BBC Birmingham
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BBC Birmingham is one of the oldest regional arms of the BBC. It was the first region outside of London to start brodcasting both the corporation's radio (in 1922) and television (in 1948) transmissions from the Sutton Coldfield television transmitter. For many years, BBC Birmingham was based at the famous Pebble Mill studios, but in 2004 moved to the brand-new Mailbox facility in the centre of the city.
Pebble Mill at One, an afternoon talk show, ran for many years from the 1970s to the 1990s on BBC 1, with several long-standing presenters, including Alan Titchmarsh, and raised the profile of the Pebble Mill studios almost to the status of a national institution.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Birmingham branch of the BBC was home to the famous English Regions Drama department, which was set up in 1976 with a remit for producing drama programmes set in various regions of the UK, to try and redress the balance of the majority of programmes being made and set in and around London. Perhaps the department's most famous drama production was Boys from the Blackstuff in 1982. The Birmingham studios have also occasionally provided a home to usually London-based productions when regular studio space has been unavailable, as was the case with the 1977 Doctor Who serial Horror of Fang Rock, which was shot at Pebble Mill.
As with all other BBC regions, BBC Birmingham is responsible for providing local radio 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.
Well-known BBC programmes currently based in Birmingham include the drama series Dalziel and Pascoe, daytime soap opera Doctors and anthology series The Afternoon Play. In radio, the popular BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers is produced there.
External link
- BBC Birmingham (http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/)