was LWT who were being slow in deciding where to go. Insiders suggested that they really wanted Teddington (and ABC's staff) - but there was no way that ABC would give all that up. Eventually the ITA banged heads together and LWT moved into Wembley. It was only to be a short term occupancy anyway. They always planned to create a purpose-built centre of their own and as soon as it was ready they would be off.
Thus LWT leased the Wembley studios from Rediffusion, moving in on 6th May 1968 - less than three months before they began broadcasting. Meanwhile, plans progressed for their new studios on the South Bank, next door but one to the site earmarked for the new National Theatre. (The NT opened its first auditorium in 1975.) Many Rediffusion staff stayed on at Wembley and became the core of the new LWT.
The opening night of LWT's broadcast from Wembley did not go well. Within seconds of their first big comedy show beginning, the staff walked out on strike. A strike that was to spread to most of the other ITV companies, giving the BBC a big advantage just when LWT needed to make its mark on weekend television viewing. After a shaky start, which saw a number of senior managers come and go, the company began to establish itself with a mix of popular drama such as Upstairs Downstairs, variety shows starring Tommy Steel, Rolf Harris, Dickie Henderson and Ronnie Barker and successful comedies such as Doctor on the Go, Doctor at Large, Please Sir, The Fenn Street Gang and of course - On the Buses. Several of these series eventually transferred to the new studios on the South Bank. More serious programmes included Aquarius which later became The South Bank Show.
Other programmes made here between 1968 and 1972 included the regular studio debates and current affairs programmes Frost on Friday, Frost on Saturday and Frost on Sunday. David Frost (no, really?) was a key member of the team that set up LWT and his influence over it was crucial to its eventual success.
Peter Middleton recalls that LWT hardy ever used the big studio with the doors open. In fact, he can only remember one occasion - the night of the first moon landing - when the old studio 5 was used as it was originally intended. He recalls Cliff Richard (for it was he) at the far end of the studio and tracking the Mole crane up the studio towards him. He could not believe how long it took to reach him. Some might wonder was it worth the journey but I couldn't possibly comment.
LWT began broadcasting on 30th July 1968, only a relatively short time before the official launch of colour on ITV in November 1969. They therefore found themselves with the huge expense and upheaval of converting the Wembley studios to colour, as they could not wait until 1972 when they would be moving into their new South Bank studios which were designed for colour from the outset.
Four studios were colourised - 1, 2 and 5A & 5B. (LWT renamed 5A and 5B '3' and '4' respectively.) Twelve EMI 2001s were shared between these studios with a further four being installed in an OB unit - which Rediffusion had helpfully ordered for themselves in 1967. Studios 1 and 2 shared four cameras and 3 and 4 had four each. Converting each studio to colour was a massive undertaking which another source states was carried out between January and August 1969. Each studio gallery suite was naturally unavailable for use during the work so another gallery - probably that of studio 4 - was used as a remote operation working in monochrome until each gallery was complete. In fact, the floor of the old studio 4 was used as the control room for World of Sport, which came from studio 2. Hope you're keeping up with all this.
Unfortunately, the conversion to colour did not go smoothly. From November 1970 to February 1971 there was an industrial dispute by ITV technicians relating to working in colour. Thus, programmes made and transmitted during that period were in black and white. Upstairs Downstairs was a victim of this and the glorious sets and costumes were all seen in monochrome for the first six episodes. The first episode was later remade in colour for the export market - rewritten to sum up the plot lines of the other episodes which overseas TV companies refused to buy since they were not in colour.
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The exterior of Wembley studio 5 with the LWT logo painted on it. This would be their home for just four years. This picture was probably taken in 1971. I see the parking situation was as bad then as it is now. |
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The new South Bank Television Centre opened in 1972, equipped with the EMI 2001 colour cameras which had been transferred from Wembley. Studios 1, 2 and 3 had four each, studio 4 had one and there was one spare. They saw several more years of sterling work.
Between 1980 and 1982 The EMIs were replaced with Marconi Mk IXs (not liked by all), then between 1989 and 1991 Hitachi SK-F710s (very nasty pictures in my opinion) and from 1997 Ikegami HK388W (very nice indeed.) Studios 1 and 2 received new Sony 1500 HD cameras during 2009.
The studios are currently marketed as The London Studios and although owned by ITV plc they are rented to many independent production companies. TLS is unusual these days in that almost all of the crews are staff with relatively few freelancers working there.
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The familiar tower seen above was originally known as Kent House. The studio centre built around it was initially called the 'South Bank Television Centre'. In the early 1990s the building was confusingly renamed 'London Television Centre' when LWT Production Facilities was created. However, not long after - apparently in order to attract BBC productions - the studios themselves were marketed as 'The London Studios' thus still ensuring that cab drivers would forever have to ask twice which studios you mean. Although this has been the official name for many years, the studios are still referred to by most people in the industry simply as 'LWT.' (Useless fact number 27b - apparently, at the planning stage, the building was known as 'Kings Reach Studios' and, in support of this, many of the lines carrying signals in and out of the building are prefixed 'KRS'.) However, for the sake of accuracy I shall henceforth refer to the studios as 'TLS'. TLS has two main studios (1 & 2), which are 88 x 67 feet within firelanes. That's real feet - not 'metric feet' which almost every other studio centre uses as a measurement. (In metric feet of 30cm that would be 89.4 x 68. This is about 6 inches shorter and 2 - 4 feet narrower than the similar studios at Television Centre.) Studio 1 has the advantage of a permanent audience seating area extending along one of the long walls of the studio which, when supplemented by pull-out seats, gives an audience of about 600 - a huge advantage over other studios. There is also a medium sized studio (3 ) at 53 x 43 feet alongside on the ground floor. This has often been used for current affairs programmes like Jonathan Dimbleby's show or magazine programmes like Loose Women and Lorraine.
Studio 4 was the original small continuity studio. When LWT began broadcasting they had in-vision announcers like most ITV companies at the time. The only one I remember is Peter Lewis but if you're desperate there's a website somewhere that lists all 23 of them. Steve Jones has contacted me and added three more names to the list - Barry Haynes, Alec Taylor and Pam Rhodes. In down-time, it was also used for 'down the line' political interviews for ITN and by other regional ITVcompanies without studios in London. By the 1990s ITV announcers were only heard, not seen. The studio itself remained for a while and was used for out-of-vision announcements. Duncan Stewart has written to inform me of its fate... 'The original studio 4 was rebuilt into the new LNN Transmission area in 1992. Several years later, just weeks before ITV2 launched, they announced to LNN that they wanted to do two handed in-vision continuity, at this point the new transmission area had been completed and the associated voice over booth built to a fairly lavish standard. The booth couldn’t have been more than 120sq ft. Promptly the booth was stripped, a perimeter of scaff fixed around it and some lights nicked from other departments. There weren’t many widescreen capable cameras around LNN at this time, I recall Sony lent us one to demo (it was later stolen). There were no dimmers, just some hastily run hot power, so you just went in and turned the lights on. Studio 4 was reborn. Over the next few months a proper installation was done with 12 dimmer channels and a selection of “Day” and “Night” cues. It was completed shortly before ITV2 dumped in-vision continituity and it was all removed again. This tiny studio was located within a department known as The Southern Transmission Centre (STC), together with another voice-over studio used for ITV1 continuity. ITV transmitted many ITV regions and 'macro regions' from this building, together with GMTV, ITVs 1, 2, 3 and 4 , CITV & ITV Play. In 2007, this playout operation was outsourced to Technicolor Network Services in Chiswick which is owned by Thomson. (The BBC similarly outsourced its playout operation to Red Bee in 2005.)
Three small to medium sized studios are to be found around the site... Studio 5 in the main tower block is 54 x 42 ft wall to wall. The area the studio occupies was originally intended to be a rehearsal room but it was turned into a studio whilst the building was being completed. In fact, there was another rehearsal room opposite on the same corridor. That room was used as an office for the Planning & Installation department, until it was converted - first into offices and film editing rooms, with a new mezzanine floor being used as a store for the VTR Library - and latterly (upon the arrival of GMTV) into control rooms for studio 5. Before that, studios 3 & 5 shared the same control rooms - on the ground floor! The studio was used from January 1993 to August 2010 by GMTV for their daily breakfast shows - some 17 years. Coincidentally, a previous long-term occupant of studio 5 also 'lived' here for 17 years. This was Dickie Davies' World of Sport which ended in 1985. The programme itself began in 1965 and was originally made by ABC at Teddington - presented by Eamonn Andrews. (Note that it was ABC - not ATV, the London weekend franchise holder.) Dickie Davis became presenter in 1968 when LWT replaced ATV. This must be one of only a handful of programmes that survived the franchise change. The show specialised in the sports that the BBC's Grandstand didn't - including most famously wrestling, introduced by Kent Walton. However, it also covered football: On the Ball - and horse racing: The ITV Seven. Its coverage included minor sports such as women's hockey, netball, lacrosse and some less obvious sports like the World Barrel Jumping Championships (!) and Ice Speedway. Towards the end of its life it showed a great deal of snooker. Incidentally, Bank Holiday Monday editions of the show were Thames' responsibility so came from their Euston studios. Studio 5 was also used for Saturday Scene - after it had moved out of Studio 4 (Presentation), and for Police Five. Some early editions of Night Network were also made in this studio. It was the home of The Saturday Morning Show and The Big Match. When the satellite broadcaster BSB first started, the studio was used to make some programmes for them. These were made in 'component' (a better quality system of encoding the colour information in the picture) and so a special control room was built for the studio in a Portacabin on the 3rd floor roof. The studio is equipped with Philips LDK 200 cameras. These replaced the previous Hitachi SK-F3s in 2003. The Hitachis were installed ready for use by GMTV in 1993. Studio 5 currently has a long-term booking by Al Jazeera television.
