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Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

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, in Portland Place and

Langham Place, London Langham Place is a short street in Westminster, central London, England. Just north of Oxford Circus, it connects Portland Place to the north with Regent Street to the south in London's West End. It is, or was, the location of many significant ...

. The first radio broadcast from the building was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. The main building is in

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style, with a facing of Portland stone over a

steel frame Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The developm ...

. It is a

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...

and includes the BBC Radio Theatre, where music and speech programmes are recorded in front of a studio audience. As part of a major consolidation of the BBC's property portfolio in London, Broadcasting House has been extensively renovated and extended. This involved the demolition of post-war extensions on the eastern side of the building, replaced by a new wing completed in 2005. The wing was named the " John Peel Wing" in 2012, after the disc jockey.

BBC London BBC London is the BBC English Region producing local radio, television, teletext and online services in London and parts of the surrounding area. Its output includes the daily ''BBC London News'' and weekly '' Sunday Politics'' on television, ...

BBC Arabic Television BBC News Arabic ( ar, بي بي سي نيوز عربي), formerly BBC Arabic Television, is a television news channel broadcast to the Arab World by the BBC. It was launched on 11 March 2008. It is run by the BBC World Service and funded from th ...

and

BBC Persian Television BBC Persian Television ( fa, تلویزیون فارسی بی‌بی‌سی) is the BBC's Persian language news channel that was launched on 14 January 2009. The service is broadcast by satellite and is also available online. It is aimed at the ...

are housed in the new wing, which also contains the reception area for

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

and BBC Radio 1Xtra (the studios themselves are in the new extension to the main building). The main building was refurbished, and an extension built to the rear. The radio stations BBC Radio 3,

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

, BBC Radio 4 Extra and the BBC World Service transferred to refurbished studios within the building. The extension links the old building with the John Peel Wing, and includes a new combined newsroom for

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

, with studios for the

BBC News channel BBC News (also known as the BBC News Channel) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel for BBC News. It was launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 5:30 pm as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic telev ...

BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and ...

and other news programming. The move of news operations from

BBC Television Centre Television Centre (TVC) is a building complex in White City, West London, that was the headquarters of BBC Television between 1960 and 2013. After a refurbishment, the complex reopened in 2017 with three studios in use for TV production, opera ...

was completed in March 2013. The official name of the building is ''Broadcasting House'' but the BBC now also uses the term ''new Broadcasting House'' (with a small 'n') in its publicity referring to the new extension rather than the whole building, with the original building known as old Broadcasting House.

Construction

Construction of Broadcasting House began in 1928. Programmes transferred gradually to the building. On 15 March 1932, the first musical programme was given by the bandleader Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra. Hall also wrote and performed, with his dance band, '' Radio Times'', the name of the BBC's schedule publication. The first news bulletin was read by Stuart Hibberd on 18 March. The last transmission from

Savoy Hill Savoy Place is a large red brick building on the north bank of the River Thames in London. It is on a street called Savoy Place; Savoy Hill and Savoy Street run along the sides of the building up to the Strand. In front is the Victoria Embankmen ...

was on 14 May, and Broadcasting House officially opened on 15 May 1932. George Val Myer designed the building in collaboration with the BBC's civil engineer, M. T. Tudsbery. The interiors were the work of Raymond McGrath, an Australian-Irish architect. He directed a team that included

Serge Chermayeff Serge Ivan Chermayeff (born Sergei Ivanovich Issakovich; russian: link=no, Сергей Ива́нович Иссако́вич; 8 October 1900 – 8 May 1996) was a Russian-born British architect, industrial designer, writer, and co-founder of ...

and Wells Coates and designed the vaudeville studio, the associated green and dressing rooms, and the dance and chamber music studios in a flowing

style.

