Inside City Road
15 January 2016 tbs.pm/8302
For the launch of Tyne Tees Television in 15 January 1959, The Viewer, TTT’s listings magazine, gave the region a quick look around the new TTT studios on City Road in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We reprint the feature in full below.
From derelict warehouses to one of the finest TV studios in the country in less than six months – that is the story of the new TV centre in City Road, Newcastle.
Two warehouses divided by a wooden shed were stripped to a shell to leave 400,000 sq ft (37,160m²) of space for the building.
Not an inch of that space has been wasted. TTT chiefs, led by Director George Black and Programme Controller Bill Lyon-Shaw, knew exactly what was wanted and proceeded to make their dreams of the ideal TV studio a concrete fact.
“Planned economy” is the result. Everything is streamlined to side-step hitches.
Programmes will reach your fireside from three studios – big shows from No 1, smaller shows and advertising magazines from 2 and news and interviews from 3.
In the middle of the group of studios and control-rooms is the Master Control – centre of the web – including Ampex equipment, which records both sound and vision and can be played back almost instantaneously.
Played a leading part
A man who has played a leading part in creating the new TV centre is Tyne Tees managing director Anthony Jelly. Aged 37, Mr Jelly has had extensive television experience in Scotland and London/ He is married, with two children, and lives lives at Humshaugh, near Hexham.
No other studio in the country has had the advantage of beginning with this equipment.
Looking like a Hammond electric organ, the huge lighting control unit acts as nerve centre for 102 different circuits.
A mains electricity sub-station ensures that power cuts do not affect the studio.
No effort has been spared to make the TTT Television Centre a studio of which the North-East can be justly proud.
You Say
2 responses to this article
Alexander Punton wrote 16 January 2016 at 3:09 am
Six months to convert, but only three months to be demolished and the site to be cleared.
Mark wrote 17 January 2016 at 7:15 pm
Not sure the author of the piece had a full grip on the role of a floor manager – “directing camera operations during a show”!
Your comment
Enter it below