Studio 7 is 68 x 40 ft wall to wall and is known as the 'skyline studio' with views over the river through its windows. It was constructed in 1992 to begin operation in January the following year. It was the home of London News Network. This took over from the old Thames News on weeknights and LWT's 6 O'Clock Live and LWT News. LNN was a jointly owned (Carlton/LWT) company set up to provide the local news and a transmission service for both broadcasters; this later became STC. LWT had previously attempted to come to some sort of arrangement with Thames for transmission - LWT's Presentation Suite stood empty for most of the time - but to no avail. So, following the demise of Thames, LWT got together with Carlton - and LNN was born. Studio 7 is unusual at TLS in that it was fitted with Sony cameras. Originally it had Sony BVP-70s but it was re-equipped for widescreen in the late 1990s with five Sony BVP-950s. The lighting grid is a fixed height with luminaires hung on short bars which can track on rails. Thus, it is pretty flexible in how it can be rigged. The studio is in the Podium Block - two floors up from the Studio Cafe. It was a new build - an extension to the original building on the podium's roof and included dressing rooms, make up etc. - all on the 3rd floor. The old first floor canteen was converted into the newsroom. The old servery area of the canteen was converted into Studio 7's control rooms also on the first floor. The very large kitchen area became edit suites and News Exchange. LNN was closed down in 2004 and the local news operation became part of ITN's brief. London's local ITV news now comes from their studios in Gray's Inn Road. It is surprising that following the demise of LNN the studio was not booked more often by productions wishing to capitalise on the view. Studio 7 was often used however by productions as a 'normal' studio using a conventional set and it was regularly used by ITV Sport. In September 2010 it became the home of ITV's new breakfast show Daybreak - its spectacular view not turning out to be quite so visually appealing first thing on a cold autumnal grey morning. Who'd have guessed? The studio was refurbished for the series and the lighting rig replaced almost entirely with LED fittings. As well as producing very little heat, thus keeping the studio cooler, they also enable the LD to adjust the colour of the keylights to cope with the changing colour of the daylight outside. The windows have been coated with a film that can be remotely adjusted so that more or less daylight is seen through the windows, thus helping the lighting balance. This is very important as Daybreak can begin in darkness and - because the studio faces East - the sun is seen to rise behind the presenters during the show.
For a couple of years there was also a small studio (about 200 sq ft) in the same area which LNN called Studio 9. It was converted from a V/O booth in 2002 in connection with ITV's World Cup Coverage. Apparently part of the coverage was coming from Studio 7 and this interfered with the regular news bulletins. It was therefore decided to set up a simple one camera capability to allow the local bulletins to go ahead unhindered. It had a ChromaKey backing and was used occasionally for news headlines. Duncan Stewart has sent me some more info... Studio 9 was indeed another LNN converted voice over booth, with its associated gallery the largest edit suite (Edit 1). The main problem was it was so tiny that you couldn’t even open the door without intruding on shot, however despite this it was used a fair bit and certainly bailed LNN out of impossible situations a number of times. There was one redeeming feature – LNN worked on minimal staffing requirements out of hours and the unmanned studio 7 was two floors above the gallery which involved a lot of running around for the duty engineer – Studio 9 was just behind the gallery which made life much easier! Studio 9 is no longer with us - it was lost when the whole of that area was rebuilt to house the new non-linear (tapeless) edit facilities of ITV Creative.
Studio 8 is 58 x 51 ft wall to wall. It is located in an old warehouse building used for scenery storage in Princes Wharf, situated between the main LWT block and Gabriel's Wharf. Fronting the road is a mock-Tudor building now called 'The Younger's Building' which, not surprisingly, used to be owned by Younger's Brewery, along with the industrial buildings between it and the river. This site was acquired by LWT some time after they moved into their main building. The studio was created in 1996 for the show This Morning with Richard and Judy when they moved to London from their original studio in Liverpool's Albert Dock. They later transferred to C4 with their own show but the ITV series continues to come from this studio. It too has views over the river and its large windows on the first floor can be seen from the riverside embankment walkway that passes outside. You won't see much inside though - the windows are coated in a reflective film. The studio is also occasionally used for other programmes including Champions League. Studio 8 was initally equipped with 5 x Ikegami HK-323P portable 2/3-inch tube cameras transferred from Granada Television's Albert Dock. These lasted for about a year or two when Hitach SK-F710's were moved to it when they became surplus from the 'main' studios (1, 2 & 3). Ikegami HK-388's were installed around 2000/2001.
It is perhaps not that widely known that there was once a studio 10 at LWT. It was built on floor 10 of the main office block during 1988 and was often referred to as the 'tenth floor studio'. Despite its small size it was equipped with five BTS LDK 90 cameras which were later updated by the 91/93 version. This 950 sq ft studio (33ft x 29ft wall to wall with an 8ft grid height) was originally created for a new kind of on-air presentation which, for the first time, exploited the views across London. This was marketed as The Weekend Live and began on 13th January 1989. The idea behind this new presentation style was to consolidate LWTs identity 'as a broadcaster for London, broadcasting from London' (it says here) - and to underline this with a live view of the Thames. Ironically, some might say, to steal the thunder of ITV weekday broadcaster Thames TV, who despite their name only ever showed a stylised photo graphic of the river. Continuity links were moved to this studio for certain parts of the weekend - although apparently not using the usual continuity announcers. Mike Smith, the radio DJ, was one of the new presenters. I'm told that the programme department responsible for 'The Weekend Live' ordered all the technical equipment for the studio themselves without involving the LWT engineering department as they might 'complicate things.' Inevitably, after several disastrous breakdowns on air it was all ripped out and replaced with better kit a few months later and the floor plan of the studio and control rooms was redesigned. Studio 10 was used in 1990 as a call centre for ITV's Telethons, plus some of their other network programmes involving phone-ins. I'm told that it was also used for Cilla Black's Surprise Surprise for some live inserts. The studio became home to Police 5, Crime Monthly, LWT News, 6 O'Clock Live and a range of other local programmes including The Sunday Match. 6 O' Clock Live followed on from the popular 6 O'Clock Show, which had been made in studio 2. It ran from 1990 to the end of 1992 and was presented at various times by Danny Baker, Jeni Barnett, Frank Bough and Joanna Sheldon. When LNN began broadcasting from the new studio 7 in 1993, studio 10 was used less and less. It was never digitised - although it did have some widescreen capability through a sub-mixer. Studio 10 was eventually to become home to Talk TV - one of the early new Granada channels, and later to EuroTransMed which, for many years, broadcast medical discussion programmes to hospitals throughout the world. Channel Four's Business Daily also came from this studio for a while. Studio 10 was converted back into offices around 2002/2003 but its original location can still be seen if you look at the north east corner of the building from outside as the windows it used are a slightly different shape and colour from all the others.
If you are wondering about studio 6 - it is the name of a very pleasant restaurant and bar close by in Gabriels Wharf. No, really.
Naturally I am biassed, but to me the most interesting part of the building is occupied by studios 1-3, which are to be found side by side on the ground floor. The three main studios are very well designed with particularly clever lighting grids. These utilise monopoles but the track system has several crossovers enabling scopes to be quickly moved from track to track. This gives the LD a great deal of flexibility if things change during rehearsals and lamps need to be moved. Rigging, which is done from gantries each side of the studios, is also very quick enabling fast turn-arounds from one show to the next. The much older grids at Teddington are almost as good but do not have crossovers - scopes have to be inserted by hand which can be done but is somewhat slower. At BBC Elstree the grids are very similar to Teddington but do have some crossovers. However, these take much longer to operate because cables have to be unplugged first.
The photo above shows the excellent grid in the three main studios at The London Studios. Lighting tracks are spaced 2 feet apart and between them are tracks for monitors and speakers. Across the studio run three transfer tracks enabling monopoles to be moved easily from one track to another without having to unplug the lamp. This is very clever! A feature of the three main studios is that the gallery suites are all on the ground floor. This is so sensible that it is astonishing that it took so many years for studio architects to realise the fact. Most of the studios built in the following decade or so copied this (Limehouse, Maidstone, HTV Cardiff, Central Nottingham etc.) In fact, when the BBC refurbished TC6 in the mid-nineties they moved its galleries to the ground floor because they knew that they had to compete with LWT for studio hire to independent companies. However, inexplicably, the brand new studios at BBC Glasgow and MediaCity in Salford both have their galleries even higher - at gantry level, two floors up! What were they thinking???!! Certainly, from the point of view of the director and LD - both of whom often have to nip onto the studio floor several times a day, the absence of a long staircase to climb each time is very welcome. It is several decades since it was considered important for the production team to be able to look through a window onto the studio floor. Many existing windows in various studios are now blocked off anyway. It's actually quite surprising to me that back in the '50s and early '60s when so many studios were built it was felt to be essential. The control galleries share a feature with the somewhat older ones at Teddington. They are designed on a 'fan' layout with the desks set on a curve so the director can clearly see every person in his or her own gallery plus those in sound and lighting through large windows. Some of course might say that this is a mixed blessing but I couldn't possibly comment. In my view, in many respects these are possibly the best-designed television studios in the country - although they do have one serious weakness, only having one scene dock door and no direct access to outdoors.
