In July 2012 the BBC completed the sale of Television Centre to Stanhope PLC. More recently, the BBC and Stanhope have formed a joint venture company, TVC Developments, which is overseeing the redevelopment of Television Centre. Television Centre has eight large general purpose TV production studios, known as TC1 to TC8.
The current plan by the BBC and Stanhope for Television Centre, which does not have local authority planning approval, only proposes to retain three of these studios: TC1 to TC3.
We believe this plan to be inadequate, wasteful and irresponsible.
It will leave UK programme makers with a shortage of large television production studios, and will amount to an act of cultural vandalism by the BBC and Stanhope.
We call on the BBC and Stanhope to retain the operational use of studios TC1 to TC8 at Television Centre for the continuing use of the UK broadcasting community.
Upgrades
Although the Television Centre studios started to open in 1960, they are not outdated and have been constantly upgraded over the years to remain a unique and efficient facility.
Today, the studios support high definition and 3D TV production along with state of the art 5.1 HD sound, which allied with a comprehensive lighting and scenery infrastructure, produces a high level of quality and flexibility.
For the past fifteen years the BBC, via its Studios and Post Production subsidiary, has made available Television Centre studios on a commercial basis to other broadcasters, with any profits used to supplement the Licence fee income.
This constant development of the engineering and production facilities at Television Centre has resulted in a consistently high demand for the use of the studios from BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and independent production teams.
A national asset
The brilliance of the original architectural and engineering design, by Graham Dawbarn, of the Television Centre studios means they have retained their relevance to the present day and are widely considered to be amongst the best in the world.
The studios represent a national asset, paid for by the British public through the Licence fee over many years, and it would be a gross dereliction of the BBC’s duty to the public to allow the demolition of any of these studios.
We therefore call on the BBC and Stanhope to change the current plans and retain TC1 to TC8 as working studios at Television Centre for the use of future generations and the cultural enrichment of the nation.
Elaine Duncan
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We the licence payers paid for tell tudios, so leave them alone!
The studios are obviously being wellusedwhich is great for UK talent & the economy as people using the facilities means jobs and also great tv for the public.