It also says they'll reduce their property estate in London. Perhaps that means the non-TVC White City buildings or maybe the separate buildings around NBH. Do they still have other buildings in London (other than Maida Vale/Stratford)? Elstree I suppose.
I've been saying it would be a good idea to build studios and production offices for Radio 2 where the now vacant Studio B is and vacate Wogan House.
Pretty sure what they mean by that is we will cut the number of sub-regions in the North to enable us to deliver regional news in HD but rather than be honest about that we'll try and pass it off as a new and improved version of BBC1 and hope nobody notices.
That's nothing like what it says:
We will introduce a tailored BBC One across Yorkshire, North West and North East England,
with
regional continuity and marketing campaigns
that help audiences discover our most
relevant programming and services.
This sounds like they’re planning to move out of The Mailbox.
Quote:
We will build Birmingham’s strength in TV formats, with more primetime brands alongside Great British Menu.
We aim to build a centre of excellence in production in Birmingham by consolidating all BBC activity there into one creative quarter, such as Digbeth.
I'm really not surprised; the Mailbox costs a fortune in rent and the lease expires in 2026.
Once you've been around a few years you spot the wheel spinning and the circles.
They moved out of Carpenter Road, Broad Street and Gosta Green to have everything consolidated in Pebble Mill.
Then it became the Mailbox and the Drama Village, and now it is all going to be consolidated again.
Why a BBC One North and everyone else in England has a BBC One South, including the Midlands, East Anglia and the South West - are they considered close enough to London to share the same outlook on life, in the way that Dumfries and Shetland all share the same Scottish identity?
Of course the regions can opt out for their own trailers now can’t they, but they rarely do as it’s time consuming.
If the North is having seperate continuity, maybe they should rename the North West region news as Look North, so they can actually promote it verbally throughout the day
It also says they'll reduce their property estate in London. Perhaps that means the non-TVC White City buildings or maybe the separate buildings around NBH. Do they still have other buildings in London (other than Maida Vale/Stratford)? Elstree I suppose.
I've been saying it would be a good idea to build studios and production offices for Radio 2 where the now vacant Studio B is and vacate Wogan House.
Bear in mind when Bush House and TVC closed and many departments moved into LBH, there were not enough desks and seats available. I think that each hot desk had three staff to use one. Now home working will take some of that, and these new moves from London will help, but I suspect there remains too little space in the revamped BH.
Wogan House is very close to BH, I imagine that will be one of the last external buildings the BBC will leave.
Pretty sure what they mean by that is we will cut the number of sub-regions in the North to enable us to deliver regional news in HD but rather than be honest about that we'll try and pass it off as a new and improved version of BBC1 and hope nobody notices.
It looks like the return of the old BBC North region which covered the current three regions. Lincs will be the loser in this if the Hull based regional news bulletin is replaced with a bulletin from Salford, but I like the idea of tailored continuity for the north in the same way the nations have.
I don't know how people have managed to infer that what's been announced. For a start they're not sub-regions, all four programmes covering the North are fully-fledged regions in the own right (I know the two regions covering Yorkshire do some pan-regional stuff, but so does East and West Midlands, their main regional news programmes are completely bespoke). There's absolutely no way they'd be merging them together, that would be the complete opposite of what these changes are intending to achieve.
With Asian Network & Newsbeat moving to Birmingham, plus select Radio 1, 1Xtra & Radio 2 shows coming from outside of London. Also 6Music based up north, could R2 share the same floor as the others at the top of NHB?
Why a BBC One North and everyone else in England has a BBC One South, including the Midlands, East Anglia and the South West - are they considered close enough to London to share the same outlook on life, in the way that Dumfries and Shetland all share the same Scottish identity?
I’m not sure BBC One continuity ever gets that deep to be honest.
It's obviously hard to tell from one line in a document what "regional continuity" entails. At the moment it's individual regions doing the occasional opt-out by playing their programme/ident from their gallery isn't it? So presumably first thing would be a technical change for Salford to provide a northern channel, maybe slaved to Network in a similar set up to how the ITV regions work, rather than Nations who do their own schedule? And would this be 24/7, and branded? Seems a little strange to increase costs although I suppose it would be an announcer/director role, à la the Nations. Interesting to see how this works out.
Good news on regional HD, that'll stop me having to remember to create series links on ch.108 and let me see the news in something other than blurryvision. Might show up how tatty some of the studio sets are though.
This sounds like they’re planning to move out of The Mailbox.
Quote:
We will build Birmingham’s strength in TV formats, with more primetime brands alongside Great British Menu.
We aim to build a centre of excellence in production in Birmingham by consolidating all BBC activity there into one creative quarter, such as Digbeth.
Currently, Digbeth is a total dump. And struggling to think of where they will move into for all these departments, unless they want to take over The Custard Factory.
However, in 4-6 years there is a massive rebuilding project planned, transport links will be improved, and another couple of years after then, same side of the city walking distance from Birmingham Curzon Street HS2 station.
I don’t think it would be that difficult to find some office/studio space around the Custard Factory for the news and radio side. But I’m not sure that area could accommodate Doctors quite as well as the Drama Village does now.
With Asian Network & Newsbeat moving to Birmingham, plus select Radio 1, 1Xtra & Radio 2 shows coming from outside of London. Also 6Music based up north, could R2 share the same floor as the others at the top of NHB?
Though the Asian Network already is mostly in Birmingham and a lot of 6 Music comes from Salford already - on a weekday I think it's only breakfast and afternoons from London (possibly late night too). It won't be that much of a change