BBC Birmingham is one of the oldest regional arms of the BBC, located in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

. It was the first region outside

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

to start broadcasting both the corporation's

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

(in 1922) and

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

(in 1949) transmissions, the latter from the

Sutton Coldfield television transmitter The Sutton Coldfield transmitting station is a broadcasting and telecommunications facility located in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England. In terms of population covered, it is the third most important transmitter in the UK, after Crystal ...

. From 1971 BBC Birmingham was based at the Pebble Mill Studios, replacing studios on Broad Street, but in 2004 moved to the Mailbox facility in the city centre. Pebble Mill has been demolished to make way for a dental hospital and school of dentistry, which opened in 2016. BBC Birmingham is not to be confused with

BBC Midlands BBC Midlands may refer to: *BBC East Midlands, the BBC English Region covering Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland, headquartered in Nottingham *BBC West Midlands BBC Midlands (known as the Midland Region from 1927 until c. 1 ...

, which is also based at the Mailbox. BBC Birmingham is the name of the Network Productions Centre in Birmingham making network programmes for

and

is the regional operation providing news, current affairs and other regional programmes. Some departments within BBC Birmingham, such as factual programming, have been subject to review as part of a wider restructuring process. Much of the factual department, making programmes such as ''

Countryfile ''Countryfile'' is a British television programme which airs weekly on BBC One and reports on rural, agricultural, and environmental issues in the United Kingdom. The programme is currently presented by John Craven, Adam Henson, Matt Baker ...

'', has been moved to either Bristol, Salford or other BBC offices.

Buildings

Before 1971, several converted buildings across the city were used for the BBC's operations in Birmingham. At some point after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

the BBC took over the headquarters of the Birmingham Royal Institution for the Blind, a very large collection of buildings in Carpenter Road, Edgbaston. Here in the 1950's were several radio studios the largest of which was used by the

Midlands Light Orchestra The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the In ...

for rehearsals and live broadcasts. In 1957 BBC TV was established in Birmingham for the first time taking over the MLO's studio and installing the necessary lighting on builders' scaffolding. By gutting an ex-London redundant BBC TV outside broadcast unit ("Scanner") the necessary three cameras (RCA 3 inch image orthicons) were salvaged. The associated camera control units, sound and vision production/mixer desk and seating were all very precariously held together with Dexion angle and old packing cases. A smaller room alongside was used for early evening local news broadcasts by dragging a camera in from the main studio. Acoustic treatment was achieved using old egg trays glued to the walls. It was all "make do and mend" and breakdowns were frequent. In 1959 a new purpose built news studio equipped with latest "miniature" Vidicon cameras was established in Broad Street in an old building backing on to Gas Street Basin. This building was already the main "switching centre" for the national network for radio and TV. Carpenter Road was also the base for BBC Midlands TV outside broadcasts with MCR10 – a articulated mobile control unit – equipped with Marconi Mk1 3 inch image orthicon cameras. It was also the base for the necessary VHF/UHF "Links Unit" to get the outside broadcast pictures and sound back into the national network – in the Midlands area usually via the main TV transmitter mast at Sutton Coldfield. In 1959 the BBC acquired the Victorian-era ex-boxing booth/cinema/theatre at Gosta Green and this was completely internally altered to become a fully equipped TV studio and TV film unit with canteens, offices, green room and editing suite. Network television was based at

Gosta Green Gosta Green is an area in the city of Birmingham, England. It lies at the edge of the city centre, northeast of Birmingham New Street station. University Gosta Green is the home of the Aston University campus. The campus is also adjacent to ...

just north of the city centre. Regional television and some radio production were in Broad Street. Other radio studios were located at Broadcasting House in Carpenter Road, Edgbaston, and at the Walker Hall in Ampton Road, Edgbaston. The Carpenter Road site also housed the administrative offices. All these departments, together with a new local radio station, were unified on the Pebble Mill site in a phased move during 1970/71. The new complex, known as the Broadcasting Centre, was the BBC's first building designed for both television and radio studios, and housed the corporation's largest TV studio outside London at the time. When Pebble Mill closed in 2004, BBC Birmingham moved to the Mailbox building in the city centre, and to the

BBC Drama Village The BBC Drama Village is a television production facility run by the BBC. It is operated by their BBC Birmingham branch and based largely at the Selly Oak campus of the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, England. The centre consists of fi ...

in the Selly Oak district. It was announced in August 2022, that BBC Birmingham will leave The Mailbox for the new creative quarter in Digbeth, Birmingham from 2026. The new broadcast centre will occupy the former Tyhpoo Tea factory. By then in adjacent studios the BBC’s flagship show Masterchef would have already taken up residence. The move coincides with BBC’s lease at The Mailbox coming to an end having been located there since the move from Pebble Mill in 2004.

Notable historical BBC Birmingham productions

Drama

In the 1970s and 1980s, BBC Birmingham was home to the English Regions Drama Department, established in 1971, and headed by the senior BBC producer

David Rose David Rose may refer to: Business * David Rose (real estate developer) (1892–1986), American real estate developer and philanthropist * David L. Rose (born 1967), American business executive and scientist at MIT Media Lab * David S. Rose (bor ...

