Friday was the final day of the University of Gloucestershire’s first Media School Festival and the day of the Radio Production students’ visit to London for tours Broadcasting House, Radio 2 and 6 Music.
BBC Broadcasting House (pictured right – with my finger slightly in the way) is a fascinating place. It’s massive, with 8 floors, and a few more bits underground too.
There’s something quite fun in to going in to one of the world’s most exciting buildings – the one which I and many other radio producers aspire to work in one day. Of course – due to the fact the building is a working building, the tours offered by BBC Shows & Tours really only touch the surface of what goes on at Broadcasting House.
I did enjoy the view from the ground floor in to the basement of Broadcasting House: the television newsroom (pictured below – this is the view from the Media Café). We even saw a weather forecast going out live from the other side of the glass between the public area and the newsroom!
My highlight of the day though was going in to a Radio 2 studio – Simon Mayo‘s studio, in fact, at neighboring Western House.
It’s been about 3 years since I sat in on Chris Hawkins’ 6 Music show on a dark January 2011 morning… This was more of a flying visit, but did include the Radio 2 studios. We missed out on going up to Radio 2 last time, because it was the day Gary Barlow was in to celebrate his 40th birthday. This year’s visit happened before it got dark – I’ve never seen Western House in daylight before! Broadcasting House was also a massive building site back in 2011 – so although we walked past it, we couldn’t see much.
This short visit to the BBC has gone and made me want to work in radio even more now. (I just want a BBC staff lanyard really). I can at least say now that I know my way to Broadcasting House, and I know how to get from Broadcasting House to Western House. That’s a start, isn’t it?
Lectures restart this week, as we head in to week 6 of 12 – meaning this time next week, we will be half way through my final semester of university.
That’s scary!
FH.
