BBC TV Pebble Mill at One titles - 1980

All of Pebble Mill Broadcasting Centre, Birmingham has now been raized to the ground - SHAME ON YOU BBC!

The first shot we see is actually the office block - the radio and TV studios were actually much lower and to the front to the left and right. TV Studio A and B can be seen in the helicopter tracking shot to the right, then the quadrangle and the radio studios to the left, including a large snooker room, much used by yours truly. The gardening items were done at the back of the building. The BBC Club was a minute or two walk beyond the radio studios, again out the back door. The huge car park was at the back to the right, but was most times virtually full.

The whole of the ground floor of the Broadcasting Centre was very light and airy, having floor to ceiling windows, especially around the quadrangle which it was all centred around. It was a very modern feeling building and especially having live TV every lunchtime during the week in the foyer! Also, Studio A produced cutting edge dramas, and also series - one being The Brothers, the story of Hammond Transport Services, the brothers and their domineering mother. The cast included Gabrielle Drake and Jean Anderson.

The foyer where Pebble Mill at One was broadcast, live, is across the front. Between the foyer and Studio A was a bridge out onto the front lawn where we pushed the cameras out on fine days. We even did captions on caption stands out in the glorious Birmingham sunshine, which seemed to happen more often than not! Great for a new camera assistant who loved anything a bit different to do with TV!

The cameras were EMI 2001 and we either took them from Studio B or preferably Studio A as that was on the ground floor, Studio B being on the first and so we had to get them to the foyer via the normal staff lifts, all of them complete on their peds.

I remember my first day there, straight from BBC Wood Norton Training Centre, Evesham. The way in from the car park was via the props store and walking along there there was a Dalek! I just couldn't believe seeing it. Why would BBC Birmingham want a Dalek? Perhaps for an item into PMaO....

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• BBC TV
• Pebble Mill at One
• Birmingham
• EMI 2001

[CHANNELMICHAEL]

It also must be said, Pebble Mill had much more power and 'energy' about it than New Broadcasting House at MR ever has had. And it was certainly better than the Failbox that they're in now, cheers for posting. I'll post the full theme to this as a video response. Cheers for this!

[unhban]

@CHANNELMICHAEL Thanks for the video response! I think this proves that my clip is 1980? The programme before it on the VHS tape was 1980 but sometimes you can add things to a tape years later! :)

Yes, certainly Pebble Mill had much more power and energy than NBH. I think PM had a much more modern way of thinking and that quite a number of the staff had come from London when PM started up, but had left the draconian thinkings behind?

[givemethevalium]

@CHANNELMICHAEL I worked there. iconic building...and not massively knackered inside in the final years. Mainly it was simply too big for today's BBC operation. Especially after Greg Dyke closed one of the studios there in 2000ish

[CHANNELMICHAEL]

@unhban I think what made Pebble Mill more 'modern' was the architect, lots of people hated his work, but John Madin was ahead of his time. His design was that unorthodox for Pebble Mill people believed plans were misread and it was built backwards! But his vision was the audience would be able to look across the lawn and see TV being made, genius considering the rest of the BBC only started doing that in the last 10 years or so!

[CHANNELMICHAEL]

RE: Dalek, The horror of fang Rock?

I agree the shameful destruction of Pebble Mill was less necessity and more want. Pebble Mill had soared ahead where TVC was dragging behind, so London slowly put nails into the Pebble Mill coffin, there was nothing wrong with the building that couldn't be fixed. Asbestos is removable, TVC had Asbestos removal programmes through the 1990s, Concrete cancer affected a small corner of the spur link (that was meant to lead into an abandoned multistorey car park)