BBC throwing money around

[Wombat3]

This is a subject that could probably run forever....

Today's gem: They are spending 87 million quid on rebuilding the Eastender's set.

87 million quid !

This to include a £27M overspend from the original £60M budget - oh and the project is 5 years late too.

Also included, £50,000 spent on brick samples to ponder over.

Nothing will be done about it obviously

(DIscovered on the day I am supposed to renew my TV license! )

[The Rotrex Kid]

You’re only 2 years or so behind the rest of the world with this revelation

[bigandclever]

Do you get your news on Catch up?

[Wombat3]

Just appeared on my phone an hour ago, had no idea it was going on.

[NotMine]

Does tv show bring in funds for station?

[Eric Mc]

NotMine said:

Does tv show bring in funds for station?

Is this a serious question?

[Mr Pointy]

Wombat3 said:

This is a subject that could probably run forever....

Today's gem: They are spending 87 million quid on rebuilding the Eastender's set.

87 million quid !

This to include a £27M overspend from the original £60M budget - oh and the project is 5 years late too.

Also included, £50,000 spent on brick samples to ponder over.

Nothing will be done about it obviously

(DIscovered on the day I am supposed to renew my TV license! )

How much per finished programme hour was the old set costing?

How much per finished programme hour will the new set cost?

[Chicken Chaser]

bigandclever said:

Do you get your news on Catch up?

Ceefax

[Wombat3]

Mr Pointy said:

Wombat3 said:

This is a subject that could probably run forever....

Today's gem: They are spending 87 million quid on rebuilding the Eastender's set.

87 million quid !

This to include a £27M overspend from the original £60M budget - oh and the project is 5 years late too.

Also included, £50,000 spent on brick samples to ponder over.

Nothing will be done about it obviously

(DIscovered on the day I am supposed to renew my TV license! )

How much per finished programme hour was the old set costing?

How much per finished programme hour will the new set cost?

Not really the point , the point is how much they have spent building a relatively small number of buildings, Its insane.

How many finished houses, offices or other commercial buildings could you complete for that amount of money?

[bigandclever]

Treat yourself, read the National Audit Office report on it. You’ll notice it’s from 2018

https://www.nao.org.uk/press-release/e20-renewing-...

[mac96]

It sounds like a lot of money, although I am in no position to judge whether it should have cost less- NAO seem to think so.

However they would have had no real choice but to rebuild- HDTV would have revealed all the faults in the old set. ITV did the same thing, when they rebuilt the Corrie set on a new site, for the same reason. If you actually visited older sets, it was astonishing that they ever looked convincing on screen!

[98elise]

Wombat3 said:

Mr Pointy said:

Wombat3 said:

This is a subject that could probably run forever....

Today's gem: They are spending 87 million quid on rebuilding the Eastender's set.

87 million quid !

This to include a £27M overspend from the original £60M budget - oh and the project is 5 years late too.

Also included, £50,000 spent on brick samples to ponder over.

Nothing will be done about it obviously

(DIscovered on the day I am supposed to renew my TV license! )

How much per finished programme hour was the old set costing?

How much per finished programme hour will the new set cost?

Not really the point , the point is how much they have spent building a relatively small number of buildings, Its insane.

How many finished houses, offices or other commercial buildings could you complete for that amount of money?

Agreed. There's no land to buy and all you're building is empty shells or facades. How does it cost 87m? I've actually been on the set, and it's not even that big.

Unfortunately when you're spending other people's money sense goes out the window.

[LordLoveLength]

98elise said:

Agreed. There's no land to buy and all you're building is empty shells or facades. How does it cost 87m? I've actually been on the set, and it's not even that big.

Unfortunately when you're spending other people's money sense goes out the window.

It seems excessive but
You’re not building empty shells or facades on a brownfield site.
You’re building custom sets, on a live set.
The costs will include all the out of hours working and temporary relocation costs - they won’t stop making eastenders for the duration of the works....

[gazza285]

LordLoveLength said:

...they won’t stop making eastenders for the duration of the works....

That is the biggest tragedy here.

[98elise]

LordLoveLength said:

98elise said:

Agreed. There's no land to buy and all you're building is empty shells or facades. How does it cost 87m? I've actually been on the set, and it's not even that big.

Unfortunately when you're spending other people's money sense goes out the window.

It seems excessive but
You’re not building empty shells or facades on a brownfield site.
You’re building custom sets, on a live set.
The costs will include all the out of hours working and temporary relocation costs - they won’t stop making eastenders for the duration of the works....

The new set is being built built separately to the old set, which is still in use. The rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms and interior shot studios are also seperate to the street sets so unaffected.

I counted about 20 buildings making up the set, so that's over 4m per building.

[PeteinSQ]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That's irrelevant surely? The BBC needs to be making shows that people want to watch, I assume that Eastenders is one of their more popular shows so they're going to want to spend money to keep it going.

£87m does sound expensive but then I have no idea what is involved in building a set for TV. How many years use will they get out of this set? It's not like it will only be used once for a film and then taken apart.

[LordLoveLength]

98elise said:

LordLoveLength said:

98elise said:

Agreed. There's no land to buy and all you're building is empty shells or facades. How does it cost 87m? I've actually been on the set, and it's not even that big.

Unfortunately when you're spending other people's money sense goes out the window.

