BBC TV Centre Behind The Scenes Item on Blue Peter 4th November 1974. Featuring EMI 2001 cameras

[@jourwalis-8875]

This seems to be an almost blue print copy of the Behind the scene film from 1968! But this time in colour! But now they also talk about metres rather than feet! Thank you!

[@janewood8947]

‘Lance’ operating the lighting console is my dad! 😍

[@UrbanePrince]

The sound mixing console (called a "desk" in the UK) was made by PYE. It was a massive wrap-around affair. It was removed from TC1 around 1975. I loved the PYE compressor / limiters. You can just see two of them in the top right of the picture....if you pause the YT feed. I forget the number of channels. It was a mid1960's vintage...sounded great! Behind the mixing console (desk) there were 4 or 5 rack bays with additional electronics. Each rack bay had unique multiple HVAC cold air feeds and would evacuate the warm air (or what little there was) out of the top of the rack. During this time, most of the 8 TV studios were equipped with NEVE consoles. I left BBC TV in 1976. When I returned for a visit during 1992, a few of those very well maintained NEVE desks were still in use.

[@rjy8960]

Wow! My uncle used to work with the BBC as a cameraman and the first role that I applied for was as transmitter technical assistant circa 1986. I worked for Tandy part time while I was studying which was the local store to the Sutton Coldfield transmitter site. I ended up talking with one of the engineers when they came in to buy something, went for a visit to the site and had an interview - (I've always been interested in radio comms). Second interview was in London and it went horribly - didn't get the job so continued my studies and went into electronics design. In some ways I'm glad as the BBC sold off the broadcast side and the short wave sites went. I think it would have been a fascinating career though probably short lived. I think I remember watching this programme when it went out in 1974.... Alway good to hear stories from ex BBC staff :)

[@garethjones7182]

Kind of envious reading your comment, you worked in a golden age of broadcast engineering.

[@Lou-yf1jo]

it's always been called a desk. :)

[@jourwalis-8875]

Interesting!

[@jourwalis-8875]

50 years ago! Amazing!

[@angelacooper2661]

I would have been only four and Play School age!

[@chrisst8922]

This edition was rescreened this evening. I'd forgotten it. How interesting the gear, Studio 1, the staff and expertise. All woven into the programme.

[@cliff19555]

Wow those old monitors, state of the art then.Thanks for uploading this, it's brilliant :-)

[@hywelw]

I've stood in TC1 many times, since this was recorded - it was enormous compared to other studios I've worked in. Blue Peter usually came from smaller studios in Television Centre as it didn't need that much that cavernous space behind the cameras - but that suited this transmission of this programme well as a demonstration of what television was about. I clearly remember watching this live when I was nearly 6 years old, and this is the first time I've seen it since 1974!

[@sambda]

The linked Studios 5 at Fountain TV (in Wembley) are bigger, I believe.

[@doubledeckers]

So how often would they have to paint the studio floor white for Blue Peter? As a kid there was always the impression that it came from TC1 but as you say it came from elsewhere including Lime Grove.

[@raymondwilkinson5048]

Yeah, TC1 was once the biggest TV studio in Europe for many years, but it was latterly over-taken in size by Fountain's Studio 5, Maidstone's Studio 1 and Media City's HQ 1 Studio. However, TC1 is still the biggest TV studio in height, which is 45ft from floor to lighting grid.

[@pdunderhill]

@@raymondwilkinson5048 At least it didn't slope Wood Norton 1 anyone?

[@johnking5174]

@TheRenaissanceman65 Great that Studio 1 still exists to this day 2019. It is now packed with many shows since TV Centre demolished the other 7 studios and ITV have got their feet well and truly in Studios 2 and 3.

[@tonyinfraredstamp2159]

This was one of the programmes I watched that started my love of audiovisual Electronics, I was only 8 years old.

[@amydd2267]

+Tony Infrared Stamp I wish we could go back to that era

[@angelacooper2661]

I am therefore four years younger than you, as I was just four and Play School age then!

[@sarahbrummitt4383]

Fascinating. I had no idea that all this went on inside a Television studio. Thanks for uploading!

[@walkingtheboogie]

I remember the time Blue Peter suddenly cut off and an announcer said now we have Neighbours. The next Blue Peter, which may have been Thursday they explained what had happened. The studio clock was running slow and they should have already finished. Obviously to hit the 6pm news on time they had to cut to Neighbours.

[@GUGUG]

Excellent item! Informative! Educational! And entertaining too!

[@petergibbs]

Amazing to think that was 47 years ago, the control room looks like something out of the Beatles film 'A Hard Days Night. A vison mixer with so few controls, and then of think of a modern control room in 2021!

[@inactiveytchannel]

well it looks like something from that brilliant film because they were recorded in very similar time

[@angelacooper2661]

I would have been just four here and too young to understand or remember that period.

[@jonno4316]

And I love the way Jason looks at them fighting, completely unimpressed!