Sensation in Langham Place - Arthur Watts - Radio Times - 1931-12-18 - pp 912-915 - composite

The building is built in two parts. Dispensing with the oft-found central light-well of contemporary buildings this size, the central core containing the recording studios was a windowless structure built of brick. (Structural brick rather than steel framing was used in order to reduce noise transmission both from without and between studios.) The surrounding outer portion, designed for offices and ancillary spaces, is steel framed and faced using Portland stone. While the outer portion had plenty of windows, the inner core required special sound-dampened ventilation systems. There were two areas where right of ancient lights would cause height restrictions. While the rights on the southern side ceased to be a problem after the owners of those rights gave concessions, the rights on the eastern side were dealt with by sloping the roof away from the street from the fourth floor up, which affected not only the floorplan of the structure but meant that the interior recording tower could not be continued up to the top floor. (Thus, one studio on the top floor was actually outside the central studio core structure.) Underground structures, including a hundred-year-old sewer, also presented problems during construction. The building is above the Bakerloo line of the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...

: the

Victoria line The Victoria line is a London Underground line that runs between in south London and in the north-east, via the West End. It is printed in light blue on the Tube map and is one of the only two lines on the network to run completely underg ...

was tunnelled beneath in the 1960s, and presented problems for construction of the Egton Wing (see below). Noise from passing trains is audible within the radio theatre, but generally imperceptible in recordings. The ground floor was fitted with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street, as the BBC believed that to finance such a project (costing £25 million in today's money) they would need to let the ground floor as a retail unit. The rapid expansion of the BBC meant this never occurred. The original building is a

Renovation

Beginning in 2003, Broadcasting House underwent a major renovation during the

...
's W1 Programme, with the aim of refurbishing the building and combining a number of the BBC's operations in a new extension. This houses the television and radio operations of

, relocated from Television Centre, and the BBC World Service, which relocated from

Bush House Bush House is a Grade II listed building at the southern end of Kingsway between Aldwych and the Strand in London. It was conceived as a major new trade centre by American industrialist Irving T. Bush, and commissioned, designed, funded, a ...

on 12 July 2012. Many of the BBC's national

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

stations are also broadcast from the building, with the exception of BBC Radio 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra which have moved to

Salford Quays Salford Quays is an area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, near the end of the Manchester Ship Canal. Previously the site of Manchester Docks, it became one of the first and largest urban regeneration projects in the United Kingdom fol ...

, and BBC Radio 2 and

BBC Radio 6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC, specialising primarily in alternative music. BBC 6 Music was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years. It is available onl ...

which moved to new studios in nearby

Wogan House BBC Wogan House is a building in central London owned by Abrdn and currently on long-term lease to the BBC. It is located on the junction of Gildea Street and Great Portland Street adjacent to the BBC's headquarters, Broadcasting House. Original ...

in 2006 to make way for the renovation. The building work was completed in two phases. It began with the demolition of two post-war extensions to the original building. ::"The redevelopment was part of a wider cost-saving strategy to consolidate the BBC's property portfolio and centralise its London operation. This will ultimately produce savings of more than £700m over the remaining 21-year life of the BBC lease on Broadcasting House."

First phase

Spangly new reception at Broadcasting House

The first phase consisted of the renovation of the original building, which was starting to show its age and needed structural repair, and a new wing to the east. In the old building the sloped "cat slide" slate roof was taken off and many of the rooms stripped back to their walls, although much of the Art Deco architecture was retained and preserved. Much of the work focused on the lower walls and ceilings, which did not include Art Deco features. The reception area was renovated to include a new desk, while retaining the message and statue as the attention piece. Many rooms had ceilings removed, such as the south tower, and new reinforcement joists were added. Broadcasting House and Egton Wing II

The new Egton Wing is roughly the same shape as the main building, with a modern design and window arrangement but retaining features such as Portland stone. Towards the rear a large block was created in the side, mirroring that created in the main building when the sloping roof was removed. The design of the extension, intended to equal the original in "architectural creativity", was carried out by MacCormac Jamieson Prichard. Construction was completed in 2005 and the refurbished Broadcasting House and the new Egton wing were opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 20 April 2006 as part of her 80th birthday celebrations. All areas of the Egton Wing were fully fitted out and completed by 2007. In 2012, it was announced by the then Director-General Mark Thompson that the Egton Wing would be renamed the ' John Peel Wing' to commemorate the late Radio 1 disc jockey, whom he described as a "great radio talent". Thompson described the wing as a "fitting tribute to a man who personified so much of what the BBC stands for". BBCBroadcastingHouse

It houses

and

, together with the reception area for

and BBC Radio 1Xtra.