The London Studios, when run by LWT, were famous for a mix of drama, comedy and entertainment. The dramas included such classics as Upstairs, Downstairs - whilst the comedy included popular series such as Please Sir, Mind Your Language, and the various 'Doctor' series. However, they also made more sophisticated series such as The Two of Us with Donald Sinden and Elaine Stritch, A Fine Romance with Judi Dench and Michael Williams and No - Honestly with Pauline Collins and John Alderton. Other notable comedies included Thick as Thieves by Ian La Frenais and Billy Liar by Waterhouse and Hall. It's a shame that in recent years ITV have rather lost their way when it comes to comedy. The last sitcom series made at TLS was Al Murray's Time Gentlemen Please between 2000 and 2002. Perhaps surprisingly, that series was made for Sky One. Prior to that, the last sitcom series was probably Gimme, Gimme, Gimme - and that was made for the BBC in 1999-2001. It's a long time since a sitcom was made here for ITV. I have lit three sitcom pilots here - one was called Sister Frances (2004) and starred Jo Brand, another was called Hibbert and Long (2007) and the third was Above Tbeir Stations (2009) and curiously was made by ITV Studios for BBC 3. Unfortunately none of them was commissioned. Must have been the lighting. Good sitcoms do very well in the ratings and ITV has had much success in the past so it is perhaps surprising that the channel seems to have abandoned this genre for so long. The LWT studios were the home of one of the most original performers in his day - Stanley Baxter. From 1972 he began a relationship with LWT that would last for more than a decade. His later shows were usually an hour long but we had to wait a year for each one! This long wait was usually worth it and his impersonations of various film and television characters were always spot on. Sadly, ITV dropped him from 1982 because his shows were so expensive to make. He was welcomed by the BBC for a year or two but they too discovered how much his shows cost and his last special was made by them in 1986. The studios were the base for Melvyn Bragg's The South Bank Show until the show was axed by ITV in 2009. A particularly poignant edition was the final interview with Dennis Potter in 1994 shortly before his untimely death. Those who worked on the programme still talk of what an extraordinary experience it was - both uplifting and emotionally draining. Perhaps amongst the general public the LWT studios are best known for the many popular entertainment shows that have taken full advantage of the superb facilities in studio 1. In the '70s, LWT's fast moving answer to TOTP was called Supersonic and was famous for its gallery shots of director Mike Mansfield cueing the next act. With its wide double tier of audience seating, studio 1 soon became a familiar sight on our TV screens with shows like An Audience With... and Game for a Laugh - a tradition that has continued with Ant and Dec's Saturday Takeaway, Al Murray's Happy Hour, Comedy Rocks and The Graham Norton Show which is made here for BBC1. For more than thirty years the studio has been producing some of the most popular Saturday night series such as Blind Date, Surprise Surprise, Pop Stars - the Rivals and ITV's version of Parkinson. Studio 1 was given new seating in the summer of 2009 - in a tasteful charcoal grey. I'm afraid I think I preferred the old red seats and carpets personally. Studio 2 was converted to HD with Sony HDC-1500 cameras in the summer of 2009 with Studio 1 receiving its upgrade around Christmas that same year.
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LWT's OB fleet had also been based at Wembley studios (as had Rediffusion's.) In February 1971 they moved to a site not too far away in Stonebridge Park. It had previously been the headquarters of a company called Intertel. This company had owned a couple of OB units and had also built a studio on the site in 1965 that could be serviced by their OB cameras and scanners. Intertel had been around for several years but in September 1970 they merged with TVR to become TVI and shortly after left the site, enabling LWT to move in.
Intertel's staff lighting director, John Burgess, became one of the UK's first freelance LDs - subsequently working at Ewarts Studios amongst other places. Anyway, this studio in Northfields Industrial Estate, Wembley became the property of LWT. It remained in service for another 13 years and was known by LWT staff as Wycombe Road.
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Before looking at the studio itself, it is worth examining the story of Intertel.
Intertel (VTR Services) Ltd. was established in 1962 to service the increasing demand by American television networks and independent producers for electronic production facilities in Europe. They were initially based at a site in Ealing where they parked their scanners and also had a small studio. The Ealing premises were called Plant House and were in Longfield Avenue. Peter Dearing tells me that the place was a bit 'rough and ready.' He remembers Peter Sellers coming to shoot something in the studio and commenting that the building "looks like Steptoe's back yard." Chris Patten recalls...
As mentioned above, at first, the camera and videotape facilities were monochrome, but by 1964 - when the Innsbruck Winter Olympics coverage for ABC TV was undertaken entirely by the Intertel group of companies - the demand was gradually changing to colour. In the UK, only Marconi had produced a working colour camera at this time - the BD848. This had been developed from an earlier RCA design in the US. In fact, Peter Dearing recalls that it was known by Intertel as a TK-41, the RCA reference number. Much had been learned during the BBC's colour experiments at Alexandra Palace from 1955 and later at Lime Grove. The camera in 1964 was still based on image-orthicon tubes but by then was very different from those early models. It now utilised technology developed for the Marconi Mk IV monochrome camera. It was still large and relatively unstable but could produce perfectly acceptable pictures. However - it was clear that the image orthicon tube was not the way of the future for colour TV. Early in 1964, Philips announced its development of the Plumbicon camera tube and later in that year, the design and prototype manufacture of the PC60 camera channel that used three of the new tubes in each camera. Although the PC60 was smaller, lighter, and required only approximately a 50% increase in scene illumination compared to its monochrome counterparts, the reaction by European broadcasters was lukewarm, since colour standards had yet to be agreed upon. Philips themselves were said to be not particularly helpful and were prepared only to forecast a probable delivery of PC60s in mid-summer 1966. This situation placed Intertel in something of a cleft stick - a good 75% of their business came from the US networks and affiliates on the West Coast. If they could not meet the demand for colour programming facilities in Europe, the business would be lost. This left them with no option but to purchase four BD848 cameras from Marconi and to quickly build a scanner to accommodate them. Because of the sheer bulk and weight of the camera control units the front suspension of the vehicle had to be reinforced. The cameras needed a very long warm-up period - Peter Dearing recalls a show made in Maurice Chevalier's house in Paris when he had to go in at 5.00 am to switch them on and sat there on his own for hours surrounded by priceless Renoirs and Picassos. The Marconi cameras would also suddenly leap out of registration, when a sharp blow to a particular capacitor seemed to do the trick. Peter remembers doing this on a live show from the Palladium. Although many of the programme assignments which Intertel subsequently undertook for its American clients were outside broadcasts, winter sports etc., the majority were in fact indoors, and this posed a whole raft of new problems concerning lighting, the like of which neither Intertel, nor for that matter any other television company in Europe, had encountered before. To put the matter in perspective, monochrome 4.5" Image-Orthicon cameras in regular studio usage in the mid 1960s required between 1000 lux to 1500 lux to produce good quality pictures. (Today we light at a level of about half that). By comparison, the BD848 using 3" Image-Orthicon tubes needed a minimum of 3500 to 4000 lux to produce usable pictures - about 5 times today's lighting levels! In an attempt to resolve this problem, Intertel built a massive lighting generator - with an overall output of 1200 Amps @ 240v., nearly 300kVA, single phase, to supply scanner, VT truck, and lighting too. Apparently, Big Bertha, as the generator came to be known, on occasion provided standby power at the BBC TV Centre. After serving Intertel well, it was probably finally put to good use by their new owners, LWT, as an emergency power source at their new studio centre on the South Bank in London.
When the UK adopted the PAL colour system (the US using the more basic NTSC system) Intertel had to modify its cameras so they could be used to make programmes for the domestic market. Peter Dearing tells me that Peter Johnson, resident lighting director and 'technical genius' built some PAL encoders from scratch since it was not possible to get hold of any without waiting months for delivery. During its relatively short life from 1965 to 1968 - OB1C, as the Marconi BD848 colour unit was known, covered many programme commitments including Sunday Night at London Palladium, Hippodrome in 1966 for Associated-Rediffusion at studio 5 Wembley, Ski Jumping at Innsbruck and the Moscow State Circus in Minsk amongst many others. By 1968 however, its operational role at Intertel had diminished considerably. They had taken delivery of the first four Philips PC60s in the summer of 1966 and installed them in a new vehicle. Then when a further four PC60 camera channels were purchased in 1968, the Marconi cameras were no longer a viable proposition, and were given to various training colleges, such as Ravensbourne College in Kent.
click on the plan above to see a larger image The plan oddly omits a door that was top right at floor level. The OB base contained a studio, originally intended to be a warehouse but adapted during its construction. - 99 x 75 ft wall to wall. It had very narrow firelanes at each end giving a working space of 95 x 65 feet. There was originally only one control room - for lighting - the production and sound control were in an OB scanner. Production and sound galleries were added later by LWT when they took over. A lighting grid was installed which, perhaps surprisingly, was made partly of Dexion. I found this fact hard to believe until I saw it for myself on a visit in 2006. The grid allowed monopoles to be used with tracks spaced 2ft 6ins apart. There were no crossover tracks. I gather that the management originally planned to use eggboxes stuck to the walls for acoustic insulation with every member of staff being expected to spend a number of hours sticking them on. Surprisingly, they weren't too keen on the idea and an alternative solution was found.
