BBC Birmingham
Encyclopedia
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, located in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, West Midlands
West Midlands (county)
The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...
. It was the first region outside of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to start broadcasting both the corporation's radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
(in 1922) and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
(in 1949) transmissions, the latter from the Sutton Coldfield television transmitter
Sutton Coldfield television transmitter
The Sutton Coldfield transmitting station is a broadcasting and telecommunications facility located in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England. It has broadcast terrestrial television signals every day since 1949 and is thus the oldest working television transmitting station in the world.-History:On...
. For many years, BBC Birmingham was based at the Pebble Mill Studios
Pebble Mill Studios
The BBC 's Pebble Mill Studios were located in Edgbaston, a suburb of Birmingham, England. The views from the roof overlooked Cannon Hill Park, a nature centre, as well as Birmingham's city centre...
, but in 2004 moved to the brand-new Mailbox
The Mailbox
The Mailbox is an upmarket development of offices, designer shops, restaurants, bars and luxury city-centre apartments in the City Centre and on the boundary of the City Centre Core in Birmingham, West Midlands, England. It includes a mini supermarket and three art galleries: the Artlounge, Castle...
facility in the city centre. Pebble Mill has since been demolished to make way for a science park, however the site is currently empty as of 2010.
Pebble Mill at One
Pebble Mill at One
Pebble Mill at One was a popular British lunchtime chat show broadcast live originally on BBC2 before transferring to BBC1. It was produced from the Pebble Mill facilities of BBC Birmingham, and uniquely was hosted from the centre's main reception area rather than a traditional studio...
, an afternoon talk show, ran for many years from the 1973 to 1986 on BBC1
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
, with several long-standing presenters, including Alan Titchmarsh
Alan Titchmarsh
Alan Fred Titchmarsh, MBE DL is an English gardener, broadcaster and novelist. After working as a professional gardener and a garden journalist, he established himself as a media personality through appearances on gardening programmes...
, and raised the profile of the Pebble Mill studios almost to the status of a national institution. Birmingham is home to BBC Midlands Today (television) and BBC WM
BBC WM
BBC WM is the BBC Local Radio service for the West Midlands, South Staffordshire, north Worcestershire and north Warwickshire, operated by BBC Birmingham. Launched on 9 November 1970 as BBC Radio Birmingham, it broadcasts from central Birmingham on 95.6 FM, DAB and on the internet...
(radio).
BBC Birmingham is not to be confused with BBC Midlands, which is also based at the Mailbox. BBC Birmingham is the name of the Network Productions Centre in Birmingham making network programmes for television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
and radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
. BBC Midlands is the regional operation providing news, current affairs and other regional programmes.
Drama production
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Birmingham branch of the BBC was home to the English RegionsBBC English Regions
BBC English Regions is the division of the BBC responsible for local television, radio, web and teletext services in England. It is one of the BBC's four 'Nations' - the others being BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and BBC Northern Ireland....
Drama department, which was set up in 1971 with a remit for producing drama programmes set in various regions of the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, to try and redress the balance of the majority of programmes being made and set in and around London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Perhaps the department's best known drama production is Boys from the Blackstuff
Boys from the Blackstuff
Boys from the Blackstuff is a British television drama series of five episodes, originally transmitted from 10 October to 7 November 1982 on BBC2....
(1982). The Birmingham studios also occasionally provided a home to usually London-based productions when regular studio space was unavailable.
Since the demolition of Pebble Mill, BBC Birmingham makes drama programmes at the BBC Drama Village
BBC Drama Village
The BBC Drama Village is a television production facility run by the BBC. It is operated by their BBC Birmingham branch and based largely at the Selly Oak campus of the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, England....
in the Selly Oak
Selly Oak
Selly Oak is a residential suburban district in south-west Birmingham, England. The suburb is bordered by Bournbrook and Selly Park to the north-east, Edgbaston and Harborne to the north, Weoley Castle and Weoley Hill to the west, and Bournville to the south...
district.
Regional output
As with all other BBC regions, BBC Birmingham is responsible for providing local radioBBC Local Radio
BBC Local Radio is the BBC's regional radio service for England and the Channel Islands, consisting of 40 stations. They cover a variety of areas with some serving a city and surrounding areas, for example BBC Radio Manchester; a county, for example BBC Radio Norfolk; an administrative region for...
services and the regional television news broadcasts on BBC One during the times when all regions opt out of the network feed to provide their own local news programming, which in the BBC Birmingham area is called Midlands Today. As one of the larger regions, however, it also provides many programmes to the network for national consumption.
