Independent Television Companies Association
United Kingdom Independent Broadcasting (UKIB) is an affiliation of three British independent television production companies and broadcasters. The primary function of its predecessor, the Independent Television Companies Association (ITCA), w ...
ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...
. It is now known as 61 Aldwych.
History
Adastral House
The Kingsway area had been redeveloped at the start of the 20th century from
slum
A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...
s and tenement housing into a broad avenue with grand office buildings and expensive townhouses.
After the formation of the Air Ministry in 1918, its headquarters was on Kingsway; one of two identical buildings opposite Bush House became Adastral House, the name being derived from the RAF motto. This remained the home of the Air Ministry through World War II, and the roof of the building in 1940 during The Blitz is where, while fire-watching,
Arthur Harris
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet, (13 April 1892 – 5 April 1984), commonly known as "Bomber" Harris by the press and often within the RAF as "Butch" Harris, was Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) ...
, made the remark about the bombing to a companion, " Well, they are sowing the wind...". The building became known to the public after the war as it was announced during BBC weather forecasts that the
Met Office
The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is led by CEO Penelope E ...
had measured the temperatures and wind speeds in central London from its roof.
Television House
In 1954, the Independent Television Authority (ITA) awarded the first two contracts for the imminent ITV commercial television network. Because the BBC had previously held a monopoly on broadcasting, there were no non-BBC television studio facilities in the UK. Associated-Rediffusion, as one of the two contractors, needed to build from scratch a whole new facility. The company had hired Thomas Brownrigg as General Manager, partially due to his extensive knowledge of planning and project management, which would be needed in simultaneously building a new company and its studios and headquarters.
British Electric Traction, the majority owner of Associated-Rediffusion, bought the freehold on Adastral House from the government. Brownrigg engaged Bovis Limited (later
Bovis Construction
Bovis Construction (formerly C. W. Bovis & Co.) was a major British construction business. It was acquired by Lendlease in 1999.
History
C. W. Bovis & Co was founded by Charles William Bovis in London in 1885.Fountain Studios, were based at the former
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...
studios in Wembley in Middlesex). Additionally, office space and dining facilities for over 1,000 people were created. A suite of management offices, replete with an oak-paneled boardroom, was built.
The original headquarters and studio facilities of
ITN
Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based television production company. It is made up of two divisions: Broadcast News and ITN Productions. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, N ...
were located on the seventh and eighth floors of the building.
'' TV Times'', part-owned by Associated-Rediffusion, occupied offices in the building from 1957 until April 1958.
A computer room, housing an early
mainframe computer
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
that controlled advertising bookings, was added on the second floor in 1966.
Associated TeleVision (ATV) inhabited Television House for the first few years of broadcasting, mainly as office accommodation rather than studio facilities. For a period early in ITV's history, Associated-Rediffusion provided this space for free as part of the effort to keep ITV afloat during the financial crisis of 1955-1957.
St Catherine's House
In the 1967 ITV contract round the ITA awarded the London weekday contract to a joint company formed from ABC Weekend TV and Rediffusion Television, Thames Television. This new company had a surplus number of studios in London. The Wembley studios were therefore sold to the then-new London Weekend Television. Thames, controlled by the former ABC, decided that a brand new studio complex, equipped from the start for color broadcasting and located out of the center of London would be more appropriate.
Thames used Television House as its headquarters whilst the building of the new Thames Television House in Euston took place.
When Television House was vacated in the early 1970s, it was again occupied by the government, this time by the General Register Office, where it housed the birth, marriage and death certificates of the English and
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
populations. The building was renamed St Catherine's House.
In the 1990s, the building was vacated by the General Register Office, which by then had become the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, which moved to Southport in Merseyside, and, after extensive refurbishment, it became the UK headquarters of
ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...
SVG Capital
SVG Capital () was a leading British private equity and investment management business. Headquartered in London, it was listed on the London Stock Exchange.
History
The business was established in 1996 to acquire the private equity interests of ...
* Studio 7: . 33' by 24' = 10 m x 7.3 m
* Studio 8: . 38' by 25' = 11.6 m x 7.6 m
* Studio 9: . 64' by 40' = 19.5 m x 12.2 m
* Studio 10: . 26' by 12' = 8 m x 3.7 m
* Master Control: .
* Maintenance Workshop: .
* VTR (with 2x Ampex video recorders): .
* Telecine (with 2x Cintel, 1x RCA Vidicon and 2x EMI Flying Spot telecine machines): .
* Rehearsal rooms x6: .
* Projector theatres x 6
* Cutting rooms x15
* Dubbing theatre
References
* Croston, Eric ''ITV 1963'' London: Independent Television Authority 1963
* Various authors ''A Guide to Rediffusion Television Studios'' London: Rediffusion Television Ltd April 1967
* Elliott, Ronald (Ed.) ''Fusion: Associated-Rediffusion's House Magazine'' number 19, June 1961
* Graham, Russ London Calling undated, accessed 21 February 2006
Centrium accessed 7 February 2008
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