Second phase

The second phase was the creation of the large wing to the rear of the building, joining the two buildings, and creating a plaza between them. The original architects were replaced for not agreeing to cost-related revisions, as Sir Richard MacCormac was unwilling to sacrifice the quality of his design. Construction was completed by

Bovis Lend Lease Lendlease is a globally integrated real estate company that creates and invests in communities, workplaces, retail, and infrastructure projects, headquartered in Barangaroo, New South Wales, Australia. History Founding The company was establ ...

in 2010, and control handed over to the BBC in 2011. While the rebuilding process was under way, many BBC radio stations moved to other buildings near Portland Place. The extension contains the

and Journalism departments, and state-of-the-art technical equipment and new studios to house the BBC News bulletins on television, the

BBC News Channel BBC News (also known as the BBC News Channel) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel for BBC News. It was launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 5:30 pm as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic telev ...

and

, the

service and the

service. At the heart of this is a new newsroom, the largest live newsroom in the world. A walkway above the newsroom allows the public to view the work of journalists, connecting the foyer to the Radio Theatre and a new café for staff and the public. Complemented by the outdoor plaza, which could act as an outdoor arena and theatre, this is designed to engage the public with the television and radio making process. The extension is glass-covered in the plaza area and curved to contrast both wings either side and to continue the glass on both sides high up the building. On the Portland Place side, it continues the same use of Portland stone and glass as with the John Peel Wing. On Monday 18 March 2013 at 1 pm, following the BBC News Channel's final broadcast from Television Centre, the first news programme from Broadcasting House was aired: the ''

BBC News at One The ''BBC News at One'' is the afternoon/lunchtime news bulletin from the BBC. Produced by BBC News, the programme is broadcast on BBC One and the BBC News channel (via British Sign Language) from Monday to Sunday at 1:00pm for 30 minutes, alth ...

'', on BBC One and the BBC News Channel. BBC World News was the first of BBC's news services to move into the new building on Monday 14 January 2013, beginning with ''GMT'' at noon. Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the extension on 7 June 2013. The second phase development won the 'Programme of the Year' award at the 2013 annual awards of the Association for Project Management.

Studios

Original

When built, Broadcasting House contained 22 radio studios for all programme genres, in the

art-deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the United ...

style with an emphasis on both looks and practicality. The overall practicality of the studios changed rapidly as a result of the limitations of the time and the changing nature of broadcasting and the uses of the studios. These studios were:

Current

Following the rebuild and refurbishment, several studios have been added and the studio structure changed dramatically. The current studios are:

Radio studios

Television studios

Until programmes air information is subject to change. All times listed are either Greenwich Mean Time or British Summer Time depending on what is being used in London.

Artworks

The building showcases works of art, most prominently the statues of

Prospero Prospero ( ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him (with his three-year-old daughter, Miranda) to se ...

and

Ariel Ariel may refer to: Film and television *Ariel Award, a Mexican Academy of Film award * ''Ariel'' (film), a 1988 Finnish film by Aki Kaurismäki * ''ARIEL Visual'' and ''ARIEL Deluxe'', 1989 and 1991 anime video series based on the novel series ...

(from

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's '' The Tempest'') by

Eric Gill Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as ″the greatest artist-cra ...

. Their choice was fitting since Prospero was a magician and scholar, and Ariel a spirit of the air, in which radio waves travel. There was, reportedly, controversy over some features of the statues when built and they were said to have been modified. They were reported to have been sculpted by Gill as God and Man, rather than Prospero and Ariel, and that there is a small carved picture of a beautiful girl on the back of Prospero. Additional carvings of Ariel are on the exterior in many

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

s, some by Gill, others by Gilbert Bayes. The reception area contains a statue of 'The sower' by Gill. The statues of Prospero and Ariel have attracted controversy in recent years, in large part due to increasing evidence that Gill engaged in pedophilia, and that pedophilic motifs might be reflected in the statue. Despite pressure, the BBC has refused to remove the statue, citing Gill's status as one of the preeminent British artists of the 20th century. On 13 January 2022, the statue was vandalized by a man wielding a hammer, who also wrote “Time to go was 1989” and “noose all paedos” on the statue. Several works of art were commissioned by the BBC for the refurbishment of Broadcasting House, at an overall cost of more than £4 million. Among these is ''World'', a pavement artwork by the Canadian-born architect and artist Mark Pimlott. According to the BBC, the work "reflects the global dimension of the BBC’s broadcasting and consists of over 750 stone flags inscribed with place names from around the world, as well as those from history, mythology and fantasy. The artwork is enhanced by elegant steel lines of longitude and latitude, a subtle scheme of small embedded lights and some audio installation linked to key output from the World Service." On the roof of the John Peel wing, mirroring the radio mast, is '' Breathing'', a cone-shaped glass structure reaching into the sky to the same height as the mast. It was sculpted by