Intertel installed a good mix of lights, including some new large softlights called Northlights. These were designed by Des Chalcroft, who it is said also designed the original grid. He formed a small company to manufacture the Northlights - Ballancroft Engineering. (These excellent lights eventually ended up in Lee's stock and were frequently hired for use on many dramas at Television Centre during the eighties and nineties. A smaller, 2.5kW version was developed which was then sold to Teddington Studios. These softlights are still in regular use today.) Almost all of the programmes made in the studio by Intertel were for the US market. Most are lost and forgotten. However, Giles Chapman has informed me that an episode of Hammer Films’ 1968 TV filmed series Journey To The Unknown was shot here. It was entitled The Madison Experiment, and the Intertel facilities get a credit at the end. Possibly other episodes were made here too. Incidentally, not all the crew were staff - some were employed on a daily basis, moonlighting from their regular job at the BBC or ITV company. I have been told that it was not uncommon for individuals to sign with names such as Mr M Mouse in order to receive £25 cash in hand for a day's graft. The Beatles performed here in 1965 and were recorded in colour on videotape and there is one production made here that has become almost legendary. In December 1968 an extraordinary programme was made that was the result of a project to create a rock concert tour staged in an 'experimental' mix of music and circus. The tour never happened but a film was shot. Called The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, it was a kind of concert by the Stones within a circus tent set and with many special guests. The show included performances by The Who, Jethro Tull, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithful, Yoko Ono and 'The Dirty Mac', a group that was the first musical context in which John Lennon performed before an audience outside The Beatles. The Dirty Mac was Eric Clapton (lead guitar), The Rolling Stones’ own Keith Richards (bass) and Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience (drums) with Lennon on guitar and vocals. It was also the last time guitarist Brian Jones performed with the Stones. A few months later he had died. A DVD of this production is now available and is highly recommended! The cameras for this programme were not the usual Intertel ones. They were a curious hybrid of 16mm film camera and black and white video camera. The cameras were operated in a TV style, using electronic viewfinders and mounted on Vinten peds and a Mole crane. They were supplied for this show by a French company and apparently were highly prone to breaking down. The delays in filming caused the show to overrun until 5.30 in the morning! Amazingly, the processed film rushes were not edited at the time. It seems that despite the success of the show the Stones decided to remake it at the Colosseum in Rome. (Why not?) Perhaps not surprisingly, it proved to be impossible to get permission to film there so the project foundered and the film rushes were left in cans in the Stones' office. When they moved offices some time later the film cans were moved to a barn owned by the road manager and forgotten. He died some twelve years later and his wife rediscovered them. They were finally edited and turned into an extraordinary film in 1996 that is a unique snapshot of the world of rock thirty years earlier..
From 1967 the studio was hired on several occasions by - rather surprisingly - Yorkshire TV to record drama productions. They began broadcasting to the new ITV region in 1968 but their studio centre in Leeds opened with only three relatively small studios. Therefore, until their main studio 4 opened in 1969 they regularly booked this studio.
In September 1970 Intertel merged with TVR to form TVI. They left the site and LWT moved in. Patrick Neil has also noted that the studio was rented by LWT from Intertel before they actually owned it. Some episodes of series 2 of Ronnie Barker's show, Hark at Barker, were recorded here in June 1970, some months before LWT took over. In 1973 they refurbished the studio - installing production and sound control rooms - and bought some new cameras. Unfortunately, these were EMI 2005s, which were equally unpopular with cameramen and engineers. LWT's South Bank centre did not open until 1972, so this studio was used as a back-up to their Wembley studios at first (using an OB scanner for facilities), then continued in use for many years even after their brand-spanking-new studios opened. It does seem odd to me that LWT should not only spend millions building their new centre on the South Bank but only the year after it opened be spending a not inconsiderable sum on this studio too. They could have continued using it as a basic four-waller, utilising a scanner for technical facilities - but no. They built new galleries and bought new cameras. One has to wonder why. The studio was never really busy during its time in service. They must have anticipated a regular use that never transpired. For most of the time that LWT operated the studio it was used as an overflow space to cope with busy periods. Crews came from the South Bank and only a skeleton staff maintained the studio between bookings. Amongst the programmes made here was a big Julie Andrews special that included as guests - the Muppets. This show was mainly intended for the American market. Oddly, a very similar programme is said to have been made by ATV at Elstree although that was a Muppet special with guest - Julie Andrews. Spot the difference? VT engineer Andy Backhouse has confirmed that an Andrews/Muppet special was indeed made here but he continues...
Other shows recalled by LWT staff include a sitcom set in a railway station called The Train Now Standing starring Bill Fraser, The Death of Adolf Hitler (1972) starring Frank Finlay, and in 1973 a daytime soap about a magazine called Marked Personal with Stephanie Beacham, Tony Anholt, Lewis Collins and Dinah Sheridan. There was also a Hoover commercial and several plays for US television directed by Terence Donovan. LWT also rented the studio to other companies including Anglia for some Tales of the Unexpected. Apparently the studio was a popular place to work and had excellent catering. (You may have noticed that this is a recurring theme throughout this history. All I can say is that when you are working a fourteen hour day there is nothing more depressing than going to the canteen for supper and finding that everything on offer is inedible.)
LWT's EMI 2005 cameras and all the gallery sound and vision equipment soldiered on from 1973 to 1983 when LWT began seeking a joint venture with a facilities company to modernise the studios. They were probably hoping to attract work for the newly-opened Channel 4. This unfortunately came to nothing. In September 1984 the studio was sold for £1m to Joe Dunton Cameras but they didn't actually move in until the following year. LWT's OB fleet transferred to new premises in Acton in March 1985 and, as mentioned above, BFBS moved to Chalfont.
Joe Dunton Cameras was a division of Media Technology International (MTI) in which Lee Electric held a stake of 52.53 per cent. This business specialised in camera rental but the studio gave them the opportunity to expand their business. They spent £300,000 refurbishing the site - including the construction of a new camera rental facility. Their original intention was to use the studio as a 'day-shoot four waller' but along came a request from a production company who were making a show for Channel 4. The show - ECT - needed a large studio for a 10-week booking. The programme was a live heavy-metal based music show. Apparently everything on the set had an appropriately sleazy futuristic look - even the camera cowlings and their operators and the heavy metal audience were dressed to suit. Facilities were provided by Trilion. Joe Dunton became very enthused about the show and realised that with the studio's links to the Telecom Tower it filled a very useful gap in London's facilities - particularly for Channel 4 or the emerging satellite channel market. However, whether there were any further TV bookings is not yet known, but any bookings were probably few and far between. Joe Dunton occupied the site between 1985 and 1989.
In November 1989 Lee Electric transferred their lighting hire business here to Wycombe Road from Barlby Road, off Ladbroke Grove, where they had been for about three years. The studio became the warehouse for much of their lighting stock. Two large doors were knocked through one of the long walls and mezzanine platforms built within it. Incidentally, although the technical equipment in the studio had been scrapped, the lighting monopoles still had plenty of life left in them. It seems that via a circuitous route they eventually ended up at Pinewood and are now in the two TV studios there.
When I visited the studio in May 2006 the first impression was of a warehouse, with mezzanine floor and two large doors for access. However, evidence of the studio's history remained. I entered from main reception through a soundproof studio door and along the walls the footage markings could still be seen. The grid still covered the whole space and the track identification letters hung from one end. The lighting gantry surrounded the studio and was partly used for storage of seldom-used lights. In 2008 Lee Lighting merged with AFM to become Panalux and left the site. Richard Smith contacted me in the summer of 2009 to let me know the sad news that the buildings on the site had been reduced to a pile of rubble.
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Meanwhile, back in Wembley, after LWT left in 1972 the studios were unoccupied for a few years. Early in 1978 the Lee brothers bought them and proceeded to turn them back into film studios. During the following eight years they were known as Lee International Film Studios.
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The images above show Wembley as ' Lee International Film Studios'. The photos were taken during the 1980s and were kindly sent to me by Maurice Dale. The lower picture shows part of the original buildings that belonged to the film studios to the left of studio 5. They were demolished to make way for a retail park in the late 1980s once Lee had left. |
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During their period of occupation, Lee removed most of the television equipment - returning the old studios and studio 5 to film stages. All the TV lighting bars were removed, leaving the grids bare. The stages were renumbered or rather 're-lettered' if there is such a term. Thus the old studio 5 became A and B stages, studio 1 became stage C, studio 2 became stage D and studio 4 became stage E. How very confusing. One further small stage (F?) was upstairs (memories of those who worked there are a bit vague about where exactly it was.) This latter one was mostly used as a photographic studio. The painted 'A' and 'B' on the present studio doors almost certainly date back to the old Lee days. The old TV control rooms were left in place but of course were not used for that purpose. They were apparently useful on at least one occasion when a blue movie was being shot. I'm told that a number of individuals made their way to the gallery suite and crawled towards the window where they observed the proceedings - the window apparently affording an excellent view. The gentlemen in question did see the funny side of there being a row of heads peering over the bottom of the window frame, enjoying the view. In fact, Clint Thomas, a relative of the Lee bros, has written to me to confirm that this story is true. He has even told me who was involved... '...the culprits watching "the action" were in fact Benny Lee, my father Dyfrig Thomas and the studio manager Dennis Carrigan - who were caught out by my brother who was then invited to watch with them!!' Having spoken to one or two of the chaps who worked there at the time it seems that the studios had a very happy atmosphere. One electrician remembers treading on Charlton Heston's foot and, remarkably, surviving to tell the tale. There were, apparently, two bars on site which were both very popular with the crews. So popular that detailed memories of what actually went on in the studios are said to be a little hazy. I'm quite sure they are exaggerating. The stages were used for various filmed dramas for TV and of course for commercials and pop promos. The Professionals was based here - although almost all of it was shot on location. However, the studios also attracted at least one major feature each year. These included The Who's Quadrophenia ('78), The Elephant Man ('79), The Awakening ('79), Silver Dream Racer ('80), Time Bandits ('80), Yentl ('82), The Bride ('85), The Princess Bride ('86) and Terry Gilliam's surreal epic, Brazil. The latter was filmed in 1984, which seems appropriate considering the subject matter. Perhaps most surprising is that some of The Empire Strikes Back was filmed here in 1979. (Most was filmed at Elstree.) Odd to think that Darth Vader may once have stood on the same spot as Simon Cowell when he judges The X-Factor. Then again... In 1984 the Lee brothers bought the much larger Shepperton Studios for £3.6m, also rather confusingly naming them 'Lee International Studios'. (Shepperton is covered on the 'independent studios' page on this website). The company kept both Wembley and Shepperton on for about two years whilst upgrading the facilities at Shepperton. They left the Wembley site in July 1986. This move was not anticipated by the staff. I spoke to one electrician who had a nasty surprise when he returned from his family holiday to find the building locked and empty! In fact, the company had moved its lighting hire business to new premises in Barlby Road, at the top of Ladbroke Grove, in the old Sunbeam car factory. This was also at that time the base for The Bill. Thames Television occupied the left hand end of the building for several years before moving to Merton. (The original base for The Bill was in Wapping before moving to Barlby Road.) As is documented elsewhere on this site - Lee Lighting moved from Barlby Road to the old LWT studio in Wycombe Road in 1989. For the next three years, once Lee's had moved out the studios remained empty, although apparently still owned by them. It seems likely that there was a local planning condition that they had to continue use as film or TV studios but nobody was interested in purchasing them.