Notable BBC Birmingham productions
As mentioned above BBC Birmingham hosted many London produced programmes when studio requirements demanded it, an example was The Brothers starring Jean AndersonJean Anderson
Jean Anderson was an English actress born in Eastbourne, Sussex. She is best remembered for her television roles as hard-faced matriarch Mary Hammond in the 1970s BBC drama The Brothers and as rebellious aristocrat Lady Jocelyn "Joss" Holbrook in the 1980s Second World War series Tenko .She is...
from BBC Drama Serials. Two other programmes shoe-horned into BBC Pebble Mill, were children's programmes, Play School and Jackanory
Jackanory
Jackanory is a long-running BBC children's television series that was designed to stimulate an interest in reading. The show was first transmitted on 13 December 1965, the first story being the fairy-tale Cap o' Rushes read by Lee Montague. Jackanory continued to be broadcast until 24 March 1996,...
. Drama played a key role at BBC Birmingham and senior BBC producer David Rose became the first head of BBC English Regions drama, where a series of plays by new writers, called Second City Firsts, produced by Peter Ansorge and Tara Prem were aired on BBC2
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
. The unit also produced the first BBC Television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
drama with a predominantly black and Asian cast, Empire Road
Empire Road
Empire Road is a British television series, made by the BBC in 1978 and 1979.The series was the first British television series to be written, acted and directed entirely by black artists...
(1978-79) also shown on BBC2.
During the early sixties, BBC Birmingham pioneered television programmes, for the Asian community. These were presented and produced by Mahendra Kaul and directed by Ashok Rampal, and broadcast on Sunday mornings on the sole BBC Television channel at the time. The programme, Apna Hi Ghar Samajhiye ("Make Yourself At Home") aired on Sundays at 9am for half an hour.
BBC Birmingham utilised the main foyer of Pebble Mill for television entertainment and magazine programmes, mostly for BBC1. One fixture of the schedule Pebble Mill at One became a popular British afternoon chat BBC1 show, though it started originally on BBC2. The idea to use the reception and foyer for programmes was borne out of the fact, all the other studio space was either fully used for Birmingham produced, or for BBCTV's network needs for the various London based programme departments. Pebble Mill at One ran from 1972 until 1986, was then one of few daytime magazine programmes, hence its popularity at the time.
There was at least one Pebble Mill spin-off during the 1970s, when BBC1 rested its main Saturday chat show, Parkinson
Parkinson (TV series)
Parkinson is a British television talk show that was presented by Sir Michael Parkinson. It was first shown on the BBC from 1971 to 2004, and on ITV from 2004 to 2007.-Background:...
. BBC Birmingham was commissioned to produce a late night chat show. Saturday Night at the Mill, was the result and Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen
Kenny Ball
Kenny Ball is an English jazz musician, best known as the lead trumpet player in Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen.-Career:...
were the regular house band, and they performed the show's signature tune. The programme was directed and produced in Birmingham by Roy Norton and Roy Ronnie. In 1981 an early evening version of a hit show from the sixties on BBC1 called Six Five Special re-surfaced during the Mill's summer break, presented by Donny MacLeod
Donny MacLeod
Donny MacLeod was a Scottish TV presenter. He was born in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis. MacLeod is best known for appearing in the BBC 1 afternoon show Pebble Mill at One...
and Marian Foster, occupying the slot vacated after the Evening News by Nationwide
Nationwide (TV series)
Nationwide was a BBC News and Current affairs television programme broadcast on BBC One each weekday following the early evening news. It followed a magazine format, combining political analysis and discussion with consumer affairs, light entertainment and sports reporting...
fronted among other by Michael Barrett and Sue Lawley
Sue Lawley
- Early life and education:Born in Sedgley, Staffordshire, England and brought up in the Black Country, she was educated at Dudley Girls High School and graduated in modern languages from the University of Bristol and some time later started her career at the BBC in Plymouth...
.
A popular BBC2 programme from Birmingham for much of the 1970s-1990s was Snooker
Snooker
Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...
programme Pot Black
Pot Black
Pot Black was a British series of snooker tournaments televised by BBC, that played a large part in the popularisation of the modern game, from 1969 to 1986. The event was revived in the form of several one-off tournaments throughout the 1990s and up to 2007...
, generally shown most Fridays throughout the year at 9pm.
The Pebble Mill format returned in 1988 as Daytime Live, renamed Scene Today and finally Pebble Mill.
Well-known BBC programmes currently based in Birmingham include the drama series Dalziel and Pascoe
Dalziel and Pascoe (BBC TV series)
Dalziel and Pascoe is a popular British television crime drama based on the Dalziel and Pascoe books by Reginald Hill, which was first broadcast in March 1996. It is set in Yorkshire, and is about two detectives...
, daytime soap opera Doctors
Doctors (BBC Soap Opera)
Doctors is a British daytime television soap opera, set in the fictional Midland town of Letherbridge, defined as being close to the City of Birmingham. It was created by Chris Murray; Mal Young drove its development, and Carson Black was the original producer. The first episode was broadcast on...