Jaume Plensa Jaume Plensa i Suñé (; born 23 August 1955) is a Spanish visual artist, sculptor, designer and engraver. He is a versatile artist who has also created opera sets, video projections and acoustic installations. He worked with renowned Catalan t ...

as a memorial to journalists killed in the line of duty. It includes words from a poem by James Fenton and is illuminated day and night. At 10 pm daily, in line with the '' BBC News at Ten'', a column of light shines into the sky. It was officially unveiled on 16 June 2008, by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

Broadcasting House in literature

The earliest use of Broadcasting House as a setting in fiction would seem to be in the 1934 detective novel ''Death at Broadcasting House'' by

Val Gielgud Val Henry Gielgud (28 April 1900 – 30 November 1981) was an English actor, writer, director and broadcaster. He was a pioneer of radio drama for the BBC, and also directed the first ever drama to be produced in the newer medium of televisi ...

and Holt Marvell ( Eric Maschwitz), where an actor is found strangled in Studio 7C. Broadcasting House is a central feature in

Penelope Fitzgerald Penelope Mary Fitzgerald (17 December 1916 – 28 April 2000) was a Booker Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and biographer from Lincoln, England. In 2008 ''The Times'' listed her among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". ''The Ob ...

's novel '' Human Voices,'' published in 1980, where the lead characters work for the BBC during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. It is also the work place of Alexander Wedderburn in A. S. Byatt's 1995 novel ''Still Life,'' and Sam Bell in

Ben Elton Benjamin Charles Elton (born 3 May 1959) is an English comedian, actor, author, playwright, lyricist and director. He was a part of London's alternative comedy movement of the 1980s and became a writer on the sitcoms '' The Young Ones'' and ''Bla ...

's 1999 novel ''Inconceivable'', and also that of the evil nazi-sympathiser Ezzy Pound in

Michael Paraskos Michael Paraskos, FHEA, FRSA (born 1969) is a novelist, lecturer and writer on art. He has written several non-fiction and fiction books and essays, and articles on art, literature, culture and politics for various publications, including ''Art ...

's 2016 novel ''In Search of Sixpence.'' The building is well realised as a setting in Nicola Upson's 2015 mystery novel ''London Rain''.

George Orwell

The head of BBC history, Robert Seatter, has said George Orwell in his novel ''

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and fina ...

'' (1949), "reputedly based his notorious

Room 101 The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty are the four ministries of the government of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell. The use of contradictory ...

from the novel "on a room he had worked in whilst at the BBC." On 7 November 2017, a statue of Orwell, sculpted by the British sculptor Martin Jennings, was unveiled, outside Broadcasting House. The wall behind the statue is inscribed with the following phrase: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear". These are words from his proposed preface to ''Animal Farm'' and a rallying cry for the idea of free speech in an open society.

MI5 involvement

In 1985 it was revealed by ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'' that

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...

had had a special office in the building from 1937 for the purpose of vetting BBC employees for national security purposes.

References

External links

* * *
Broadcasting House – a potted history

Old BBC Radio Broadcasting Equipment and Memories – Broadcasting House in 1932
*
Cover
of the 13 May 1932 issue of the '' Radio Times'', depicting the newly opened Broadcasting House, by Adrian Hill {{Authority control Art Deco architecture in London BBC offices, studios and buildings Buildings and structures completed in 1932 Buildings and structures in the City of Westminster Cultural and educational buildings in London Grade II* listed buildings in the City of Westminster History of broadcasting History of radio Local mass media in London Mass media company headquarters in the United Kingdom Media and communications in the City of Westminster Richard MacCormac buildings Television studios in London