[@dippey]

Interesting video this, shame the BBC are selling TV Centre off, all we'll have soon is video's like this to remember it by. The EMI 2001 were great 4 tube cameras producing great pictures. Shame about the out of synch sound on this video, You Tube may correct it, they did on one of my uploads which was in synch when uploaded but out when published. Thanks for posting.

[@KCGeno]

I learned camera operation on the EMI 2001, in the mid 1970s in Chicago.

[@christopherhulse8385]

I understand not all of television centre is losing TV production, ITV uses part of it for this morning and other productions.

[@MrDannyDetail]

This is from a live edition of Blue Peter on 4th November 1974. It began by celebrating Petra's 12th birthday, including a film compilation of her, followed by a film of John at Torrington Bonfire. The rest of the show was taken up by this highly complex sequence which, perhaps unsuprisingly, was pre-recorded on the day of the previous show, 31st Oct 74.

[@borderlands6606]

That makes sense. Doing it live from the control room while broadcasting seemed a bit mind bending.

[@altebander2767]

@@borderlands6606 Well this actually was done as if it was live. This was at least not heavily edited as you can see at the part with the video mixer. So much of the "mind bending" stuff was actually done as if it was live. The pre-recording was just done in case there was any problem.

[@Bruce-vq7ni]

"If your lucky enough to be watching in colour" - - 😂

[@kgarrett1404]

They did an almost identical behind the scenes show in 1968.

[@mistofoles]

LOL ! Lesley doesn't notice Petra and Shep kicking off in the background :D

[@blakebedford-palmer6676]

I find it interesting that vision mixers actually had a fader for each camera back then!

[@gordonm2821]

The vision mixer with the faders was designed internally by the BBC Engineering Design Department and was in service until the early 1990’s in studio 6 (TC 6) when I joined the Studio Engineering department. More ‘modern’ galleries had the Grass Valley 1600 vision mixer and was one of the earliest non UK made broadcast bit of kit in a studio at television centre. Cameras were EMI or Link before Thomson (French) was in favour. Audio desks were mainly Calrec and lighting was a bit of a mix with with home made by BBC and Rank Strand depending on period.

[@BBT609]

The long boom the guy is on for the camera, has shrinked drastically. You don't see that anymore, its all a jib with a camera at the end with a motor to zoom in or out and to turn it.

[@wattage2007]

My GOD! The sound desk!

[@pdunderhill]

Quadrent faders? At least you didn't have a failure from TVC who'd been moved to Evesham and then tried to train you.

[@UrbanePrince]

That desk was made by PYE. It was a massive wrap-around affair. It was removed from TC1 around 1975. I loved the PYE compressor / limiters. You can just see two of them in the top right of the picture....if you pause the YT feed. I forget the number of channels. It was a 1960's vintage...sounded great! Behind the mixing console (desk) there were 4 or 5 rack bays with additional electronics. Each rack bay had unique multiple HVAC cold air feeds and would evacuate the warm air (or what little there was) out of the top of the rack. During this time, most of the 8 TV studios were equipped with NEVE consoles. I left BBC TV in 1976. When I returned for a visit during 1992, a few of those very well maintained NEVE desks were still in use.

[@fraserkatie]

I've actually seen Studio 1, in BBC TV Centre, it is huge! , I saw a conference taking place , I went for a tour and stood in a room above the studio.

[@spig021]

Brilliant & very interesting to me. That studio is massive, not like the shoebox BP has these days.

[@joojoojeejee6058]

Gotta love 1970s fashion...

[@mikehudson8884]

"These follow John , Pete and I around the studio".....Lesley should get her English right afterall it is Blue Peter.

[@tontonflairix8130]

How many millions is this worth of material ? 😯

[@fruju2003]

Hmmm... there's a KZbin video where Val, John and Peter go behind the scenes of Blue Peter. This script that Lesley Judd is using sounds very familiar to my ears... 😉

[@aidanlunn7441]

And yes, they produced fantastic pictures. Unsure why Marconi (Granada, LWT, Anglia, Ulster, Scottish, Tyne Tees, Southern/TVS, TSW), Philips (Yorkshire TV), Link (BBC, Thames, HTV), Hitachi (Central, TSW), RCA (HTV, Thames), Sony (HTV, Central) etc failed to make tube cameras that produced images as good as these when they were making the next generation of studio cameras about 5-10 years after this video was made. Most, if not all, of those ITV regions mentioned used EMI 2001s at some point.

[@seamusuk4296]

And yet the 2005 gave a far inferior picture I believe?

[@pdunderhill]

Politics, Hurumph...

[@lukedavis436]

The EMI 2001 is a Thorn Camera right? I don't know if it is or not

[@MrDannyDetail]

I believe Studio 1 was the biggest in Europe, possibly the world. It would have been used by Blue Peter only when they needed to accomodate say a double decker bus or life-sized t-rex, and for large gathering's such as the xmas show. In effect this is the equivilant to the show using the area outside the MediaCity studios for such things these days. However even though the more regular studios in the 70s where smaller than here, they were still some way larger than the area they use now.