. Its remit was to produce programmes set in various regions of England in order to provide balance to the output from

. Among the Department's best known productions are perhaps ''

Boys from the Blackstuff ''Boys from the Blackstuff'' is a British drama television series of five episodes, originally transmitted from 10 October to 7 November 1982 on BBC2. The serial was written by Liverpudlian playwright Alan Bleasdale, as a sequel to a televisio ...

'' (1982); ''

Play for Today ''Play for Today'' is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage ...

'' - The Fishing Party, contributions to ''

Thirty-Minute Theatre ''Thirty-Minute Theatre'' was a British anthology drama series of short plays shown on BBC Television between 1965 and 1973, which was used in part at least as a training ground for new writers, on account of its short running length, and which t ...

''; and a series of plays by new writers, called ''

Second City Firsts ''Second City Firsts'' is a British drama anthology series of single plays, broadcast by the BBC, all lasting thirty minutes. Recorded at BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham, or sometimes filmed on location, the series was broadcast between 1973 and 19 ...

'', produced by Peter Ansorge and Tara Prem which aired on

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

. The unit also produced the first BBC Television drama with a predominantly black and Asian cast, '' Empire Road'' (1978–79) also on BBC2. The long-running Sunday evening series '' The Brothers'' (1972–79), which starred

Jean Anderson Jean Anderson (12 December 1907 – 1 April 2001) was an English actress best remembered for her television roles as hard-faced matriarch Mary Hammond in the BBC drama '' The Brothers'' (1972–1976) and as rebellious aristocrat Lady Jocelyn " ...

, was also a fixture at the studios.

''Pebble Mill at One''

BBC Birmingham used the main foyer of its Pebble Mill building for the early afternoon television magazine programme ''

Pebble Mill at One ''Pebble Mill at One'' is a British television magazine programme that was broadcast live on weekdays at one o'clock on BBC1, from 2 October 1972 to 23 May 1986, and again from 14 October 1991 to 29 March 1996. It was transmitted from the Peb ...

'', which ran from 1972 until 1986 and raised the profile of the studios to something of a national institution. The idea to use the foyer came about because of a lack of other studio space. It was one of the few daytime magazine programmes at the time, and quickly became popular. The Pebble Mill format returned in 1988 as ''Daytime Live'', renamed ''Scene Today'' and finally ''Pebble Mill''. There was a Pebble Mill spin-off during the 1970s, when

BBC 1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

rested its main Saturday chat show, '' Parkinson''. BBC Birmingham was commissioned to produce a late night replacement. The result was ''Saturday Night at the Mill'' with

Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen Kenneth Daniel Ball (22 May 1930Larkin C., ''Virgin Encyclopedia of Sixties Music''. (Muze UK Ltd, 1997), p. 29; ) – 7 March 2013) was an English jazz musician, best known as the bandleader, lead trumpet player and vocalist in Kenny Ball and ...

as the regular house band, who also performed the show's signature tune. The programme was directed and produced by Roy Norton and Roy Ronnie. In 1981, an early evening version of a 1960s hit show on BBC1 called ''Six Five Special'' re-surfaced during the Mill's summer break, presented by Donny MacLeod and Marian Foster, and occupying the slot vacated by ''Nationwide''.

Programmes for Asian Viewers

During the early '60s, BBC Birmingham pioneered television programmes, for the Asian community. These were presented and produced by Mahendra Kaul and directed by Ashok Rampal, and broadcast on Sunday mornings on the sole BBC Television channel at the time. The programme, ''Apna Hi Ghar Samajhiye'' ("''Make Yourself At Home''") aired on Sundays at 9.00am for half an hour.

Hosted programmes

The Birmingham studios also occasionally accommodated productions usually based in London when regular studio space was unavailable, for example the children's programmes, '' Play School'' and ''

Jackanory ''Jackanory'' is a BBC children's television series which was originally broadcast between 1965 and 1996. It was designed to stimulate an interest in reading. The show was first transmitted on 13 December 1965, and the first story was the fair ...

'', and the current affairs programme ''Nationwide'' during the power cuts of 1972 when the Lime Grove studios in London were in darkness. Some nationally popular programmes were hosted by BBC Birmingham and recorded at the Pebble Mill Studios which included the children's programme The ''

Basil Brush Basil Brush is a fictional red fox, best known for his appearances on daytime British children's television. He is primarily portrayed by a glove puppet, but has also been depicted in animated cartoon shorts and comic strips. The character has f ...

'' show.

Other Programmes

A popular BBC2 programme from Birmingham for much of the 1970s-1990s was

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in ...

programme ''

Pot Black ''Pot Black'' was a snooker tournament in the United Kingdom broadcast on the BBC. Each match was contested over a single , where other tournaments were significantly longer. The event carried no ranking points, but played a large part in t ...

'', generally shown most Fridays throughout the year at 9.00pm. Well-known BBC programmes based in Birmingham included the drama series '' Dalziel and Pascoe'', '' Dangerfield'', '' All Creatures Great and Small'', ''

Howards' Way ''Howards' Way'' is a television drama series produced by BBC Birmingham and transmitted on BBC1 between 1 September 1985 and 25 November 1990. The series deals with the personal and professional lives of the wealthy yachting and business comm ...

