The London Studios

History

When LWT succeeded ATV as the London weekend ITV franchisee in 1968, it rented Associated-Rediffusion's old studios at Wembley (later known as The Fountain Studios) while plans for a new studio complex in central London were drawn up.

The chosen site stood beside the then new Royal National Theatre on the South Bank of the River Thames. It was bought in 1969, and construction work, awarded to Higgs and Hill, began in 1970. The centre opened for transmission in 1972, though it was not fully operational until 1974. The complex was owned by the pension fund of the National Coal Board and leased by the station. It was originally called The South Bank Television Centre (a name that lasted until the early 1990s) and at the time was the most advanced television centre in Europe.

On 28 January 2013 ITV plc finally bought the freehold of the now renamed London Television Centre for £56 million from what had become Coal Pension Properties.

On social media, the building is named 'ITV Towers' since the purchase in January 2013. The official name of the building is The London Television Centre (with the studio business branded as 'The London Studios'), that being the logo in reception and around the building.

The site closed in April 2018 for demolition. Initially, ITV intended to redevelop the site with three smaller studios, but in October 2018 it announced it would not be returning to the South Bank, and the whole site would be redeveloped into premium housing.

In November 2019, it was announced that ITV had reached an agreement to sell The London Studios for £145.6 million to Mitsubishi Estate London. New plans for the redevelopment of the site into a commercial development were revealed in February 2021.

Demolition of the site commenced in early 2025.

The building

Kent House Tower

Kent House was a 24-storey tower block, which was home to ITV plc and many production offices including ITV Studios and Shiver Productions. During the 1990s the block was also home to Carlton Television and GMTV. It was seen in the titles of Good Morning Britain and Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. The tower housed programme production offices, edit suites, dubbing suites, VTR studio booths and graphic booths.

Main Studio Block

Sandwiched between Kent House Tower and the River Thames were the main studio blocks, housing studios 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7, the restaurant, the takeaway bar (prior studio cafe), management offices, edit facilities, make-up and wardrobe. It was designed by London-based architecture practice Elsom Pack & Roberts.

Gabriel's Wharf

On the east side of the site, there is a neighbouring building called Gabriel's Wharf. Previously belonging to Younger's Brewery, this three-storey building was added later to the site as a scenery store. When This Morning moved from Liverpool, the 3000 sqft studio 8 was converted from the riverside end of the first storey. This area was on lease from Coin Street Community Builders to ITV until 2018, when they left the premises.

Studios

There were a total of nine different studios during the complex's lifespan. By the time of closure there were six. There were weather studios producing the ITV national, and some of the network's regional forecasts at ITN's headquarters in Gray's Inn Road.

• Studio 1 – 8350 sqft – The largest studio on the complex. This studio was home to programmes such as All Star Family Fortunes, All Star Mr & Mrs, The Graham Norton Show, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and Text Santa. The studio had a permanent fixed balcony seating area which, along with movable seating, could accommodate audiences of up to 638. This made the studio popular for large audience based shows. Studio 1 was upgraded to HD in December 2009.
• Studio 2 – 7271 sqft – The second largest on the complex housed shows such as Piers Morgan's Life Stories, The Alan Titchmarsh Show, Let's Do Lunch with Gino & Mel, Have I Got News for You and It'll Be Alright on the Night. The studio could accommodate large audiences of up to 462. The studio could also be used as a bare shell as the audience seating structure could be moved out. Studio 2 was upgraded to HD in the summer of 2009.
• Studio 3 – 3136 sqft – This studio housed daily chatshow Loose Women, political chat show Peston on Sunday and ITV Breakfast programme Lorraine. The studio could accommodate audiences of up to 150. The studio also had an "in-the-round" seating feature with up to 108 audience capacity, with the presenters and set in the middle with the audiences seated around them. It briefly became the home of GMTV from July to September 2010 before the launch of Daybreak. This studio then became the home for Daybreak between September 2012 and April 2014. Studio 3 was upgraded to HD in the summer of 2012.
• Studio 4 – Located in the tower block, LWT’s in-vision continuity was broadcast from here until out-of-vision continuity was introduced, when studio 4 was closed. It was then converted back to offices.
• Studio 5 – 2268 sqft – Based at the bottom of Kent House. This studio was previously used by GMTV from January 1993 to July 2010 (before it temporarily moved to Studio 3), The Big Match from 1972 to 1992 and World of Sport from 1972 to 1985. From April 2014, Good Morning Britain began using this studio.
• Studio 6 – There has never been a 'Studio 6' on the complex. There was also a bar and restaurant in Gabriel's Wharf next door named 'Studio Six'.
• Studio 7 – 2050 sqft – Located in the studio block on the river's bank, this studio presented panoramic views over the London skyline, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, through its floor-to-ceiling windows. Studio 7 was home to the London News Network’s local news bulletins from 1993 until 2004. It was built in 1993 for the newly created London News Network, a company which provided local news for the ITV Network in London. Prior to 1993, LWT, the London weekend ITV franchisee, had produced news bulletins for London on Friday evenings, Saturdays and Sundays from studio 10, whilst Thames Television had provided its own news during the rest of the week from its own studios. The new partnership between London weekday licensee Carlton and LWT meant one news bulletin would be seen all week, London Tonight. After the Carlton and Granada merger to form ITV plc however, LNN was disbanded and Independent Television News took over the contract. London Tonight is now produced in their studios on Grays Inn Road. It was then used as the home of ITV Sport and also for Loose Women, I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! NOW!, Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, and various specials for Canadian television. ITV's breakfast programme Daybreak used the studio from 6 September 2010 to 31 August 2012. For the launch of Daybreak, the studio was converted to high-definition. It continued to be used by ITV Sport, most recently for its coverage of IPL Cricket on ITV4, as well as use for CBBC's Friday Download.
• Studio 8 – 2958 sqft – This studio was located beside the main complex in the building known as Gabriel’s Wharf. Daytime show This Morning occupied this studio after the show moved to London from Liverpool in 1996. It had four large one-way mirrored windows overlooking the Thames which appeared silver from the outside, restricting people being able to see in from the outside and reducing glare inside.
• Studio 9 – This small studio was used when ITV2 used in-vision announcers and was located next to studio 7. It was used for the studio's tapeless recording system allowing editors to edit programmes shortly after they were recorded.
• Studio 10 – Studio 10 was on the 10th floor of the tower and was used for London’s weekend and Friday evening’s local news (produced originally by LWT) as well as Crime Monthly before studio 7 was built. This studio was equipped with Philips cameras and a show entitled Talk TV was output from here for Talk Digital Channel before the studio was converted into offices in 2003. The studio was visible from the South Bank by looking towards the tower with one's head facing away from St Paul's Cathedral and noting the studio’s windows (which are slightly blue and clearer in comparison to the other windows).