It seems excessive but
You’re not building empty shells or facades on a brownfield site.
You’re building custom sets, on a live set.
The costs will include all the out of hours working and temporary relocation costs - they won’t stop making eastenders for the duration of the works....

The new set is being built built separately to the old set, which is still in use. The rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms and interior shot studios are also seperate to the street sets so unaffected.

I counted about 20 buildings making up the set, so that's over 4m per building.

OK, but is it on the same site? If so you can’t have noisy works during working hours on the old set.
Is there access for quiet delivery and unloading? Or does this need to happen out of hours. Are there local authority restrictions on out of hours noise and works?

It may seem easy to compare it to normal building activities and expect prices to be similar but it really isn’t.
Floors need to be solid and very level and smooth
Heating and air con need to be quiet (like really quiet) and totally isolated from other areas and outside
There needs to be a big lighting grid above capable of supporting 1000s of kg
There will be lots of invisible cable routes and access points built in.
It’s all specialised stuff that costs £££s

Big problem they have is that it’s the east Enders set - you can’t really use it for much else like they used to in the days of Ealing comedies or westerns. All the costs go against one programme.

[Diderot]

And worthing remembering that it's sold worldwide so brings in millions via BBC Worldwide, so probably not solely funded from the license fee.

[98elise]

LordLoveLength said:

98elise said:

LordLoveLength said:

98elise said:

Agreed. There's no land to buy and all you're building is empty shells or facades. How does it cost 87m? I've actually been on the set, and it's not even that big.

Unfortunately when you're spending other people's money sense goes out the window.

It seems excessive but
You’re not building empty shells or facades on a brownfield site.
You’re building custom sets, on a live set.
The costs will include all the out of hours working and temporary relocation costs - they won’t stop making eastenders for the duration of the works....

The new set is being built built separately to the old set, which is still in use. The rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms and interior shot studios are also seperate to the street sets so unaffected.

I counted about 20 buildings making up the set, so that's over 4m per building.

OK, but is it on the same site? If so you can’t have noisy works during working hours on the old set.
Is there access for quiet delivery and unloading? Or does this need to happen out of hours. Are there local authority restrictions on out of hours noise and works?

It may seem easy to compare it to normal building activities and expect prices to be similar but it really isn’t.
Floors need to be solid and very level and smooth
Heating and air con need to be quiet (like really quiet) and totally isolated from other areas and outside
There needs to be a big lighting grid above capable of supporting 1000s of kg
There will be lots of invisible cable routes and access points built in.
It’s all specialised stuff that costs £££s

Big problem they have is that it’s the east Enders set - you can’t really use it for much else like they used to in the days of Ealing comedies or westerns. All the costs go against one programme.

The new set is on the same site, but about half a mile from the old set. There's a huge studio building between them, and loads of residential property nearby (closer then the new set)

Why do you need all that kit in the exterior set. The set buildings are not functional at all and only serve as props for exterior shots unless things have changed. Interior shots are done in the studio's, not the interior of the external set.

A big expense will be ageing the buildings to match the old set, however I can't see why this would cost million's per building.

[LordLoveLength]

98elise said:

LordLoveLength said:

98elise said:

LordLoveLength said:

98elise said:

Agreed. There's no land to buy and all you're building is empty shells or facades. How does it cost 87m? I've actually been on the set, and it's not even that big.

Unfortunately when you're spending other people's money sense goes out the window.

It seems excessive but
You’re not building empty shells or facades on a brownfield site.
You’re building custom sets, on a live set.
The costs will include all the out of hours working and temporary relocation costs - they won’t stop making eastenders for the duration of the works....

The new set is being built built separately to the old set, which is still in use. The rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms and interior shot studios are also seperate to the street sets so unaffected.

I counted about 20 buildings making up the set, so that's over 4m per building.

OK, but is it on the same site? If so you can’t have noisy works during working hours on the old set.
Is there access for quiet delivery and unloading? Or does this need to happen out of hours. Are there local authority restrictions on out of hours noise and works?

It may seem easy to compare it to normal building activities and expect prices to be similar but it really isn’t.
Floors need to be solid and very level and smooth
Heating and air con need to be quiet (like really quiet) and totally isolated from other areas and outside
There needs to be a big lighting grid above capable of supporting 1000s of kg
There will be lots of invisible cable routes and access points built in.
It’s all specialised stuff that costs £££s

Big problem they have is that it’s the east Enders set - you can’t really use it for much else like they used to in the days of Ealing comedies or westerns. All the costs go against one programme.

The new set is on the same site, but about half a mile from the old set. There's a huge studio building between them, and loads of residential property nearby (closer then the new set)

Why do you need all that kit in the exterior set. The set buildings are not functional at all and only serve as props for exterior shots unless things have changed. Interior shots are done in the studio's, not the interior of the external set.

A big expense will be ageing the buildings to match the old set, however I can't see why this would cost million's per building.

I think the stuff currently under construction is intended to be temporary whilst the original gets rebuilt as a more permanent set - pubs and houses won’t change much so can be permanent fixtures.
Careful layout will allow simultaneous streams to be shot in different areas.
Currently they have bits where the external brickwork is a wallpaper type print that needs constant repair and looks crap on SD let alone HD. Making this permanent will save in the long term.

BBC could have learned from Phil Redmond - he built an estate for Brookside.

Looking at the NAO report it is the overall cost including tech fit out, edit suites etc.
It is a programme factory - a very different beast from what it appears to be. You just don’t get to see half of it.