In 1989, Limehouse Television took over the Wembley site. They had previously occupied a fashionable studio centre converted from a warehouse at the eastern end of Canary Wharf. The story of Limehouse Studios is to be found elsewhere on this website. This highly regarded enterprise had found themselves without a home early in 1989 when the building they had converted into a state of the art TV studio centre was needed for redevelopment. After a short spell at the Trocadero - Trilion, the parent company of Limehouse, purchased Wembley Studios on 9th June. They bought the whole site announcing that they were going to demolish the old film studios and replace them with a 'media village'. Ten to fifteen commercial units were going to be built for production companies. John Turner, Trilion's manager of resources, was quoted as saying: "It's likely we'll be building more studios to support independents who we want to attract to Wembley." Of course. Guess what. The old film studios were indeed demolished but replaced with - a retail park. (Interestingly, Trilion and Limehouse were in turn part owned by the Brent Walker Group, who around this time also bought Elstree Film Studios, demolished most of the film stages and built a Tescos. Fancy that.) Actually, perhaps even worse, they just demolished the old Wembley Park film studios and used the space as a car park for a couple of years. Ian Trill worked on The Word in November 1991 and remembers parking amid the rubble of the old studios. Of course, all the TV equipment in studio 5 at Wembley had been removed by Lee or was completely obsolete. Thus Limehouse had to completely re-equip the studio. A great deal of kit had been removed from docklands and was in storage. This ended up in the new double studio - including the motorised lighting bars. The first programme was recorded on 6th October 1989. The new Limehouse Wembley was back in action! More work was done on the site by Limehouse over the next few months - including constructing the workshop and storage areas that surround the studio buildings. Trilion operated some OB units and these moved here (now with 'Limehouse' painted on the side) around the end of 1990 once the work was finished. Some of the highly regarded staff had remained with the business (although understandably others had taken the opportunity to go freelance) and they did their best to bring the atmosphere of the old studios to the new ones. Well-known shows made here at this time included Food and Drink (previously made in the old docklands studios) and The Word ('90-'92). Hat Trick had been using Limehouse in Docklands for most of their shows and this continued at Wembley. Whose Line is it Anyway? was recorded here, as were the early series of Have I Got News For You? The second series of Bruce Forsyth's gameshow You Bet moved here from Shepperton for one series in 1989. The studios were used for a number of music shows, including various editions of MTV Unplugged with Bob Dylan, Carl Perkins, Paul McCartney and the Cure. Some Queen promo videos were also filmed here in Feb and May '91 just before Freddie Mercury died. Other shows recorded at Limehouse-Wembley include Harry Enfield's Television Programme ('90-'92). Limehouse had made a considerable sum of money in moving from docklands, (about £16.5m!) as the compulsory purchase compensation was very generous. They also sold off the old film studio part of the Wembley site, which would itself have raised a tidy sum. It is perhaps surprising therefore that so soon after moving, the company found itself in financial difficulties. However, Trilion - the owners of the business, were not on solid financial ground. Despite the best efforts of everyone working for Limehouse, Trilion folded in December 1992 taking Limehouse with them. Of course they were not alone. At this time the UK was in the grip of recession. Nick Jenner was an electrician working for Limehouse at the time. He had joined the company very soon after they took over the studios - he remembers that the TV floor had just been relaid - and he helped with the installation of the ex-docklands studios lighting hoists. He tells me that when Limehouse folded as a company the studios rather surprisingly continued in operation - at least for a while...
It seems that The Word continued for some weeks - probably until the ownership of the studios passed into the hands of Fountain. Then most of the technical equipment was removed from the studios - possibly being sold to pay creditors, although I have heard stories of some who were owed money simply helping themselves to various items. The Word, incidentally, moved to Teddington until that show's demise in 1995.
The new Wembley resident, Fountain Television, was waiting in the wings to move in but they had a huge job ahead to make the studios operational. The Fountain website describes how the galleries and studios were in such a bad condition when they took over in 1993 that it took six months round the clock working to get them in a fit state.
Fountain already owned a small studio in New Malden, Surrey, which they had opened in 1985. They continued operating both studios for a few years. They took over Wembley studios in 1993, taking six months to complete the refurbishment and opening in 1994 with Esther Rantzen's Hearts of Gold. Wembley under Fountain has made several medium scale shows, such as Bremner Bird and Fortune but is best known for the programmes that have made full use of the studios' huge size when the doors between them are opened. Talking Telephone Numbers was an early success after Fountain took over and since then they have been host to Don't Try This at Home ('99), Winning Lines, Pop Idol, The X-Factor, The Cube, Over The Rainbow ('10) and several editions of Test the Nation. In 1998 an episode of Friends was filmed here - which took so long to make that at three o'clock in the morning the audience were still there - having been provided with pizzas to keep them going. In 2006 a show called Petrolheads was made here. This light-hearted motoring-based quiz had a conventional set involving two panels of celebrities with a chairman seated between them. This was positioned in one of the two studios along with the audience However, one of the rounds involved a blindfolded parking challenge and this was recorded in the other studio. The camera panned to the right and with the huge dividing doors open we saw a space large enough to drive a car around in. It's hard to see how this could have been staged in any other television studio. Fountain Studios converted to digital widescreen in the late '90s with 14 Sony BVP 500 cameras. In 1999 Fountain won the Broadcast Award for Best Studio facilities - a considerable achievement considering the history of the building. In 2007 they took the plunge and began the expensive conversion to HD - purchasing ten Sony HDC 1500 cameras. A ProBel Sirius HD router was purchased soon afterwards and in July 2008 a Sony HD vision mixer was installed in B's gallery. The production and lighting galleries are equipped with Ikegami HD CRT monitors. The first HD production here was a sitcom - Clone - which was recorded in July 2008. The first live HD show was Noel's HQ in January 2009. The studio became fully equipped for HD with its own kit during 2009. On 3rd July 2006 it was announced that the owners of Fountain - Medal Entertainment and Media - were selling the studios to a secret purchaser. An announcement was made early in September that the new owners were investment holding firm InvestinMedia. According to a press release they bought the studios for £6.8m. InvestinMedia's website states the following: 'InvestinMedia is an investment holding company quoted on AIM which owns a 49 per cent stake in Complete Communications Corporation Limited (Complete), one of the UK's most successful independent media and entertainment companies with interests spanning television and radio production, digital interactive entertainment and music publishing. Part of the Complete group are Celador Productions and Celador International, leading producers of light entertainment programming and licensors of international intellectual property including the renowned 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?'. InvestinMedia also has a 20.74 per cent stake in Medal Entertainment and Media plc (MEM).' No matter how often I read the above paragraph I still can't quite grasp what it's on about. It appears to be saying that the owners of the studios have sold the company to another company that owns part of the same company. Anyway, none of this appears to have affected the operation of the studios - except that the new owner was able to raise the money needed to buy new HD cameras. I have worked in the studios myself on a few occasions - for example, covering the regular LD on a couple of X-Factors, a few editions of Over The Rainbow and lighting a sketch show series with Al Murray in the summer of 2008. The sheer scale of the studio is quite something. For example, on the sketch show the designer was able to fit in no less than 8 sets (some very large) as well as a studio audience. Unfortunately, I wasn't paid any more for having to light about twice the number of sets I normally would for such a show!
Incidentally - I had thought that Teddington was alone in having a supernatural presence but I have been told that the grid of Studio A is believed to be haunted. It is occasionally much colder than the other grid and several people have reported feeling that 'they were not alone' up there! One ex-electrician who worked there in the late '90s told me a story of how he was in the grid doing some maintenance on a quiet day and the handle of the steel door connecting the grids between the studios moved up and down and rattled. He thought he was alone in that part of the building but called out to the only other person on duty that day. There was no reply and when he descended he found his colleague in another room in the studios. In fact, it turned out that nobody could have moved the handle as they discovered that the door on the opposite side was locked. (This is a pair of doors with a gap of about a metre between them.) He doesn't believe in ghosts but admits that the incident left him shaken and has no explanation as to how it could have happened. There is, it seems, a story that someone fell to their death from the grid in the days of Lee International although I have no way of confirming this.
