BBC West Midlands
The cost of television production technology decreased throughout the 1980s and 1990s and this had several effects on the BBC in the Midlands. Smaller, more local channels became viable. The BBC's Midlands coverage had long been accused of being excessively Birmingham-centric, and in 1991 television broadcasting from the Waltham transmitting station and the BBC Radio Leicester, BBC Radio Nottingham and BBC Radio Derby radio stations were given over to a new Nottingham-based BBC East Midlands.
A more radical move in this direction took place in 2006 when the West Midlands Region piloted the BBC's Local TV initiative, with television news programmes produced for six local areas, all much smaller than the traditional television regions and in the case of Birmingham and the Black Country even smaller than those covered by local radio stations. This programming was broadcast on digital television and over the internet only. The experiment came to an end as planned in September 2006, and the future of the initiative is currently undecided.
Advances in technology also made outside broadcasts cheaper and much more common, while also increasing the scope for independent and outsourced television production. In combination these meant that much television programming could increasingly be produced without the need for the sort of large integrated studio complexes represented by Pebble Mill. After several years of cost-cutting and closures, the departments based at Pebble Mill including the West Midlands Region moved to their current Mailbox home in Birmingham City Centre in 2004.
[
See also
[
References and further reading
- Briggs, Asa (1961-1995). The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom (Volumes I-V). Oxford University Press.
[
External links
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
For more information review our copyright contact and privacy policy.