Dear Editor, The announcement this week by the BBC that Television Centre in west London is to be sold for commercial development, presents Birmingham with a last opportunity to reclaim its position as a centre for television production. The last decade saw Birmingham lose its ITV production complex on Broad Street (still waiting to be demolished) and the BBC’s own Pebble Mill has been nothing more than a memory since 2004.

In both cases, what replaced these major centres of network production has been nothing more than local news studios, and in the BBC’s case, some vastly underused radio studios. ITV once employed 1,000 people in the city and are now down to just 80. The BBC claims that despite its lack of facilities in the city that their production in Birmingham is “thriving”, although a glance at their weekly schedules shows that only one Birmingham-made programme a week is shown on BBC1 in peak time (Countryfile) and over on BBC2, for many weeks of the year, there is no Midlands-made programming whatsoever.

Not hearing of Birmingham is the price that we in the Midlands are paying for this divestment of broadcasting facilities. On both major networks there are no programmes being shown any more that are made here that are about here. Whilst each week there are new dramas and comedy shows being launched that are set in Manchester, we are truly ignored. The only time you will see Birmingham on national television is on the weather map. The profile of the city and the area around it has significantly diminished and the resultant gap between us and some other cities gets ever wider. My young nephew asked me recently if Birmingham was still the second largest city, when I asked him why he felt the need to ask the question he answered, “Well, you never see it on the television!”

The problem of this poor profile translates itself into a city that is much harder to market to national and international investors, a city that finds it harder to attract a wider public as tourists or patrons of its art and culture and a city whose confidence and pride can at best be described as dented.

The broadcasters ignore the English heartlands at their peril. Television is becoming duller and more risk averse as more and more programmes become clones of what has been on before. They may not have realised it yet, but they need us just as much as we need them!

The solution is to create the National Film and Television Studios right here in Birmingham, at the heart of the motorway network and at the demographic centre of England’s population. Not only are we geographically well placed to provide the broadcasters with studios that can be filled with a large audience, but we have the space and the facilities to do so at economical cost. Some thought would need to be given to location but the NEC site seems to me to be ideal. The demise of Television Centre will see a need for studios that can produce light entertainment and drama. Being the base for such types of production would help re-balance the broadcasting landscape in favour of one of England’s most densely populated regions. It would bring in huge amounts of investment and well-paid jobs (which in turn would help to support the arts and culture in the city).

This is too good an opportunity to miss and I urge all those who represent this region, those who market this region and those who have a passion for Birmingham to start talking and (forgive me) create the vision.

We have nothing to lose but our invisibility at a national level, and we have much to gain. The advantages would be many, including a much higher profile for the city and region, a narrowing of the gap between Birmingham and Manchester in particular, possibly thousands of well paid jobs and crucially, a massive boost to our pride and confidence as a city.

Do nothing now and the opportunity won’t come along again. Do nothing now and allow the profile gap to widen even further. Do nothing now and the jobs and investment will go elsewhere. Or do something now and Birmingham could become a creative hub, a city that is easier to market, a city with a buzz and a pride in itself. That’s what we want, isn’t it?

Michael Bradley,
Solihull.