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Back in 1968 the ITA had a problem. They had decided to award the weekend London franchise to LWT. ATV would still remain in business - servicing the midlands but now 7 days a week. Thus ABC lost its weekend franchise. It also lost its weekend franchise in the north as the ITA decided to give the north west to Granada and the north east to new company Yorkshire Television.
The public had seen both Rediffusion and ABC as popular and successful companies so the ITA were reluctant to lose them. They were, however, not impressed with the way that Rediffusion had neglected the local element of its responsibility, particularly with local news. Thus, the solution was to force them into a 'shotgun marriage' to form a new company. That company of course was Thames.
Actually, what had happened was that ABC was in effect promoted into getting the lucrative London weekday franchise. Rediffusion found itself subsumed into the new company and lost its Wembley base to the new company LWT. Many people there were very unhappy at this outcome - particularly as they were the company that had kept ITV going back in the dark days of 1955/56.
Thames took over the Teddington site and for a while also kept the old Rediffusion headquarters at Kingsway. An understandable rivalry was said to exist between the old Rediffusion staff there and the old ABC staff at Teddington. The 'Thames' logos at the end of programmes were even different depending on where the show had been made. In effect, most Thames entertainment, drama, comedy and children's programmes continued to be made at Teddington by the old ABC staff whilst a far smaller number of ex-Rediffusion employees made the current affairs programmes at Kingsway. This obviously did not make for a happy relationship between the two parts of the new company. (The ex-Rediffusion staff at Wembley were, of course, making the entertainment shows for the new LWT.)
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In 1969 the Kingsway operation moved to new studios in Euston Road next to the Euston Tower. This became the home of Thames current affairs, local news, schools programming, religious programming and most of the company's admin and sales personnel. The building was officially known as 'Thames Television House'. There were two main studios at Euston, plus a 200 sq ft continuity studio (Euston 4). The largest studio was Euston 5 at 59 x 30 ft wall to wall. Euston 6 was attached to studio 5 and was slightly less than 30 x 20 ft. The numbering began at '4' as studios 1-3 were at Teddington. The studios opened using huge Marconi Mk VII colour cameras. Euston 7, which opened much later in autumn 1980, was 44 x 34 ft wall to wall. Euston 7 was converted from a viewing theatre and was rigged permanently for Thames News - but a few Help! programmes with Joan Shenton were squeezed in. The studio was also used to produce promos for Thames and the network, as it had a small VO cubical. As it was separated from the main building a connecting bridge was built on the first floor. The studio itself, however, was on the ground floor. Rather surprisingly it had a large pillar in the centre of the studio. This was planned to be removed but at the last minute a structural engineer warned that the bulding would probably collapse so it was sensibly (if annoyingly for those who worked there) retained.
Below is an image from an old marketing brochure dated May 1986 that shows 6 attached to 5 but in the centre of the plan of 6 is printed 'not available until further notice.' Studio 6 was closed partly to create more space for lines and presentation areas where its galleries were originally situated on the first floor. The studio itself became used as a store room come scene dock. Originally, studio 6 was the home of the Today programme. In the early 1980s the main studios were re-equipped with four Link 110 cameras each.
Regular shows made at Euston included The Time The Place, Good Afternoon with Mary Parkinson and Afternoon Plus with Mavis Nicholson and Elaine Grand. Amongst many other things, Bill Grundy's infamous interview with the Sex Pistols took place in December '76 during the Thames daily local news show - Today ('68 - '77). Today was replaced by Thames at Six ('77 - 81) and then Thames News ('81 - '92). Current Affairs programmes This Week ('68 - '92) and TV Eye ('78 - '86) were also based here. It is perhaps a shame that the Today programme is only remembered for the one edition that took it off the air. Many people fondly remember Bill Grundy's warm style and those who worked with him recall his professionalism. I have been told about the times when the guests had not arrived or none of the inserts were ready as the show went live. Fortunately there was a piano still in the studio from a music recording, so Bill just played the piano – he was said to be 'a great bloke'. Peter Thurlow, an ex-Thames sound man, confirms that studio 5 is where the Thames version of This is Your Life began. Despite its small size - it had an audience capacity of only 100 - several shows were made here, including some live 'pick-ups' where the guest was brought to the studio immediately following the hit. These included Lulu and Arthur Askey. The show itself was sometimes also live, following a live pickup. (Now that must have been scary!) Apparently Eamonn Andrews, the presenter, wanted a larger studio audience - hence the move out of the studio to the Royalty and Teddington. Studio 5 produced many other programmes including Sooty (with Harry Corbett), Rainbow (also made at Teddington studio 3), This Week, Reporting London, Money Go Round (consumer prog, with Tony Bastable), Tea Break, What’s My Line (Angela Rippon), Looks Familiar (Dennis Norden) and Quick on the Draw - a cartoonists gameshow with Bill Tidy as the regular guest, hosted by Bob Monkhouse and later Michael Bentine. Rod Hull and Emu made a series here and Susan Stranks (ah yes - those of us of a certain age remember her...) presented no less than 182 editions of Paper Play - a show for young children with puppet spiders called Itsy and Bitsy. Eamonn Andrews also presented a live late night money programme as well as Today and 'Life'. Bank holiday sport programmes came from here presented by Dicky Davis (yes, Euston - not LWT), plus many other sport shows. There were also elections, the Seoul Olympics and many more. It was apparently one of the first studios to have a 30 line phone-in set up, which they called 'The Fish Bowl'. Euston Road studios also produced the daily Last Programme for many years. This was made by Thames Features and Religious Department. LWT also transmitted the show so it was unique in that it was the only Thames programme to go out at weekends.
Those who worked there were understandably proud of the amount of work that was transmitted on Thames TV that these two small studios produced. At one time they were said to have the highest live output of any studio in Europe.
The studios closed at the end of 1992 when the Thames franchise ended. The building, however, remained under long-term lease to Thames - which still existed as an independent production company. Brian Turner tells me that it took at least a year to clear the building and move from 2,200 employees to 120. During the period following the loss of the franchise Brian tells me that they started UK Gold from the old Thames News studio - Euston 7. The channel had the ground and first floors of Euston West and were there for at least a year. Eventually he got two parties - the BBC and Associated Newspapers - ready to take on the building. However, unexpectedly British Land were forced to take the building back on November 5th 1994 as the area was to be redeveloped. The main part of the building was demolished in 1996. The space formally occupied by studios 5 and 6 is now tarmac.
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The big change that happened in 1981 was that ATV had to fight hard to hang on to its Midlands franchise. In their proposal to the IBA, ATV suggested moving their base to new studios in the region but continuing to operate Elstree as a separate production centre under the name 'Elstree Television Centre Limited.' They stated the following in their application document...
'We have discussed with other major ITV companies the possibility of using Elstree studios, which are an important asset to ITV as a whole, as a collective production centre for the additional programming likely to be required for the Fourth Channel. Should this prove to be a practicable proposition the studios might be leased to a jointly owned operating company. Elstree Television Centre can be expected to seek to widen the basis of its business by attracting overseas producers, advertising agencies and other potential users of television studios. It should also be capable of providing many, if not all, of the production facilities being sought by independent producers in connection with the Fourth Channel.'
However, the IBA were having none of it. Under pressure that they had 'neglected' the east Midlands ATV had to completely dispose of Elstree, move their main production base up to the region and sell 49% of their shares to local interests. There was also a name change - to Central. Central stayed at Elstree for a couple of years until their new studios in Nottingham were built. Those studios provided replacement facilities for Elstree as well as some expansion at the Birmingham studio centre.
When Central left Elstree they took everything of any value with them to Nottingham. The future of the studios was very much in doubt but fortunately they were bought by the BBC in January 1984 for a 'song'. This unplanned new facility enabled the BBC to create a new soap - EastEnders.
