Tag Archives: BBC Bush House

BBC Bush House desk on eBay

Want to own an bit of shortwave radio broadcasting history? Many thanks to Mike Barraclough who shares this listing on eBay: a BBC World Service Broadcast Radio Studio Desk from the Bush house in London.

Starting bid is £999–yep, that’s some serious money–and you’ll need to travel to Bristol, England to pick it up.

Here’s the full item description:

This is a genuine BBC World Service Studio from Bush House. I bought this when the BBC moved out of Bush House in July 2012. Unfortunately I have no room for it and so sadly I must sell it. All the components are still original as seen in the images.

Just think of the famous people who were interviewed at this desk. The whole desk is bespoke, beautifully made and crafted by BBC engineers, there is nothing quite like it. It still has all the detail such as the panic button underneath the desk, stands for computer monitors, telephone, the professional CD player and cassette desk player. Also original mixing desk, router board and switches – all you need to start your own radio station! The desk is mono as used by the BBC World Service.

Original Revox Professional Series CD player C-221
Original Kenwood Stereo Cassette Deck KX-4520
The original ElectroVoice RE20 Microphone with adjustable stand is NOT included and will be sold separately on eBay
BBC speaker will be sold separately.

The lucky winner will have to ship this from my home in South Bristol at their own expense. It will require a medium sized van and two people to lift it.

More pictures to follow including accurate measurements. Approx 8ft wide, 3 feet deep and 3.5 feet high.

Click here to view on eBay.

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1932 Photos of the BBC Broadcasting House

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Last week, I discovered this amazing set of photos, via Flashbak.com, of the BBC Broadcasting House from 1932: click here to view the full set of photos.

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BBC Bush House: auctioning bits of radio history

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BBC World Service – Bush House

(Source: London Evening Standard)

Thousands of fragments of BBC history, ranging from “on air” lights to a picture of Sir Paul McCartney broadcasting live to fans in Russia, are going under the hammer in a huge auction.

The lots are all from Bush House, the Aldwych home of the BBC World Service for the past 71 years, which the Corporation vacates tomorrow. Entire studios are among the items for sale and are expected to attract bids of up to £10,000.

Elizabeth Sewell, managing director of specialist auctioneers Peaker Pattison, which is handling the sale, said: “A lot of overseas radio stations are interested in buying the large studios such as S6, which is the one Paul McCartney used to broadcast to Russia. We’ve had enquiries from India, Pakistan and all across the former eastern bloc.”

Turntables and reel-to-reel tape decks in the auction have attracted huge interest from club DJs who use them for mixing dance tracks. Online bidding for the first 1,500 lots has already started and will end on July 25. A second tranche of lots will be sold in September. The highest bid so far is £910 for a Steinway baby grand piano.

Many of the lots reflect the huge diversity of cultures represented at Bush House, where 68 language services were broadcast, ranging from Maltese to Welsh for Argentinian Patagonia.

They include maps of India, Mexico, central Africa and the main theatre of the Second World War, as well as a painting of the BBC motto “Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation”.

As well as the former Beatle’s famous 1989 broadcast, there are photographs of Mikhail Gorbachev, Bob Geldof, Charlton Heston, Sir Bobby Charlton and Yes Minister actor Paul Eddington.

Staff at Bush House have now relocated to the newly refurbished Broadcasting House in Portland Place. The BBC European Service moved into Bush House in 1941 after bomb damage at Broadcasting House, followed in 1958 by the rest of the Overseas Service.[…]

Read the full article at the London Evening Standard.

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BBC World Service: Celebrating 80th birthday live on air

As BBC World Service moves from Bush House, they open doors

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BBC World Service - Bush House

BBC World Service opens doors to celebrate 80th birthday

(Source: BBC Press Office)

Global audience gets unique behind the scenes access as move from iconic London home begins.

Audiences are to be given unprecedented behind the scenes access as part of a special day of live programming on February 29, to mark the BBC World Service’s 80th birthday.

Highlights from the day will include a special global audience with Sir David Attenborough and The Strand – the WS global arts programme – will be edited by guest artist and music producer William Orbit.

Audiences will be able to join a special debate about what they want from the World Service, both on air, online and across social media forums. (#bbcws80)

The day will give audiences around the world a unique insight into production of their favourite programmes and multilingual videos will be produced of all the broadcasts throughout the day online at bbc.co.uk/worldservice.

For the first time audiences will be invited to watch and participate in over 12 hours of programmes in English and across more than 12 different languages. The day will be hosted by BBC Persian’s Pooneh Ghoddoosi and BBC World Service presenter Ros Atkins.

BBC World Service’s daily morning editorial meeting, which normally takes place behind the doors of Bush House, will be opened up and broadcast live for the first time. In this meeting – a daily part of life in the building – the newsroom’s editors discuss and agree the big stories and developments and decide on which stories will shape the day’s news agenda.

The open courtyard of Bush House will host many of the programmes that day. Flagship programmes such as Newshour and World Have Your Say will invite audiences to join a conversation about international broadcasting and the future priorities of the BBC World Service.

Listeners around the world – and the audience at Bush House – will have the chance to shape the news agenda and debate by making suggestions from the floor, or through Twitter, Facebook and Skype.

Peter Horrocks, Director of BBC Global News, said: “The 80th birthday and departure from Bush House means these are historic and changing times for the BBC World Service. We want our audiences to be at the heart of both the commemoration of the past and conversation about the future.”

BBC World Service Commissioning Editor, Steve Titherington, said: “We are turning Bush House inside out showing who we are and what we do to our audiences and asking what the world wants next from the BBC World Service.”

On February 29, BBC World Service is also launching a new series of programmes on the human body. Linked to the Olympics, The Human Race will invite the public to take part in a ‘healthcheck special’ featuring leading international scientists and sportspeople.

Not only celebrating 80 years of broadcasting, this special day of programming marks the start of the BBC World Service’s move from Bush House, its iconic London home for over 70 years, to a new state of the art broadcasting centre in Oxford Circus.

The move will see all of the BBC’s news services – UK and international – based together for the first time. The aim is to create ‘the world’s newsroom’ – enhancing the BBC’s global newsgathering and creating a forum for the best journalism in the world.

Programming

BBC World Service English – much of the day’s global schedule from 07:00 to 23:00 GMT will broadcast live from outside Bush House. Programming highlights from this day include:

09:00 – The live news meeting – normally conducted behind closed doors, audiences will for the first time be given insight into the inner workings of the newsroom.

11:00 – World Have Your Say – the global interactive news discussion programme will ask audiences around the world what they want the programme to be about on that day.

15:00 – A live global audience with Sir David Attenborough.

17:00 – World Business Report and Focus on Africa will link up to broadcast a special programme asking how business journalism is reporting the financial crisis with Alistair Darling on the panel, and looking at the creative energy and entrepreneurship coming out of Africa.

19:00 Health Check – will air a special programme to launch The Human Race Season – a raft of programmes examining the human body. Endurance runners and sprinters, sports psychologists, doctors and coaches will all be in the courtyard to try to answer ‘What makes an Olympic athelete?’

20:00 – 22:00 – Newshour, BBC World Services flagship current affairs show, will broadcast a special debate looking at the future of international broadcasting.

22:00 – 23:00 – The Strand Extra – BBC World Service’s global arts show, will be edited by special guest artist and music producer William Orbit.

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