Be Excellent To Each Other

As part of the BBC's plans to make more drama away from London and in the "regions", Casualty is being moved to Cardiff.

I hear you cry, "but that's good, about time the BBC was less London-centric!". Well yeah, except Casualty has been made in Bristol since 1986.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7965895.stm

Utter fucking madness. The same kind of madness that sees Film 2009 produced by BBC Scotland, but actually recorded in London. Or flying London presenters to Glasgow and back again to front shows (see Lilly Allen).

Not that I've watched Casualty for probably 20 years mind. I have no idea what it looks like these days but to me it always looked like a show not made in London. The buildings and everything else are a dead giveaway.

It's all political correctness gone made I tells ya!

Yes, the reason they historically made most stuff in London is because most of the people they need ARE IN FUCKING LONDON.

Casual-plus-y is crap anyway. Good riddance to it.

Ironically the BBC used to make alot of shows outside of London. Pebble Mill was home to series such as Howards' Way, Last Of The Summer Wine and All Creatures Great and Small. BBC Manchester's studios produced the early seasons of Red Dwarf.

The problem was the introduction of something called "Producer Choice". Instead of the bosses allocating where your studio base would be (and ensuring a fair spread of work), you'd instead be free to use whatever facility you wished, either inside the BBC or outside. Problem was that facilities in London tended to be far cheaper as they were busier, and also better equipped.

So then you have a problem where all the production migrated towards London and studios like the ones at Pebble Mill fell out of use.

Ironically with the advent of cheap portable recording equipment, you can now make TV shows almost anywhere. The last drama series to be made at TV Centre was The House Of Elliott! I'm told by old timers that these days TVC is nowhere near as busy as the heyday of the mid 70's where the studios would be fully booked and the canteen would be heaving with luvvies in full costume.