, anthology series The Afternoon Play, the countryside and environmental series Countryfile
Countryfile
Countryfile is a British magazine-style television programme produced by BBC Birmingham, first aired on 24th July 1988, which reports on rural and environmental issues within the United Kingdom. For its first 20 years it was fronted by broadcaster John Craven, until he stepped back from the role of...
viewer feedback show Points of View
Points of View
Points of View is a long-running television show shown in the United Kingdom on BBC One, featuring the letters of viewers offering praise, criticism and purportedly witty observations on the television of recent weeks...
and daytime property show To Buy or Not to Buy
To Buy or Not to Buy
To Buy or Not to Buy was a British reality television series made between 2003 and 2010 for BBC One in the UK. The final series was the eleventh and contained 90 episodes, in one of two formats—either 30 or 45 minutes in length. It aired on both BBC1 and BBC2...
. In radio, the popular BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
The Archers
The Archers
The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting"...
is made there. The original series of Top Gear was also produced by BBC Birmingham.
BBC Regional News
BBC Midlands Today is broadcast from in the Mailbox in Birmingham, and is the regional news for;- HerefordshireHerefordshireHerefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...
- Northern GloucestershireGloucestershireGloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
- WorcestershireWorcestershireWorcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
- WarwickshireWarwickshireWarwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
- West MidlandsWest Midlands (county)The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...
- ShropshireShropshireShropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
- StaffordshireStaffordshireStaffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
See also
- BBC Asian NetworkBBC Asian NetworkBBC Asian Network is a British radio station serving those originating from and around the Indian subcontinent. The music and news comes out of the main urban areas where there are significant communities with these backgrounds. The station has production centres in Birmingham, Leicester and London...
- Sue BeardsmoreSue BeardsmoreSusan Beardsmore is a former BBC television presenter who fronted the regional news programme BBC Midlands Today for twenty years....
- Ashley BlakeAshley BlakeAshley Blake is a former television presenter and newsreader. A well known personality in the English Midlands, he worked mostly for the BBC, where his credits include reporting and presenting on Midlands Today, the region's edition of Inside Out, and briefly on the TV series Watchdog...
- Carl ChinnCarl ChinnProfessor Carl Stephen Alfred Chinn MBE, Ph.D. is an English historian, writer, radio presenter, magazine editor, newspaper columnist, media personality, local celebrity, and famous Brummie, whose working life has been devoted to the study and popularisation of the city of Birmingham in England...
- Sonia DeolSonia DeolSonia Deol is a British radio and television presenter who has presented the Sonia Deol Show on the BBC Asian Network.-Background:Born as Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu in England to Punjabi Sikh parents...
- Ed DoolanEd DoolanEdwin Myer Doolan is an Australian born naturalised British radio presenter who is a twenty-eight year veteran of the BBC and was awarded the MBE in 1998...
- David GregoryDavid Gregory (BBC)Dr. David Gregory is a news correspondent for BBC Midlands Today, the regional news programme broadcast in the Midlands of England. He is the Science and Environmental Correspondent....
- Kay AlexanderKay AlexanderKay Alexander is a British regional television newsreader, appearing on BBC Midlands Today.Alexander is originally from Surrey and read English in the Midlands at the University of Birmingham. She initially worked for the BBC at Pebble Mill for BBC Radio 4...
- Nick OwenNick OwenNicholas "Nick" Corbishley Owen is an English television presenter and newsreader, best known for presenting the breakfast television programme TV-am and the BBC's local news show Midlands Today since 1997...
- Shefali OzaShefali OzaShefali Oza is a news presenter on BBC Birmingham's Midlands Today, the regional news programme broadcast in the Midlands of England...
- Satnam RanaSatnam RanaSatnam Rana is a presenter for the BBC, currently presenting on BBC news programme Midlands Today and features on BBC WM. She worked at Five Live for two years then came to BBC Birmingham where she has been working since 2002.-Early life:...
- Suzanne VirdeeSuzanne VirdeeSuzanne Virdee is a British television newsreader known in the Midlands area. She is one of the presenters of Midlands Today on BBC One and has appeared on BBC Breakfast as the programme's newsreader, until a change of studio and format in March 2006.-Career:Virdee became a journalist at the age...
- Adil RayAdil RayAdil Ray is a British radio and television presenter, and actor born 26 April 1974 in Birmingham, England.- Background :Adil Ray is of Pakistani and Kenyan origin. He began his career as a radio host on a pirate radio station in Huddersfield while studying at the University of Huddersfield and...
- Peter SissonsPeter SissonsPeter George Sissons is a broadcast journalist in the United Kingdom. He was the presenter of the BBC Nine O'Clock News and the BBC News at Ten between 1993 and 2003, as earlier a newscaster for ITN, providing bulletins on ITV and Channel 4. He is also a former presenter of the BBC's Question Time...
- Adam YosefAdam YosefAdam Yosef is a British multimedia journalist and community activist.-Activism:Between 2003 and 2004, Yosef was employed by the Birmingham Mosque Trust as a Press & Public Relations representative...
- Michael BuerkMichael BuerkMichael Duncan Buerk is a BBC journalist and newsreader, most famous for his reporting of the Ethiopian famine on 23 October 1984, which inspired the Band Aid charity record.-Early life:...