Thursday 16 June 2011

BBC Television Centre


The Guardian today reprints a piece from its archive, dated 6th June 1960. It records the official opening that week of the giant BBC TV Centre: “BBC’s pride in vast newfactory’ of tv”. The BBC’s own archive piece is here.

In 1967 I paid a visit to this enormous centre as a young theatre student, and was overawed by the scale, activity and complexity, but as my career at that time was to be in the theatre I saw it all as an interested outsider.

Memories of that student visit came back to me thirty years later when I started working for the BBC and by the late 1990’s my office was in Television Centre. So it is sad to report that this week the BBC has announced its intention to sell the entire site, now considered surplus to its requirements. The Guardian reports After 50 years in the spotlight, BBC Television Centre is put up for sale”

If you want to know more, or considering making an offer, see this




Statue of Helios, TV Centre, August 2008

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