ITV abandons the South Bank

That email to staff just pushes the fact that there will be new and exciting offices to work in.

Maybe I am just a bit long in the tooth, but wasn't the excitement about working in broadcasting to do with the facilities be they studios, OBs, edits, communications, and so on.

Can anyone really get excited about offices never mind how the walls are painted, the computers on the desk or that there is a ping pong table?

Here comes the very big Q: How many studios outside daytime does ITV have? how many have them are being used to their full use?

It was the Coal Board Pension Fund, but didn't ITV buy it? Perhaps it belongs to their pension fund!

I wonder if there is an intention to completely move out of Gray's Inn Road, bringing ITV and ITN under on roof? Also, mention of Chiswick Park is interesting. Although mentioned in the context of a site being considered, is this an indication that Ericsson's ITV operation could move back to the South Bank?

Aha, that might explain why I couldn't find a planning application... I thought it was in Southwark!

Apart from the ones used for Coronation Street, Emmerdale and not counting those for news I'd have thought the answer is the 3 or 4 at the South Bank (the 4th being the old LNN/Daybreak studio)

Everything else has closed and the ones in Salford are hired by them

I would doubt it.
It seems as if the management don't want to be involved too much with the nitty gritty of broadcasting. Why would moving another firm who they have contracts with (and other broadcasters have contracts with) into an expensive central London building be an objective for them?

Funding of facilities has always been an issue. The 1962 Broadcasting House extention was owned by the Prudential Building Society and the BBC transmitters from the early days were financed by Barclays bank.

3 big studios along at the south bank, yet there is Maidstone, Elstree and TV centre all near by. I wonder how much its costing ITV to keep them running? Not even BGT or X factor come from them.

The times are a changing.

Once that and Riverside reopen they will be options and the new studio that X Factor will use. There's Pinewood and the two sites run by the BBC at Elstree (I think they're keeping their Elstree Studios lease)

Of course Maidstone and Salford might pick up some work too

When I was there last summer the three main studios were quite busy, it was more unusual to see them empty. They must have benefitted a lot from the other London studio closures so I'm surprised it's not a viable business. But then even a few days of an empty studio is money lost.

Studio 7 (Daybreak) is barely ever used and I'm surprised that hasn't already been converted into offices already.

That's a bit of a leap of logic. Chiswick Park is a bit of an obvious place to look to move regardless of where their playout is, it's a bit of a media village. Ericsson wouldn't want to move into town anyway, they were looking at relocating out from W12 a while back.

As for ITN, unlikely. Why would ITV want to build a nice centre for all their staff, and then fill a large part of it with ITN?

Something that may be interesting from this move is a change in the live daytime shows presentations. If they were to relocate GMB, Lorraine, This Morning & Loose Women then we would most likely see differences in the sets. Unless they can move to new studios and re construct the sets identical to how they would be in TLS.