South West England & CI Thread

Which is total nonsense. A DTT signal running on reduced power, would not result in that happening. Why do jounos make up this crap, rather than asking someone who actually knows the answer ! Makes you wonder what other so called 'facts' are wrong !

After The Chase tonight on ITV1 West, a countdown clock appeared on screen which flickered. Bottom left was the ITV News logo, and the text on the slide said "17:55 PROMO - ITV WEST COUNTRY NEWS (EAST)". This disappeared for a bit, then reappeared without the flicker, a five sec-countdown didn't move and then they just went into a commercial break.

There seemed to be some sound issues tonight too - on the ITV West version anyway - At the start of the programme (titles/what stories would be covered), and during the local sport.

In my eyes, it's still better than Points West !

EDIT: ITV West have raised their desk! Wonder why... it looks more comfortable though!

AIUI they all have that option, it's essentially metal doweling that connects the top to the base, it's just a case of adjusting it.

Wonder if the Points West set will need to be rebuilt...



Full story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-12607333

Lots and lots of lines in that article from BBC managers that echo of the arguments for moving from Pebble Mill! "Expensive to maintain" ... "no longer fit for purpose" ... "analogue studios in a digital age" All complete rubbish. It's probably a fait acomplis (sp?!) unfortunately, but Whiteladies Road is a very pleasant place to work and the TV Studio isn't bad (though there are larger in English Regions). It's surely been on the cards since the constant attacks on the NHU staff levels and the move of Casualty to Cardiff (although they weren't based at Whiteladies Road anyway).

Yes, I too got that vibe from it. I'd hate a nice building to be lost because some suits in a local authority decide something is outdated and want a quick buck. I bet the new HQ is made of steel and glass and has a huge illuminated sign atop and they only use 60% of it.

"A Purpose built building would offer a number of savings"
Umm, have things changed since 2003/4? I thought "diversifying into new areas to integrate the broadcasting experience with the licence fee payers" [sticking them in obscure patches in the city centres where there is limited space and scope for improvement] was the way forward.

The BBC Bristol complex is a quaint, complicated and in places very outdated set of buildings - there's no denying it. Courtesy of our good friends at Google here's the site:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=bs8+2lr&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Bristol,+Avon+BS8+2LR,+United+Kingdom&t=h&source=embed&ll=51.460689,-2.607343&spn=0.001738,0.005284&z=18

The new bit with the red roofs (top left on that map) houses reception, the club, a conference suite, a research centre, some offices, the canteen and did have some of network Post Production in it (that might have closed now). As far as I can remember there are no actual broadcasting studios (apart from a tiny Contribution studio for radio).

The rest of the site is made up of houses along Whiteladies (labelled A4018) and Tyndall's Park Roads which house everything else.

The TV studio block (with the white roof, bottom left) and the OB Garage (the huge grey roofed building top right) are the main purpose-built buildings on the site - all the rest of the acommodation is in Edwardian houses - all very nice, but a nightmare for Accessible Access, difficult to find your way around, difficult to run cables from one to the next etc,

As you can see, the fact that the BBC inhabits a nice triangle of Clifton does have the advantage that the carparking within the 'courtyard' is relatively secure - there are only a few ways in to the centre - as most of the houses which front onto the street don't have operational doors.

It'd be a crying shame to see Bristol move from Whiteladies Road, don't get me wrong. I never really saw why Pebble Mill couldn't be saved - it should have had more investment over the years, but it was a flexible, purpose built, multi-media broadcasting centre, with excellent parking, good communication links (both technologically and transport speaking). Unfortunately that's probably not the case for Bristol.

Does anyone have any information on Spotlight's move to Sutton Harbour? It all seems to have gone a bit quiet.

This happened to Meridian too quite a few months ago!

Looks more authoritative, if not necessarily aesthetically pleasing. Was it a serious news item, or a whim that the desk was up that night?