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Central Studios, Lenton Lane, Nottingham - 1983-2004 Although these studios are not exactly in London, I am including this brief mention as many of the staff and crew moved there from Elstree when they opened. The studios were built to a high specification and were much loved by those who worked there. They began operation in the autumn of 1983. As well as local news studios there were three main production studios - studio 6 (72 x 46ft), studio 7 (89 x 88ft) and studio 8 (89 x 79ft). They had motorised lighting bars and studio 7 had a groundrow trench in the floor for lighting 'infinity' cycloramas. It's worth pointing out that both 7 and 8 are much larger studios than the 'norm' at, say TLS or TV Centre. About the same length as most studios but very usefully nearly 20 feet wider. There was also a music studio that later became studio 11 (53 x 40ft gross) and studio 8X (43 x 35ft gross) that was converted from part of the scenery store in 2001. At first they were very busy making local and networked programmes but Central was a very different company from ATV and the big spectacular entertainment shows that made ATV famous worldwide were simply not made any more. By 1990 drama too was no longer shot in TV studios but on location or in film stages. However, some sitcoms such as The Upper Hand and Barbara were made here. Lenton Lane particularly became known for its gameshows such as Blockbusters, Catchphrase, Family Fortunes, The Price is Right, Supermarket Sweep and Bullseye. Celebrity Squares was revived here too between 1993 and 1996. Matthew Hadley has kindly pointed out some other shows - The Midas Touch with Bradley Walsh ('95-'96), The Freddy Starr Show ('94-'98), Crazy Cottage ('96-'98), Mad For It ('98-'00), Body Heat ('94-'96) and Pot of Gold - a talent show fronted by Des O'Connor between 1993 and 1995. In 1994 the studios became part of Carlton's empire - a company that apparently had little interest in making programmes themselves and running a studio centre was not something they particularly wanted or needed. By 2001 the studio utilisation was relatively low but a lifeline came when Crossroads was recommissioned after many years. All the production studios except 7 were used for this show with high quality permanent sets - parts of the exterior of the centre becoming the famous motel. Unfortunately, that show was axed in 2003. The writing was on the wall and the owners of ITV were ruthless in their disposal of what to them seemed surplus property. The site was sold to Nottingham University, the deal being completed in March 2005. The last shows to be made here in 2004 were Doctors and Nurses - a sitcom for BBC1 by Phil Hammond, starring Ade Edmonson and David Mitchell and Beat The Nation, a quiz for C4 with Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor. Incidentally, the motorised lighting bars or 'boats' from studio 8 were purchased by AFM (now Panalux) for possible installation in one of the two TV studios at Pinewood. However, perhaps following a lukewarm response by various lighting directors at the prospect, this never happened. (Most LDs prefer monopoles, which is the system in use at Pinewood.) The current whereabouts of the studio 8 hoists is unknown. Most of the studios are now lecture rooms or used for storage but studios 6 and 7 still exist as 4-wallers and can be hired - but apparently seldom are by TV companies. The galleries for studio 7 are still there but all the equipment and monitors have been removed. The lighting bars still exist, with some lights on them but what condition they are in is unknown. Studio 7 is is used as an exam hall and occasionally for conferences but has been used by Question Time. I have not heard of any other TV show being made there in recent years but it has been used occasionally for filming. I'm told that holes have been knocked through the walls for cabling through to an OB scanner and/or generator.
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One of the giant eggcups that adorn the roofline of the studios in Camden. with thanks to www.tv-am.org.uk |
This round also saw the creation of a new 'breakfast' franchise. After a very hotly contested competition, TV-am won. When they were setting the company up, at one point they considered using Ewarts Studios in Wandsworth but in the end they constructed a studio centre in Camden unimaginatively called the Breakfast Television Centre which quickly became known as 'Eggcup House' due to the rather eccentric architectural adornments along its roofline. Terry Farrell, who would shortly go on to carry out a similar job adapting a warehouse in Docklands into Limehouse Studios, converted the building at a cost of £7m from a 1930s Henley's garage.
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The original Henley's garage - pre the Terry Farrell touch with thanks to www.tv-am.org.uk |
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Amazing what a bit of sheet steel and a lick of paint can achieve. with thanks to www.tv-am.org.uk
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The building itself was arguably London's first post-modern design. Its exterior was completely transformed from the original garage and the interior too was highly distinctive.
The centre had three studios; A was 60 x 50 metric feet within firelanes and B 34 x 22 metric feet. There was also a small presentation studio - C - which was about 16ft x 12ft. The studios were originally equipped with Marconi Mk IXB cameras. Studio A contained the main set with its famous sofa and B was used mostly for news. However, there was also enough space in A to house Timmy Mallett's Wide Awake Club ('84-'89) and Wackaday ('85-'92)
(MTV's use of these studios is covered below.)
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studio A in 1983 with the set for Good Morning Britain with thanks to www.tv-am.org.uk |
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A very short history of what became the most successful breakfast TV company in the world... TV-am began as a news-based service and had several well-known presenters of the day who fronted it. However, the BBC decided they had to offer a show too so they began broadcasting Breakfast Time from Lime Grove on 17th January 1983. TV-am did not begin until a fortnight later, on 1st February. Unfortunately for them the BBC show, fronted by Frank Bough and Selina Scott, proved much more popular and TV-am entered a crisis. The public did not just want news with their breakfast but something a little lighter too. The high profile presenters who had started the company all left and were replaced with Anne Diamond, Nick Owen and famously Roland Rat. Audiences began to recover but the company was still making a loss. In 1984, Bruce Gyngell - an Australian with a no nonsense approach to business - took over as chief executive following the early period of deepening financial crisis. His approach included reducing technical crews to a minimum in order to save costs. This put him at odds with the unions and a 24 hour strike was called. The management locked out the strikers - who were never to return. After a long period of waiting on the picket lines they were sacked. The Marconi cameras mentioned above proved vital in the fortunes or otherwise of the company. The Mk IX was very advanced and had an automatic line-up procedure. This meant that only a very basic technical knowledge was required to enable the camera to produce acceptable pictures. Without this facility it is doubtful that the studio could have continued for more than a few days with nobody in the building able to carry out a full camera line-up. Secretaries operated the cameras and later, non-union cameramen were brought in - most from overseas. The shambolic results proved popular at first for all the wrong reasons but the viewers stayed and increasing advertising revenue turned the fortunes of the company around. By doing away with many technical staff and traditional working practices TV-am became the most profitable television company in the world in turns of turnover. Bruce Gyngell became a great friend of Margaret Thatcher - which made the result of the franchise renewal all the more ironic.
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The next twist in the tail came at the end of 1992. Under a new 'sealed bids' round of franchise renewals introduced by Margaret Thatcher, Thames unexpectedly lost its bid along with the by now highly successful TV-am. Conspiracy theorists say that the government wished revenge on Thames for screening the documentary Death on the Rock. We may never know whether there is any truth in this rumour. However, there is little doubt that the government were horrified at the loss of TV-am, a company that operated in all the ways they held dear.
When GMTV took over the franchise in January 1993 they decided to use studio 5 at LWT's base on the south bank. 'Eggcup House' was therefore left empty but shortly afterwards it was bought by MTV, who are still there. The main studio was initially used for MTV's output but later other companies booked it too. For example, the sketches for the 2004 series of The Frank Skinner Show were recorded here and during 2005 the Saturday morning show Top of the Pops Reloaded was based in studio A. Other shows made for various channels included UK Music Hall of Fame, Britain's Best Home, Ruby, Classic Comeback and The Joan Rivers Position. In March and April 2007 the BBC's Castaway Exposed series was also based here and Five's kids' series Milkshake was booked for a second series.
Although these studios were busy during the 1990s, the next decade saw rather less activity. MTV no longer used them to make shows for themselves - their channels not including studio based programmes or live performances any more. They were still hired out to various production companies but rumours of the imminent closure of the studios began to circulate around the industry in 2007/2008. However, with Capital Studios closing in the summer of 2008, they began to pick up some of the work that might have gone there. For example, The BBC's Missing Live came from MTV in the spring of 2009 and 2010 and Crimewatch Roadshow was also made here. Angela and Friends - daytime magazine programme for Sky 1 - was based here from November 2009.
Unfortunately, MTV's management decided that the studios were not part of their core business and it made more sense financially to close their offices in Oxford Street and Rathbone Place and bring the 300 staff here. The building is being redeveloped and the studios will become offices. The last programme made here was at the end of January 2011.
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1 Leicester Square... MTV built this small studio on the first floor of a building in Leicester Square with windows overlooking the square. The studio and its facilities were converted from a nightclub and opened after a planning appeal in the summer of 2004. The reason for opening the studio was because the very popular US version of the channel had a studio overlooking Times Square so it was felt that the UK should have something similar. The studio was only 450 sq ft - the main floor being just over 37ft long but only about 6ft 6in wide (!) and with a mezzanine 56 x 14ft. 1 Leicester Square was originally used for MTV's Total Request Live show which included performances by live bands. Despite all the effort in getting the studio built for the show, TRL proved not to be a great success in the UK and the show folded in December 2005. From September 2006 to March 2007 the studio became the base for the BBC's Saturday morning kids' show TMi. However, the cost of keeping the studio open with so little use led to its being disposed of later in 2007. (The following series of TMi was made in TC9 at TV Centre.)
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In 1993 Carlton took over the London weekday franchise but decided not to have its own large studio centre - choosing instead to hire studio space as and when required for each programme. Significantly, this was also the beginning of the period when ITV companies became free to take each other over - so, for example, Central was purchased by Carlton in 1994. The midlands area thus became 'Carlton Broadcasting - Central Region'. Carlton therefore found itself owning studio facilities after all. As ITV ownership contracted to two main companies - Carlton and Granada - this consolidation saw many studios around the country deemed to be uneconomic by their new owners. Some were sold off to independent operators, others simply redeveloped. Some of these are briefly covered at the end of this section.
From 1993 Teddington was kept on by Thames - now simply a production company - and it was marketed as an independent facilities house simply called 'Teddington Studios' - the senior management being Richard Dunn (Chairman), Ewart Needham (Managing Director), Steve Gunn (Marketing Director) and Alan Tingay (Technical Director). Programmes made around this time included Des O'Connor Tonight ('77-'02) and his version of Take Your Pick ('92-'98).
Thames Television was bought by Pearson plc in 1993 and initially continued to be based at Teddington. However, in 1996 they decided to move all their operations to a large office block in Stephen Street, just off Tottenham Court Road, which contained two small production studios of 2600 sq ft and 1500 sq ft respectively. Since 2001 Thames has been part of the Fremantle Media group and following its merger with Talkback Productions now operates as the highly successful 'Talkback Thames'.
Pearson's operation moved to central London in 1997 but the studios had already been sold to Barnes Trust Media in late summer 1996. This company had previously been a post production business based in Soho. Teddington Studios were reportedly sold to Barnes for around £9m.
