✎ Fountaineer 

12 April 2016 tbs.pm/8988

Slowly but surely the vast majority of television studio space has disappeared in the UK.

We’ve lost most of Television Centre, Quay Street, City Road, ATV/Central House, Derry’s Cross, Southampton, Teddington, Euston, Culverhouse Cross… the list just goes on.

There’s now a desperate shortage of studio space and time available. Big live events like Children in Need are done in Elstree, not designed nor setup for such things and located miles from any appreciable audience and public transport.

The number of people exiting the world of television work, taking their experience with them, losing skilled, paid, permanent jobs in favour of zero-hours contracts, temporary assignments, and low-paid work — all of which reduce the taxes available to the government to pay for the NHS and increase the amount spent on social security on fit people of working age — is striking and appalling.

And now the British Talking Pictures/20th Century-Fox studios at Wembley, the home of Rediffusion and LWT for many years and now the independent location for the X-Factor and similar large-scale productions is going too.

The profitable site will close in December, as there’s more money (albeit as a one-off) to be made from tearing down 100 years of history and putting up soulless, boxy flats at prices almost nobody can afford.

On that depressing note… in 1967, the original Transdiffusion children were taken on a guided tour of the studios. They were each given a small booklet explaining the history of the site and the wonders of the place in glorious detail.

We’ve digitised it and uploaded so you can read it in full for free. Just visit rediffusion.retropia.co.uk and enjoy.

You Say

1 response to this article

Paul Mason 19 April 2016 at 6:10 am

Depressing though this news is dont forget Media City in Salford has new studios for BBC and ITV, where the Granada name lives on for north west news and weather programmes only.

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A member of the Transdiffusion Broadcasting System
Liverpool, Tuesday 19 March 2024