[@MrDannyDetail]

Yep. And I think her future husband is in the gallery bit. I'm not sure whether she dressed herself or got things from wardrobe department but in that era she always seems to appear in photos and clips of the show to either lack arms or legs due to her outfits. This is a much used shot of the famous four (Val, John, Pete, and Les) dressed very colourfully in front of an equally colourful totaliser, and this effect is particularly prominent in it.

[@Ampex196]

There was never a better camera camera than the EMI 2001. Approaching £50K (the price of several Rolls Royce Shadows or 70 Ford Cortinas') they were expensive. Link Electronics designed the 110 for a shade under £30K and the BBC bought them. They were not a patch on the EMI 2001. In my home region, ITV Tyne Tees always bought rubbish Marconi cameras.. I'll avoid colourful metaphors to describe them. Let's just say, .... viewers of Tyne Tees Television thought that the presenters all had orange sun tans or had seriously overdosed on carrot juice!

[@PaulM-G8MJW]

Rubbish, what are you talking about? The Marconis produced excellent pictures in skilled hands. Perhaps your TV was not set-up properly!😏

[@aro4491]

The BBC can only afford two advanced colour TV monitors in the control room ... Ha ha. Those were the days. These three were the classic Blue Peter team, John Noakes, Peter Purves and Lesley Judd that I remember from the 1970's. It all looks a bit amateurish compared to today's modern, glossy presentation made with computer graphics and crisp digital camera images. No sign of any of the famous sticky-backed plastic in this clip, but nice to see Petra and Shep. Shame that the developers of the old Television Centre site have abandoned the Blue Peter garden.

[@anthonyperkins7556]

I noticed even if you operated the floor cameras not on booms, on shows like Top Of The Pops, you still had to wear a hard hat at floor level. What was the point of that?

[@benjaminclasper9355]

Who’s the man on the camera crane? I’m convinced it’s John Noakes just to be sure but was John Noakes also a camera operator then because I thought he was only the presenter as I thought.

[@apislapis]

As usual, John did the more dangerous work while Peter did the safer.

[@johnking5174]

At least the BBC did not demolish this studio, they have kept TC1, TC2 and TC3 in the new Television Centre, due to be operating fully from Spring 2017. The rest have all been demolished as part of the sale agreement of Television Centre.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

Good thing I suppose.

[@goodiesguy]

I wasn't born til '96, but from all the clips I've seen, I'm in the Magpie camp folks, sorry BP fans!

[@MrDannyDetail]

I don't know however if today's fixed set is just a part of the available studio space or in fact all of it.

[@jonno4316]

That was Lesley Judd.

[@aidanlunn7441]

They got rid of the last of their 2001s in July 1991 - not bad for a camera built in the late 1960s - only because their last remaining ones at Elstree were "not suitable" for Top of the Pops, when programmes were re-arranged around the studios there. In other words, if they were suitable, they'd try and keep on using them!

[@thetelegothika5327]

Amazing to think that they were still used in the 90's...like, the decade the internet came about and MP3 players became popular. I read that the period drama "House of Elliot" was the last multi-camera drama to be recorded with the 2001s at TVC. They seemed like fantastic pieces of kit.

[@yellowbelly06]

It wasn't that they were not suitable for TOTP - the manufacturers EMI stopped providing parts for them in the early 80s as they exited the broadcast camera market which is why many ITV stations scrapped them. The BBC kept them going at Elstree by cannabalising 2001s shipped over from TVC and the regions and from those they inherited from ATV when they bought Elstree. By 1991 technology had changed to more lightweight CCD cameras from Japan and the EU (the former being why EMI exited the market) and I believe they were replaced by a combination of Thomson (France) and Hitachi (Japan) cameras. In the intervening years the BBC had used Link 125s, Link being the last UK manufacturer as Marconi had followed EMI but they went bankrupt in the late-80s whilst developing new cameras for the BBC. It is rumoured the demands of the BBC in relation to design requirements for these new cameras were the reason they went under.

[@Rassilon72]

@@yellowbelly06 when the BBC acquired Elstree, ATV didn't bother to take much of the studio equipment with them (it being past its useful life, and surplus to requirements anyway), but as the BBC hadn't actually paid for the broadcast equipment, ATV instructed the staff to smash all the cameras up in order to render them as unusable. The ever resourceful BBC just stripped the smashed cameras of all undamaged parts to use as spares...or so I read somewhere.

[@blakebedford-palmer6676]

Also the tech didn’t really change until Widescreen, so why not keep using it

[@TTVEaGMXde]

According to Wikipedia en, Elstree did not go to the BBC until 1984. So where was the TOTP Studio where Link 110 cameras were used on 02/26/1981?

[@sarahbrummitt4383]

Having seen Spoof Peter, I can't look at this in the same way ever again.

[@jourwalis-8875]

Bad sync here! There is also some disturbances in the picture....

[@MrDannyDetail]

See my reply's above which I managed to put in the wrong place.

[@jourwalis-8875]

Was this also filmed.....?