The most successful BBC factual programme currently being aired on television is made in Birmingham. So why is the production of all such programmes going to end in Birmingham?
The move was announced by the BBC in the latest round of cuts with all factual productions moving to Bristol or Manchester.
Next Wednesday (November 16) BBC staff will be in Victoria Square in central Birmingham to protest against the closure of network production in the city and to highlight their plight.
Insiders at the BBC’s Mailbox headquarters claim that London-based management has held “a negative kind of attitude” towards the Mailbox hub since the departure from Pebble Mill.
And the future of television production generally in Birmingham has become almost as shaky as the legendary scenery used in the Crossroads soap produced by ATV (now Central).
While the BBC in the Mailbox is faced with losing 150 jobs as part of cuts designed to save hundreds of millions of pounds a year, Central TV’s glory days are also behind it.
So why is Birmingham losing its pre-eminent position as a leading television production centre outside London?
The truth is that the BBC is awash with talent in Birmingham. Without it, how would Countryfile remain consistently the No 1 factual programme in Britain? On October 30 this year it attracted 8.17 million viewers, its biggest audience.
History may show that the BBC will judge their decision to close Pebble Mill and move to the Mailbox – believed to be costing £2.2 million annually on a long lease – as an expensive mistake.
It was said at the time that the BBC wanted to move to the Mailbox in order to be more visible to the public.
Critics said that the only people to whom it would be more visible were those visiting the nearby designer label shops.
Maybe the BBC should have looked at potential savings in property costs rather than stripping Birmingham of its talent.
No-one would deny that Birmingham is still a thriving centre for the arts, which draws on its rich cultural mix of British, West Indian, Irish, Indian, Pakistani and Eastern European residents.
And television production is very much alive here. Maverick is a TV and media production company founded by Jonnie Turpie in 1994.
He now heads the company’s ambitious digital media business, and initiated many of the company’s digital and online projects including Embarrassing Bodies, Ideasfactory, 4Talent and Teachers TV.
