The B.B.C. Television Centre and its technical facilities

The B.B.C. Television Centre is the first television headquarters and programme production centre built by the B.B.C. and one of the few buildings in the world constructed expressly for television programme origination. The Centre is at present equipped for producing about twenty hours of programme per week from four production studios and their ancillary areas, and for maintaining continuity of the network programme as a whole. The Centre is principally intended for the production of live programmes but has considerable facilities for the production and reproduction of programmes in recorded form. When completed the Centre will have some ten or eleven studios and will be capable of originating and handling programmes for two programme chains. The Centre includes facilities for all phases of work concerned with programme origination, including recording and standards conversion. It is initially equipped for black-and-white operation on 405-line standards, but has been designed so as to be ready for conversion to the requirements of other television standards and for colour. Arising from the large power requirement of television production, the Television Centre also contains a large amount of heavy power equipment.