This pair of articles is based on the content of a booklet designed for visitors to Rediffusion's main production centre in Wembley, North London and published in April 1967.
London’s Television
Since 1955 Rediffusion Television (originally Associated-Rediffusion) has been providing Independent Television programmes for the London area - Monday to Friday. Many of these programmes are also networked throughout the country. The staff averages around 1,400 people, of whom more than 900 are directly engaged in making programmes. Rediffusion Television receives no public funds, the programmes being financed entirely by the sale of advertisement time. Advertisements appear between programmes and in natural breaks within them. They may not occupy more than 10% of all transmission time.
Rediffusion Television sells “time” as a newspaper sells “space”. The advertiser has no control or influence over what programmes are selected or how they are produced.
The company’s headquarters are at Television House, Kingsway, in central London where there are four small studios used mainly for current affairs programmes and also for continuity and programme promotion. Most drama, entertainment, educational, religious and children’s programmes are produced from five television studios at Wembley. This booklet, intended for the guidance of visitors to the Rediffusion Television studios at Wembley, describes their history and gives an account of the production facilities they now contain.
The Story of Wembley Studios
The site now occupied by the Rediffusion Television studios at Wembley was originally part of the British Empire Exhibition opened by King George V in April, 1924. After the exhibition closed, the Lucullus Garden Club in the exhibition grounds was converted into a film studio by British Talking Pictures, a company formed to develop the new invention of sound films. Here some of the earliest British talkies were produced, and after the destruction of two stages by fire in 1929, larger and more modern studios were built. The first production made in the new studios was “Wedding Rehearsal” directed by the young Alexander Korda. Later came a film called, ironically as it turned out, “Death at Broadcasting House”. Low down on the cast list were the names of Val Gielgud, Bette Davis, Jack Hawkins and Donald Wolfit.
In 1934 Wembley studios were taken over by Fox Films (later 20th Century Fox) and many stars who were destined to become world famous got their first chance in the low budget second features made in this period. James Mason signed his first contract to work on one of these; Googie Withers was paid £5 a week; Rex Harrison was on 3 guineas a day, and George Sanders on £5 a day. Michael Anderson, subsequently famed for his direction of such films as “The Dam Busters” and “Around the World in Eighty Days”, was chief cashier, while Gabriel Pascal completed a full-length feature on a budget of £6,000 with a shooting schedule of 10 days.
In 1943, when the studios were being used by the Army Kinema Corporation, Wembley had its second big fire destroying No. 2 stage (now Studio 4) which at the time was being used for film cutting and dispatch. Like the first fire 14 years earlier the cause of the outbreak remained a mystery.
The last of hundreds of feature films shot at Wembley was the 1954 production of “The Ship That Died of Shame”, a film that was later bought and screened on television in London by Rediffusion Television. A motor torpedo boat was specially built for the film and “launched” in what are now studios 1 and 2. One scene called for the star, Richard Attenborough, to be filmed on deck in a storm. Fire hoses were used to simulate waves and spray dashing over the vessel. Unfortunately one of the men playing the hoses lost his aim and the full force of the jet caught Attenborough, flinging him back into the super-structure. He ended up in hospital with a gashed head and arm.
Rediffusion Television and Talent Associates have combined to produce major television dramas for screening in this country and in the United States in colour.
The life of Wembley as a film studio ended in January, 1955, when it was taken over by the new television company. In nine months the old film studios, with the scenery of “The Ship That Died of Shame” still strewn over the floors, had to be converted ready for the start of Independent Television in London in September, 1955. Buildings were pulled down and others erected in their place. Television control rooms were built across the centre of the biggest stage to form studios 1 and 2. Electronic television cameras and telecine facilities were installed, everything being linked together by more than 20 miles of sound, vision and control cables. Studios 1 and 2 were finished by the beginning of September, and two more studios were in service by the end of the year.
Since then many additional improvements have been made to the production facilities at Wembley. Four mobile outside broadcast units are housed here, while modern videotape and tele-recording facilities enable the most economical use to be made of the studios. The most ambitious extension was the 14,000 square foot studio 5 which first went on the air in June, 1960. With space enough to contain a complete circus ring, a dance floor, a full-scale orchestra, and an audience of 500, studio 5 has been the scene of many of Rediffusion Television’s major productions. This studio, one of the world’s largest specially built for television, has an unusual design. It can be used in two ways: either as one huge studio with up to eight cameras directed from a single control room, or as two self-contained studios, 5a and 5b. When this happens two massive 25-ton steel doors are lowered at a speed of one foot per minute. The connecting side doors are closed, and each sound-proof section can then be used independently for two quite separate productions.
