{"id":1534,"date":"2013-03-22T20:28:58","date_gmt":"2013-03-22T20:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/?p=1534"},"modified":"2013-03-22T20:28:58","modified_gmt":"2013-03-22T20:28:58","slug":"goodbyetvc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/2013\/03\/goodbyetvc.php","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye Television Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tvc_from_above\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a sad time for those who have fond memories for the good old BBC Television Centre. BBC News moved out last week, the last broadcast from the building happening as I write this, and the building closing at the end of the month. I am one of those people with fond memories.<\/p>\n

When I was young my father, formally an electrician in the the theatre, became a broadcast engineer for the BBC and this is why we moved to the south of the country when I was at school. The coincidence of this is I gained access to one of the most interesting places in the world, that being TVC.<\/p>\n

At first I thought I must have only been to the building half a dozen times, but writing this I realised just how many more times I have been there and how many memories I have. I have seriously lost count and have seen so much to look back on.<\/p>\n

I have been on the Top of the Pop set (in TC2 I think), in the 1980’s Tardis, and watched the (slow) filming of many random programmes from the viewing galleries. I remember walking through the sets of Johnny Briggs, Rolland Rat, and the back of the Noels House Party (that at the time was more of a doughnut than the binding it was contained in).<\/p>\n

I have sat in the old news studio when the automated cameras were new and subtitling was done from the corridor. I have seen the turntable the christmas penguins rotated on, I have played with the old COW (Computer Originated World). I was even the first to see the Kenny Everett title sequence when VT was in the basement.<\/p>\n

I have walked the corridors and past so may doors. I have eaten in the canteen, drunk the tea, chatted in the BBC club. I have explored the old OB units. I have relaxed in the Blue Peter garden. I have played with the galleries and must be one of the few people who can use a vision mixer that were self tort. I have visited three generations of network control and discovered how stupid all the security keys expiring on new year is.<\/p>\n

I have even helped with the TV7 refit in the 90s. I have also briefly been on kids TV but not filmed at TVC. There are so many other memories but if I keep going I will not stop for months.<\/p>\n

The most amazing thing is I never got lost in the building. Well, yes, okay, that last fact is a complete lie.<\/p>\n

One odd thing is most of my experiences of the place were as a child. Even in the 2000s it was starting to feel a bit foreign and like the next generation had taken over. The atmosphere was still there but I was no longer part of it.<\/p>\n

I have not been back since the great Manchester exodus started to drain the life out of the building. I don’t really want to because now there is just a building. The life has gone. I guess the memories will still be there but the atmosphere and the community is what the BBC has really lost, and I think it has gone because I can not find is elsewhere.<\/p>\n

So that is it. Goodbye Television Centre. I have some fond memories. They are old and at times they feel like I was a different person, and in many ways I was, but I treasure them never the less.<\/p>\n

Just in case you were wondering anything I did within TV was pure nepotism, but my radio career was all my own work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a sad time for those who have fond memories for the good old BBC Television Centre. BBC News moved out last week, the last broadcast from the building happening as I write this, and the building closing at the end of the month. I am one of those people with fond memories. When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4t60H-oK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1534"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1542,"href":"https:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions\/1542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.agm.me.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}