ITV

The studios were originally built by the London weekend ITV franchise holder, London Weekend Television (LWT). In 1991, Carlton Television won the London weekday franchise from Thames Television, but unlike Thames, Carlton had no studios of its own. Carlton rented space from The London Studios from 1993 for its own post-production and continuity facilities. This arrangement continued until 2002, when an agreement was reached for Carlton to be permanently based within space used by LWT; in the intervening years LWT had been taken over by Granada plc, and a close relationship had developed between Granada and Carlton. This led to consolidation within the ITV network and an agreement for the two to work together as ITV London.

Since 2002, all the ITV plc-owned regions' continuity before national programmes were presented from the London Studios and additional continuity before regional programmes in the following regions: Meridian, Westcountry, HTV West, Anglia, the non-franchise ITV Thames Valley region and since 16 January 2006 HTV Wales, although between 2002 and 15 January 2006, the Welsh station's continuity was recorded and sent electronically to London. The complex also housed the continuity of ITV plc's digital channels ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and CITV. The site also handled the playout of all the above until 2007, when the service was outsourced to Technicolor Network Services (TNS) (now part of Ericsson). The play-out is now run from Ericsson's broadcast centre in Chiswick.

Ericsson now provides network feeds to transmission centres in Leeds (home of the Northern Transmission Centre, which was also originally taken over by TNS as part of the outsourcing deal) and Glasgow (STV).

ITV Studios

Main article: ITV Studios

In 1994, Granada Group took over LWT and acquired the building. When ITV franchises were permitted to take one another over in the 1990s (which were previously restricted), Carlton and Granada between them, eventually owned all the franchises in England and Wales, merged in 2004. All of Carlton's studios had either been sold, or were surplus to requirements. Although the parent companies merged, and are now one (called ITV plc), Granada Television Ltd still exists as a subsidiary of ITV plc, and owns all ITV plc's studios (wholly in Leeds and London, and formerly as a joint venture with BBC Studios & Post Production in Manchester).

The studios produced the bulk of original ITV Studios' programmes, but anyone could hire the studios, so the studios were often seen on other channels' programmes.

Notable programmes

The London Studios was home to many popular programmes. List of shows, studio used and network broadcast on below:

Amateur radio

The building used to host an amateur radio repeater, GB3LW. The site was provided by the London Weekend TV Amateur Radio Society.

References

References

1. "Contact us".
2. (16 December 2012). "Dozens of possible bidders for ITV studios". The Independent.
3. (28 January 2013). "ITV buys its London headquarters for £56 million". Property Mall.
4. (28 January 2013). "ITV buys London HQ". [[ITV plc]].
5. Sweney, Mark. (9 October 2018). "ITV to sell South Bank studios". The Guardian.
6. (8 November 2019). "ITV sells off London Television Centre". Televisual.
7. (8 November 2019). "ITV confirms South Bank studios sale". TVBEurope.
8. Jessel, Ella. (18 February 2021). "Make reveals plans to redevelop ITV's former South Bank HQ".
9. Simon Harris. (2025-03-28). "Stars share sadness as iconic TV studio is torn down to make way for new development". ITV News London.
10. "Gabriel's Wharf".
11. (2014-06-29). "Meridian".