page_title: ITV Central
section_title: Studios
hierarchical_section_title: ITV Central / Studios
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a picture of the ITV Central headquarters based in Gas Street, Birmingham.
context_page_description: ITV Central, previously known as Central Independent Television and Carlton Central and commonly referred to as simply Central, is the Independent Television franchisee for the English Midlands. It was created following the restructuring of ATV and began broadcasting on 1 January 1982. The service is owned and operated by ITV plc under the licensee of ITV Broadcasting Limited.
context_section_description: Initially, Central inherited ATV's Broad Street studios, ATV Centre, which was renamed Central House when the contractor changed its name – they were retained as Central's headquarters, West Midlands studios and transmission facilities until 1997. Upon winning the franchise, Central decided to construct new studios for its East sub-region, based in Lenton Lane, Nottingham – the new complex was to be called 'East Midlands Television centre'. Up until the studios were opened, Central's East Midlands operations were based on an industrial estate at Giltbrook, near Eastwood on the outskirts of Nottingham. A temporary radio link from Giltbrook to the Waltham transmitter via BT Bowman/Sheriff (Nottingham) Telephone Exchange provided the contribution feed into the studio/transmission network. The Nottingham studios were to be staffed by employees originally based at Elstree (in the studio complex that became BBC Elstree), which led to many problems due to the relocation, including industrial action, which resulted in a long delay for the promised separate news service for the East Midlands until September 1983.
  The Nottingham studio complex finally opened in January 1984, followed by an official opening by the Duke of Edinburgh on 2 March 1984 Five years later, Central opened a computerized news centre in Abingdon for the launch of its third sub-region, serving the South Midlands. Central News South was broadcast from the Abingdon studios, supplemented by news bureaux in Aylesbury, Gloucester and Swindon.
  The Broad Street studios in Birmingham – which were rented – came under Central's ownership in November 1991, by which time, its network and large scale programming capability had been transferred to Nottingham, scaling down the Birmingham operation to providing Central News West, regional programming and presentation operations, including those for CITV. In 1994, Central's new owners Carlton acquired land on nearby Gas Street to begin work on building a new, smaller digital studio complex. The new centre was completed in 1997, when Central West's regional news department moved from its Broad Street base, which was eventually demolished during the spring of 2015 to make way for the new 'Arena Central' development." Having been one of the first fully computerised news programmes, Central News South was again a pioneer of new technology when, in the Spring of 2001, state-of-the-art Quantel digital video servers and edit suites were installed, along with a complete re-fit of camera and VTR equipment, placing Central South at the forefront of digital news-gathering in regional news.
  In February 2004, ITV plc announced plans to close and sell the Lenton Lane production centre in Nottingham with over 350 jobs being axed in the process Following the closure of the studios, a new news-gathering centre was established in the city, but production and transmission of Central News East moved to the Birmingham studio in Spring 2005. The former studio complex is now part of the University of Nottingham and is known as 'King's Meadow Campus'. It still maintains one Studio (Studio 7), and this is rented out to television and film companies, generating income for the university. In October 2004, ITV plc closed Central's presentation/transmission department and moved transmission to the Northern Transmission Centre in Leeds. Although there was heavy opposition, the role of presentation and transmission at Birmingham had been significantly reduced after network presentation was centralised to LNN in London in 2002 and so there was an inevitability that this function would be moved out. CITV (Children's ITV), which had been presented by Central since 1983, was also re-homed to Granada's studios in Manchester, with all content pre-recorded and with out-of vision presentation.
  A documentary about the Broad Street studios was later released on DVD in October 2011. Entitled 'From ATVLand in Colour' (referring to the nickname used on Tiswas, and the building being purpose-built by ATV for colour broadcasting), the documentary featured presenters, acto
caption: The ITV Central headquarters in Gas Street, Birmingham.
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