Studios
Initially, Central inherited ATV's 1970s Broad Street studios, ATV Centre, which was renamed Central House when the contractor changed its name; It was retained as Central's main base of activity until 1996. Upon winning the franchise, Central decided to construct new studios for its East sub-region, based in Nottingham, Lenton Lane. (This move was even brought in to play in one of its most famous shows Boon when the main characters moved from Birmingham to Nottingham in its fourth series in 1989.) This facility was to be called 'The Television House'. Until the new Nottingham studios were ready, Central operated from a converted facility on an industrial estate at Giltbrook, near Eastwood on the outskirts of Nottingham. Operations at Nottingham were to be staffed by employees originally based at Elstree, which led to many problems due to the relocation, including industrial action (in fact, it was because of this industrial action that the promised separate news service for the East Midlands did not begin until 1984, by which time they had vacated Giltbrook).
In 1989, Central opened a third studios for its new South sub-region and city, based in Abingdon, near Oxford.
In 1994, the company's new owners Carlton acquired land on Gas Street, Birmingham, to begin work on building a new digital studio complex, with the intention of replacing Central's Broad Street studios. The new centre was completed in 1997, when Central West's regional news department moved from its Broad Street base. A tribute to the Broad Street studios was broadcast on Central News West.
Having been one of the first fully computerised news programmes, Central News South was again a pioneer of new technology when, in the Spring of 2001, state-of-the-art Quantel digital video servers and edit suites were installed, along with a complete re-fit of camera and VTR equipment, placing Central South at the forefront of digital news-gathering in regional news.
In February 2004, ITV plc announced plans to close and sell the Nottingham Lenton Lane production centre. Following the closure of the studios, a new news-gathering centre was established in the city, but production of Central News East moved to Central's Birmingham Gas Street studio in Spring 2005. The former studio complex is now part of The University of Nottingham and is known as 'King's Meadow Campus'. It still maintains one Studio (Studio 7), and this is rented out to television and film Companies, generating income for the University.
In October 2004, ITV plc closed Central's presentation/transmission department and moved transmission to the Northern Transmission Centre in Leeds. Although there was heavy opposition, the role of presentation and transmission at Birmingham had been significantly reduced after network presentation was centralised to LNN in London in 2002 and so there was an inevitability that this function would be moved out. CITV (Children's ITV), which had been presented from Central's Birmingham studios since 1983, was also re-homed to Granada's studios in Manchester, with all content pre-recorded and with out-of vision presentation.
It was announced on 6 June 2006 that Central News South's existence as a news region was to end after 17 years when the eastern half of the region (the area served by the Oxford transmitter) would merge its operations with Meridian West's output, forming a new news region named ITV Thames Valley and a new news programme, Thames Valley Tonight would begin. Originally, the changes were supposed to make over 40 workers redundant from the closure of Central South's Abingdon base, however this was later reduced to 20. The last edition was broadcast on Sunday 3 December, although there was a pan-regional Central News broadcast the following morning during GMTV. At the same time, ITV West's broadcast footprint was expanded to cover North Gloucestershire from the West's Bristol studios, while Herefordshire re-joined Central News West from Birmingham. Abingdon was retained as a newsgathering base, whilst equipment was sold off.
In September 2007, Central House on Broad Street was covered in scaffolding, ready for demolition, which commenced the following month. The facade, exhibition hall and studio block still remain as of November 2009.
A documentary about the Broad Street studios complex is in the process of being put together. Entitled 'From ATVLand In Colour' (referring to the nickname used on Tiswas, and the building being purpose-built by ATV for colour broadcasting), the documentary features presenters, actors, announcers and behind-the-scenes staff talking about their time working in the studios, and the programmes that were made there by Central, and predecessor ATV. Contributors include Chris Tarrant, Shaw Taylor, Jane Rossington and Bob Carolgees.
ITV have since also sold the Gas Street office building to Cube Real Estate, a commercial property developer, which has refurbished the interior of the building. While Central maintains office space and a single ground floor studio, the other studio and floors are available to rent as office space. The property is marketed as '22 Gas Street'.
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