In 1999, Barnes Trust sold the whole site for a reported £10m to a property company - Howard Holdings - but leased back the studios and other areas such as the scenery store, admin building, car park and restaurant block. The lease for running the studios was said to run for 25 years. Howard Holdings had plans to create a 'media village' including luxury flats and riverside restaurants on the land occupied by the production block and outdoor car park. Despite several attempts to obtain planning permission, the plans came to nothing.
Programme making continued in studios 1 and 2 with the smaller studios being given over to some of the digital channels that were beginning to spring up. Unfortunately, although these small studios were refurbished and equipped to attract the new operators, the two main studios received little investment throughout the period that Barnes Trust ran the business.
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Teddington in 2006. with thanks to the Pinewood Group website. |
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In 2004, after several failed attempts to redevelop the site with a mix of luxury flats and 'media' offices, Howard Holdings, the property company owning the Teddington Studios site, sold it to Haymarket Publishing. They spent about 18 months refurbishing the old production office blocks and took over about two-thirds of the scenery storage area. They also constructed a large photographic studio on the site. They began moving in during January 2006. All of the refurbished offices are for their own use but the television studios are operating as usual alongside this activity. Parts of the multi-storey car park remain available for the use of studio workers but it is always very crowded during the week. Sadly, the restaurant overlooking the weir is no longer in use. It has not been occupied since 2004. Fences went up around it and work on refurbishing the exterior and removing asbestos began in March 2007. This was completed by the summer of 2007 but the interior appears to be unchanged. It remains empty and its future use by Haymarket is unknown. What a waste! The old powerhouse in the corner of the site has been converted into a cafe/bar with a mezzanine floor. The hospitality boat, the 'Sir Thomas More' also slipped its moorings during the late '90s leaving the landing stage sadly empty. The good news is that the Anglers and the Tide End are still both within a few yards of the studios. Both have been refurbished within the past few years and are just as popular as ever. Although Teddington Studios Ltd were busy during the early 2000's, in 2004 they lost several key contracts. The Kilroy series was dropped by the BBC; The Shopping Channel, which occupied Studio 3, went bust; The Racing Channel also closed and Today With Des and Mel moved to TLS for its second series. A great deal of money had also been spent on building a second studio for the Racing Channel. The company went into administration owing money to several freelance operators, electricians and supply companies. About a week later on April 1st 2005 the lease for the studios was taken over by Pinewood-Shepperton for £2.6m. Although initially it was reported in the press that the 50-odd staff would all be retained, at the end of April several were in fact made redundant. More staff losses occured in the spring of 2006. Back in April 2005, almost immediately following the takeover, the two main studios began to attract new work and the company were said to be having difficulty fitting in all the bookings. These included several sitcoms and other shows in studio 1 and the new Trisha series for Five in studio 2. (After a year this moved to Maidstone.) Almost all the small studios have since been in regular use by digital channels - including studio 7, which was built from scratch in six weeks in the summer of 2005 for the Quiz Call channel. It occupies the old studio 2 prop store area and studio 1's green room, further reducing the storage space for productions using the main studios. The Pinewood Studios Group, the present owners, have been carrying out some much needed refurbishment to areas such as reception, corridors, dressing rooms, production offices and toilets. However, the two main studios are still in desperate need of major investment. A few HD cameras have been purchased for use in any of Teddington's or Pinewood's TV studios but the galleries of studios 1 and 2 look the same as they have for the past twenty years or more and their monitors, vision mixers and the sound desks are well overdue for replacement. In June 2009 a further three HD cameras were purchased (Sony HDC-1000s) bringing the total number available to 8. Three of the original 1500s were however sent to Pinewood to be used on a long-running children's series (ZingZillas) - the three new ones being used for My Family, which was forced to move here from its usual home at Pinewood due to clashing bookings in the studios at Pinewood. At one time it looked as though the floor of studio 1 would receive a long-overdue replacement in the summer of 2009 but oddly TV-two at Pinewood was replaced instead, despite being a relatively new resin floor. I gather that there are still no plans to refurbish the galleries at Teddington or purchase a new HD vision mixer and monitor stack, which would surely have been cheaper in the long run than hiring it all for the past few years.
Despite all the ups and downs of the studios, they remain popular with many programme makers. Comedy shows in particular regularly occupy Studio 1. For the past fifteen or more years, several sitcom series have been made in Studio 1, produced by independent production companies like Alomo, Hartswood Films, DLT Entertainment, Shazam, Big Bear or Avalon. Popular comedies like Birds of a Feather, Goodnight Sweetheart, Men Behaving Badly and My Hero were made in the '90s and '00s. Critically acclaimed series like Coupling and Black Books have also been made here. The last two specials of Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer's BBC comedy As Time Goes By were recorded here in 2005, rather than at TV Centre and the Only Fools and Horses spin-off series The Green Green Grass was made here in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 - using high definition cameras. Also, in 2006 and 2008 BBC Comedy department chose Teddington to make After You've Gone - starring Nicholas Lyndhurst. Other recent comedies have included The IT Crowd, Not Going Out, Teenage Kicks and Reggie Perrin. For much of 2009 the studio was occupied by My Family, which moved here from Pinewood. This did mean that at least one regular production company was forced to find alternative studio space and bookings from them are probably unlikely in the near future. Since then the studio has been less busy than before but did see the return of Reggie Perrin and was booked for entertainment series A League of Their Own and The Rob Brydon Show. Will Mellor's sitcom White Van Man was shot in studio 1 in Nov/Dec 2010 using 4-walled sets but with a live studio audience, unable to see any of the action, except on monitors. Studio 2 sadly remains empty for much of the time (I wonder how many production managers actually know it exists?) but was used for a few weeks in 2010 for Britain's Best Dish and Dick and Dom's Funny Business, which returned in January 2011. Entertainment shows in the past decade have included This Is Your Life (ending in 2003), eight series of the award-winning Harry Hill's TV Burp (now made at TV Centre) and Extinct for Endemol - whilst as a complete contrast, Trisha's daily show for Five was made in studio 2 during part of 2005/6. Studio 2 was also the home of Brian Conley's daytime entertainment contest Let Me Entertain You in 2006/7 and several series of Bremner, Bird and Fortune have also been made here. The first series of Today With Des and Mel had its home in studio 2. Des of course considered Teddington his second home for many years. He had his own dressing room and Des O'Connor Tonight was made regularly in studio 1 each year until only a few years ago. In fact, as his website modestly states (yes, I actually had a look at his website) 'Des has had his own primetime TV show for 44 consecutive years, longer than anyone, anywhere on the planet.' Well, you can't argue with that, can you?
As to the future of Teddington, this has sadly become somewhat questionable. In January 2011 many of the small studios around the site were not booked - only The Chinese Channel and Turf TV remaining as long-term residents. Studio 2 continues to be the industry's most closely guarded secret and studio 1 - in the recent past with a pretty full diary - had relatively few bookings for the year ahead. Studio 3 has been fitted with a hard infinity cyclorama which can be painted blue, green or white making it an incredibly useful facility - but who knows this even exists? Studio 7 also has a similar green screen area at one end now. During 2010 and into 2011 there were rumours of problems between Haymarket and Pinewood over the lease, partly concerning who owns what in the studios. From an outsider's perspective Teddington appears poorly marketed with few production managers seemingly aware of what the studios offer. This is even more surprising considering that Pinewood's two TV studios were booked by movies for much of 2010 and 2011. One would have thought that this would have been a golden opportunity to refurb one or both of the main Teddington studios and then really push it hard. The lease was due for renewal in September 2011 and it was rumoured throughout the industry that Pinewood would call it a day here. However, they decided to renew the lease for a further three years - although they said that there would have to be some cost-cutting and a few redundancies My guess - and this is purely a guess - is that Pinewood are waiting to see what happens to the studios at TV Centre when that building is sold. Apparently, they don't anticipate spending any money on refurbishing these studios during the next three years and there is even talk of some of the equipment being transferred to Pinewood if bookings are sparse. However, 2012 is looking reasonably promising - so we can't write the studios here off quite yet!
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To round off the ITV story - whilst the following hasn't affected the studios in London it is worth noting the change that happened to ITV in October 2002. This was when the names of the regional companies were dropped from on-screen idents and the channel simply became 'ITV1'. In London, Carlton and LWT logos continued to appear at the end of programmes until 31st October 2004. Following the merger of Carlton and Granada all programmes made in-house carry the 'Granada' logo, although oddly for a while the copyright symbol still said LWT in very small letters on a few shows. Even more curiously, this reappeared on the end of I'm A Celebrity Get me Out of Here - transmitted in November 2006. How or why this was classified as an LWT programme is a mystery yet to be solved.
Incidentally - in 2006, following a major refurbishment of the reception area at the 'London Television Centre' on the South Bank, the walls were proudly decorated with a giant mural of actors and performers from ITV's long history. There were two illuminated logos mounted one above the other on the mural - one was 'ITV', the other was 'Granada'. Who would have thought in 1955 that Sidney Bernstein's company would one day take over the whole ITV network?
Perhaps someone thought that was all a little too much for the soft southerners to stomach - and that ITV's history was, well, history. Around 2009 the foyer was refurbished again, the famous faces were painted over and all that can be seen now are flat screens showing all four ITV channels and a few signs with the latest 'ITV' logo.
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An apology - firstly for all those errors which are almost certainly still sprinkled throughout the above. I shall do my best to put them right when I discover them or when somebody contacts me with the facts! Secondly - I am very aware that I have almost completely ignored sound in all my comments about studio equipment. It's not that I'm not interested, rather that I am far better informed about cameras and lighting and frankly there is very little information out there about which sound mixer was installed in what studio and when. That's my excuse anyway. |