New Broadcasting House (NBH) was the BBC's

North West The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

England headquarters on Oxford Road in

Chorlton-on-Medlock Chorlton-on-Medlock or Chorlton-upon-Medlock is an inner city area of Manchester, England. Historically in Lancashire, Chorlton-on-Medlock is bordered to the north by the River Medlock, which runs immediately south of Manchester city centre. It ...

, Manchester. The studios housed

BBC Manchester BBC Manchester (often known as BBC Salford) is the British Broadcasting Corporation regional headquarters for the North West, the largest BBC region in the UK. BBC Manchester is a department of the BBC North Group division. The BBC considers th ...

BBC North West BBC North West is the BBC English Region serving Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, North Yorkshire (western Craven), West Yorkshire (western Calderdale), Derbyshire (western High Peak), Cumbria (Barrow-in-Furness and So ...

, the

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra The BBC Philharmonic is a national British broadcasting symphony orchestra and is one of five radio orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The Philharmonic is a department of the BBC North Group division based at MediaC ...

and the BBC Religion and Ethics department. It was known as a Network Production Centre, the others being in Birmingham (the now also demolished

Pebble Mill Studios Pebble Mill Studios was the BBC's television studio complex located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, United Kingdom, which served as the headquarters for BBC Birmingham from 1971 until 2004. The nine-acre site was opened by Princess Anne o ...

) and

Broadcasting House, 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 form ...

. New Broadcasting House was vacated during autumn 2011 when the departments were relocated to

MediaCityUK MediaCityUK is a mixed-use property development on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. The project was developed by Peel Media; its principal tenants are media organisations and the Quayside MediaCi ...

outside of central Manchester in

Salford Quays Salford Quays is an area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, near the end of the Manchester Ship Canal. Previously the site of Manchester Docks, it became one of the first and largest urban regeneration projects in the United Kingdom foll ...

. The building was demolished in 2012.

Architecture and construction

New Broadcasting House was built on a site bounded by Oxford Road, Charles Street, Princess Street and Brancaster Road. To the rear of the building was the

River Medlock The River Medlock is a river in Greater Manchester, England, which rises near Oldham and flows south and west for to join the River Irwell in Manchester city centre. Sources Rising in the hills that surround Strinesdale just to the east of O ...

. A

compulsory purchase order A compulsory purchase order (CPO; , ) is a legal function in the United Kingdom and Ireland that allows certain bodies to obtain land or property without the consent of the owner. It may be enforced if a proposed development is considered one for p ...

for the site was approved by the

Minister of Housing and Local Government The Ministry of Housing and Local Government was a United Kingdom government department formed following the Second World War, covering the areas of housing and local government. It was formed, as the Ministry of Local Government and Planning, ...

on 21 July 1967 and planning began the same year. Planning permission was granted in December 1968. Designs by an external architect were abandoned in February 1970 in favour of plans by R. A. Sparks from the BBC's Architectural and Civil Engineering Department. New planning permission was granted in March 1971, and construction began in December 1971 and was completed in 1975. Construction was in three stages – the network production centre for local radio and outside broadcasts, a rehearsal studio for the Northern Symphony Orchestra and the regional television centre. Radio Manchester was built on the upper ground floor in the west of the office block with a 754 square metre area. Studio A, a 453 square metre television studio, was built in the single-storey building behind the office block. The central technical area was next to the TV and radio studios. A 180-seat restaurant was built on the second floor. The view from the top of the building was of the

Mancunian Way The Mancunian Way is a two mile long grade separated elevated motorway in Manchester, England. It is officially made up of the A57(M) and A635(M) motorways, although the latter does not appear on road signs for practical reasons. It is also pa ...

. The building was supported on 214 piles, bored to a maximum depth of around 13 metres. The building frame was made of reinforced concrete infilled with flat soffit slabs and 2,100 square metres of windows. Its architecture has been ridiculed as 'drab' and unfit for the 21st century.

History

Demolition of New Broadcasting House, Manchester 1

Before New Broadcasting House opened, the BBC's Manchester base was at Broadcasting House in

Piccadilly Piccadilly () is a road in the City of Westminster, London, to the south of Mayfair, between Hyde Park Corner in the west and Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, ...

, and from 1958 it occupied four floors of Peter House in St Peter's Square.

Dickenson Road Studios Dickenson Road Studios was a film and television studio in Rusholme, Manchester, in North-West England. It was originally set up in 1947 in a former Wesleyan Methodist Chapel by the film production company Mancunian Films and was acquired by B ...

, the former studio of

Mancunian Films Mancunian Films was a British film production company first organised in 1934. From 1947 it was based in Rusholme, a suburb of Manchester, and produced a number of comedy films, mostly aimed at audiences in the North of England. History Founded ...

Rusholme Rusholme () is an area of Manchester, England, two miles south of the city centre. The population of the ward at the 2011 census was 13,643. Rusholme is bounded by Chorlton-on-Medlock to the north, Victoria Park and Longsight to the east, Fallo ...

, was bought in 1954 and Milton Hall on Deansgate was the home of the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra which became the

BBC Philharmonic The BBC Philharmonic is a national British broadcasting symphony orchestra and is one of five radio orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The Philharmonic is a department of the BBC North Group division based at MediaC ...

in 1982. Staff moved into the building on the weekend of 12–13 July 1975, and it was fully operational by September 1975 and officially inaugurated as the headquarters of

BBC North BBC North (Group) is an operational business division of the BBC. It is also a brand that has been used by the BBC to mean: *The large ''BBC North'' region, centred on Manchester, that was active from the late 1920s until 1968 and was based up ...

on 18 June 1976. A second television studio was opened in May 1981 for regional TV news, leading to the closure of Broadcasting House in Piccadilly after 52 years. About 800 staff worked at the site. New Broadcasting House was home to

BBC Radio Manchester BBC Radio Manchester is the Local BBC Radio, BBC's local radio station serving Greater Manchester. It broadcasts on frequency modulation, FM, Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at MediaCityUK in Salford ...

, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Religion and Ethics Department. On opening, the radio station was named BBC Radio Manchester; it changed its name to BBC GMR (and briefly, GMR Talk) before reverting to its original name in April 2006. In 2010, the building was offered for sale as the BBC's move to MediaCityUK rendered it surplus to requirements and it was sold for £10 million in April 2011. The BBC sign from the front of the building was removed in November 2011 shortly after the last department, regional TV, moved to MediaCityUK ending 35 years of broadcasting from the studios on Sunday 27 November 2011.

References

External links

Tours of the building (from archive.org)

{{Authority control BBC offices, studios and buildings Buildings and structures completed in 1976 1976 establishments in England Television studios in Greater Manchester Mass media in Manchester History of Manchester Former buildings and structures in Manchester Demolished buildings and structures in Manchester Buildings and structures demolished in 2012

Architecture and construction

History

See also

References

External links