When my friends from the states visited Manchester in July, one of the items on our itinerary was to do a BBC Tour of Media City. One of my friends works in media at a university, and they are working with the University of Salford, which own buildings next to Media City. So, we had the opportunity to join a guided tour. My friend and I both have background in media as we took a lot of the same classes (though we focused on different areas), and I used to work at the university's radio channel on Monday evenings, which I enjoyed.
There are a few different tours available, and each tour is a little bit different depending on which studios and rooms are available to view. We saw where a lot of television shows are filmed. There is a tour that is aimed more at children, and there is another tour that is aimed at fans of "Coronation Street". There are also several props throughout the tour to allow you to take photographs.
The first studio we went into had a covered area with furnishings and an uncovered area as well as a sound room. This is used for the radio show "The Archers" and also to generally record audio. There are interior set-ups as well as exterior ones with a range of props to help generate specific sounds.
After that, we went into the large studio. The studio is sold off in meters, so it can be made smaller or as large as it is physically. It's actually huge. The television show "The Voice" is filmed in this studio, and at the back is a kitchen, dressing area, and seating area; all of these are used in the show and the spin-off show.
Our last studio stop was to the radio studio for Radio 6 Music, and it showed a set up of all the playlists as well as included instruments so that guest musicians could play in a live lounge.
The last part of the tour included the interactive studio, which contains a replica of the breakfast show red couch, costumes from "Strictly Come Dancing", and a couple of Dalek props from "Doctor Who". The tour lasted an hour and a half.
After the tour, we went to a shop that they had in one of the studios for tours of the "Eastenders" set.
Have you ever been on a tour at BBC Media City?
Leave a comment