'', ''

This Life This may refer to: * ''This'', the singular proximal demonstrative pronoun Places * This, or ''Thinis'', an ancient city in Upper Egypt * This, Ardennes, a commune in France People with the surname * Hervé This, French culinary chemist Arts, e ...

'', daytime soap opera '' Doctors'', anthology series ''The Afternoon Play'' and daytime property show ''

To Buy or Not to Buy ''To Buy or Not to Buy'' is a British reality television series made between 2003 and 2010 for BBC One in the UK. The final series was the eleventh and contained 90 episodes, in one of two formats—either 30 or 45 minutes in length. It aired o ...

''. Quiz shows including '' Telly Addicts'' were recorded at Pebble Mill. Gardening programme '' Gardener's World'', cooking show ''

Hairy Bikers The Hairy Bikers are collectively David Myers and Si King. The pair of British celebrity chefs have presented numerous television shows, mostly for the BBC but also for the Good Food channel, that combine cooking with a motorcycling trav ...

'', factual series ''

Coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

'' the countryside and environmental series ''

'' and viewer feedback show '' Points of View'' were also all based here, until moving to

BBC Bristol The BBC campus, Broadcasting House Bristol, is located on Whiteladies Road, Bristol. The first building to be occupied was 21/23 Whiteladies Road, which was built in 1852 and is a Grade II listed building, with four radio studios. It was formal ...

and

BBC Northern Ireland BBC Northern Ireland ( ga, BBC Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ''BBC Norlin Airlan'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of I ...

respectively. The original series of ''

Top Gear Top Gear may refer to: * "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission Television * ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme * ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the or ...

'' was also produced by BBC Birmingham as was some content of the astronomy-based programme ''

The Sky at Night ''The Sky at Night'' is a monthly documentary television programme on astronomy produced by the BBC. The show had the same permanent presenter, Sir Patrick Moore, from its first broadcast on 24 April 1957 until 7 January 2013. The latter dat ...

'', while the rest is produced in

Selsey Selsey is a seaside town and civil parish, about eight miles (12 km) south of Chichester in West Sussex, England. Selsey lies at the southernmost point of the Manhood Peninsula, almost cut off from mainland Sussex by the sea. It is bounde ...

Current BBC Birmingham productions

BBC Birmingham output has steadily diminished over time as production has moved elsewhere with the closure of Pebble Mill and the development of other BBC sites. '' Doctors'' is currently produced at the

Selly Oak Selly Oak is an industrial and residential area in south-west Birmingham, England. The area gives its name to Selly Oak ward and includes the neighbourhoods of: Bournbrook, Selly Park, and Ten Acres. The adjoining wards of Edgbaston and Harbor ...

, and ''

The Archers ''The Archers'' is a BBC radio drama on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now promoted as "a contemporary drama in a rural set ...

'' is produced for BBC Radio 4. For afternoon broadcast after ''Doctors'', ''

Father Brown Father Brown is a fictional Roman Catholic priest and amateur detective who is featured in 53 short stories published between 1910 and 1936 written by English author G. K. Chesterton. Father Brown solves mysteries and crimes using his intui ...

'' and '' Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators'' are current BBC Birmingham productions whereas '' The Afternoon Play'', '' Land Girls'', ''

WPC 56 ''WPC 56'' is a British television police procedural series, created and partly written by Dominique Moloney and broadcast on BBC One. The stories feature the first woman police constables (WPC) to join the fictional Midlands Constabulary at Br ...

'', and ''

The Coroner ''The Coroner'' is a BBC Birmingham drama series starring Claire Goose as Jane Kennedy, a coroner based in a fictional South Devon coastal town. Matt Bardock stars as Detective Sergeant Davey Higgins. On 2 March 2017, the BBC announced that t ...

'' are former productions. The closure of the Factual Unit in 2012 meant no factual programmes outside of regional output are produced in Birmingham. The Midlands contributes the highest portion of the BBC's revenue through licence fees (£942 million) yet has the second lowest amount of BBC spending in the region, after Northern Ireland. This equates to "91% of Midland BBC licence fees spent elsewhere"

Regional output

As with all other BBC regions, BBC Birmingham is responsible for providing local radio services and the regional television news broadcasts on BBC One during the times when all regions opt out of the network feed to provide their own local news programming, which in the BBC Birmingham area is called ''Midlands Today''.

BBC Midlands Today ''Midlands Today'' is the BBC's regional television news service for the West Midlands. It was launched in 1964 and is presented by Mary Rhodes, Nick Owen, Elizabeth Glinka, Rebecca Wood and Shefali Oza. Overview ''Midlands Today'' is produc ...

is broadcast from in the Mailbox in Birmingham, and is the regional news for; *

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouths ...

* Northern

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avo ...

* West Midlands *

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands C ...

* North and West

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primaril ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bbc Birmingham Television studios in England

Radio stations in Birmingham, West Midlands Television stations in Birmingham, West Midlands