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derek

A member since 17 July 2015


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derek

BBC World News from New Broadcasting House


A bureau is a BBC office. It would normally include some form of computer and network connection, and some form of basic radio equipment to allow for a live contribution or a pre-recorded feed. This could be anything from a regular phone line, to ISDN, to an IP circuit depending on the facilities available in the location.

Bigger bureaux will also include TV facilities either for live video contributions, or for editing and filing. These could be via IP or conventional fibre or satellite broadcast circuits. The live video contribution could have a dedicated camera, in some cases a dedicated single-camera studio space (and in Washington, New York, Singapore etc. a multi-camera studio), but in others they may require a field camera to be set-up for video contributions, and there may not be a studio, and instead a corner of the office is used (sometimes with a simple printed backdrop if CSO/Chromakey or a suitable window isn't feasible)

Important to remember that the BBC Is a large radio broadcaster as well as TV, so it is entirely possible for a bureau to have radio facilities but not TV.


Only multi-camera studios I can think of are Washington, Singapore and Cairo. I hear the WS Kabul office has one too, but I can't confirm that. NY is a single camera. There's about 10 times as many people in DC as in the News NY bureau (there's a Worldwide office in NY too)

Almost all BBC bureaus have TV contribution feeds, ranging from multiple channels on ATM circuits like Washington, to Vyvx connected bureaus like Rio, to NTTs or OBEs over MPLS (Gaza) or the internet (Rome), to Quicklink over a Bgan (Myanmar) or LiveU on 4G (Taipei). Some bureaus the camera is in the corner of the newsroom (Jakarta springs to mind), but the camera is usually left in situ so the journalist or guest can walk in, turn on and be on air in 2 minutes. Most bureaus have a dedicated room of some sort, often shared with the radio equipment. Some buraus have multiple TV facilities - Gaza, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Cairo can feed 2 streams at a time, as can Singapore. Washington can do 3, Brussels only streams 1 feed, but there's 2 sources. Increasingly liveU is used from outside places (Washington on the white house lawn for example).

The number of non-IP circuits from BBC bureaus, I believe, is 3. The majority of vision circuits are over the internet, and have been for the best part of 5 years.

Very few chromakeys left, Berlin, LA, maybe Moscow, and I believe Sao Paulo too, possibly Khatmandu. Bangkok doesn't have any background, just a live balcony position, and is fairly unique in that it needs to be set up for each hit. I can't think of any still backgrounds - Geneva was a still for a while, but it was a JPEG on a USB stick rather than a print. Rome moved to a TV background about a year ago.
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derek

New BBC Singapore studio


After a lot more digging i found that the new Bureau is 10,000sq ft and located in one of the Aperia towers. No idea what floor or which tower.
Just thought this useless information might be of interest to someone.


13th floor. Tower furthest from the coffee shop (nearest to Kallang road). If you're booking Uber get it from 12 Kallang road, not 8 or 10.

Interesting that nobody mentioned the first live from the new office about 30 hours ago.

I think Singapore is the highest profile BBC news studio with a real view out of a window. Other bureaus have live outside positions, but they need to be rigged with a shoot edit. Joburg, Brussels, Nairobi, and Gaza spring to mind. Mediacity was going to have a real view, but that didn't last long. Live camera backgrounds include Rome, Brussels and Washington.

Generally the desirability order is

1) Outside (e.g Brussels Balcony)
2) Inside with window (e.g Ramallah)
3) Live Camera (e.g. Rome)
4) DVD (e.g. Delhi)
5) Static background (e.g one of the Gaza studios)

Aside from Ramallah and Rio, I cant think of any bureau with a window view from the studio.

The PTZ on the ladder is not for the bigwigs to keep an eye on things. Look for a timelapse of the office build at some point though.