BBC Studios in London
(apart from TV Centre)
Studios and dates listed below in the order they appear:
BBC Elstree Centre is covered on the ITV studios page ‘Elstree – ATV and BBC’
Ealing Studios are covered on the film studios page
NB – I have where possible given the dimensions of the studios. This can be a bit of a minefield. The BBC’s studios, Fountain, Teddington, Riverside and even Pinewood TV always had their plans drawn in metric 50:1 but for some reason The London Studios (LWT) still used the 1/4 inch to the foot scale until 2014. This slight but significant difference could cause problems if a set moved 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. Some firelanes are very narrow – others can be as much as 8 feet wide. Where possible I have quoted sizes within firelanes and in ‘metric feet’ where applicable. This curious measurement was adopted 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 metric feet or metres. 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 still measured in feet and inches.
Copyright information: As on the rest of this website – please do not use or ask permission to use any of these images in books or other publications or on TV programmes or commercially run websites. Many of the illustrations are copyrighted by their respective copyright holders according to the original copyright or publication date as printed on the artwork or publication and are reproduced here for historical reference and research purposes. If you do own the copyright to any image displayed here and wish it to be credited or removed, please contact me and I shall of course be happy to oblige.
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.
