BBC Television Centre Tour

On 16th June our A2 media group and a couple of friends all travelled to London's BBC Television Centre . We had a two hour tour which included visiting some dressing room's including J-Lo's, we visited studio 2 which was smaller than I expected we were told they can make the studio look a lot larger by arranging curtains and lighting, this room had been used to film Only Fools and Horses and some episode of strictly come dancing. In the studio there was a gridded floor to keep the sets the same size each time the programme was filmed. On the ceiling of the studio are TV's which are able to be pulled down to read the script and there were high voltage lights which can get extremely hot which is why the room has to be air conditioned extremely well. Everything was very technical and compact, there was even a seating area which can be pulled out of the wall. On the gridded floor everything is painted on and then washed off, an example of this is only fool and horses carpet and wooden flooring in dell boys flat.
During our tour we were taken into a room which included a seating area, and a news reading table with a script in a TV, there were also a couple of game stands, a camera filmed this and we appeared on the TV in the room. Harriet and I were told to be the 'news readers', it was so much fun and I definitely underestimated how hard reading off the typo screen was. The whole job of being a news report is a very demanding and a committed job. To be a morning news reader, you would have to arrive at work at 9pm up until the time of finishing the news report morning programme, it included researching and then writing up what you will broadcast to world.
The girls and I all had a failed attempt of reading the weather report and directing where it will rain and where there will be sun on the 'invisible' map. We learnt how the back drop must be green as it is obviously the rarest colour to appear on a persons body.
When we were taken into a medium sized meeting room we were told alot of facts about the BBC; it is known to be the largest broadcasting organisation in the world. Its mission is to enrich people's lives with programmes that inform, educate and entertain.
The BBC Television Centre was built in a shape of a question mark, this was to make full use of the triangular space provided. It is a public service broadcaster, established by a Royal Charter and funded by the licence fee that is paid by UK households. The BBC uses the income from the licence fee to provide services including 8 national TV channels plus regional programming, 10 national radio stations, 40 local radio stations and an extensive website. BBC World Service broadcasts to the world on radio, on TV and online, providing news and information in 32 languages. It is funded by a government grant, not from the licence fee. The BBC also has a commercial arm, BBC Worldwide. Its profits are returned to the BBC for investment in new programming and services. We were also told that BBC will be moving to Scotland.
We were lead into a small empty room with a big glass wall, in the neighbouring room was the famous programme 8 out of 10 cats being filmed, the full length of the live show can be two and a half hours to fill the spot of just a half an hour show on actual TV.
Whilst on this exciting visit to BBC we 'bumped' into Ade Adepitan, former member of the paralympic wheelchair basketball team whom is big icon in BBC world.


 
Overall the visit to BBC Television Centre was very exciting and educational. I learnt a lot of different facts and gained more understanding of media life and had a great time with our fantastic tour guides.
Thankyou Mrs.Williams for taking us :)