The Fountain Studios
| Fountain Studios | |
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 Fountain Studios |
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| General information | |
| Type | Television studios |
| Address | 128 Wembley Park Drive, Wembley, HA9 8HP |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 51°33′40″N 0°16′54″W / 51.5612°N 0.2818°WCoordinates: 51°33′40″N 0°16′54″W / 51.5612°N 0.2818°W |
| Website | |
| Official Website | |
Fountain Studios is an independently owned television studio located in Wembley, north-west London, close to Wembley Park underground station. Currently, the studios are best known for being the venue for the live stages of ITV shows The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. Other programmes currently made here include The Cube and The British Comedy Awards. Other shows which the Fountain Studios have hosted include Pop Idol, Test the Nation and The Kumars at No. 42.
A number of companies owned the site before it was purchased by Fountain in 1993. Studio 5 (now known as Studio A & Studio B), is 14,000 sq ft including the firelanes. This makes it the largest fully equipped television studio in Britain, 500 sq ft larger than the main studio at MediaCityUK in Salford and 2,000 sq ft larger than Studio 1 at BBC Television Centre. Internationally, larger studios exist in Germany and the United States although many of these fall into the category of soundstage and are not fully equipped television studios.
An unusual feature of the facility is a soundproof double door which can be lowered in 30 minutes to reconfigure the space into two separate studios, each with their own independent control facilities.
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History [edit]
The site was first owned by British International Pictures in 1927, but various projects were short lived and the American Fox Film Company leased (then acquired the studio in 1936) for the production of their 'quota quickies' at the facility. A change in the law in 1938 led 20th Century Fox to use other studios, but they retained ownership and TCF leased their Wembley studios to the military (during the war) and intermittently to independents.[1]
It was the main production centre for the London weekday ITV contractor Rediffusion from 1955 to the end of the company's franchise in 1968. The studios were home to some of the most popular programmes on the ITV network during the 1960s. These included No Hiding Place, The Rat Catchers, Blackmail, At Last, The 1948 Show and The Frost Report.
Whilst under the ownership of London Weekend they used to record shows such as On the Buses, Please Sir and Upstairs Downstairs. Through the 1970s to the 1990s the studios were owned by many companies including Lee International Film, Thames Television and Limehouse Television until the studios fell into disrepair. When Fountain purchased the site in 1993 studios 1 to 4 from the original complex were demolished to make way for a retail park and all that remained was Studio 5.
Notable Programmes [edit]
Fountain Studios is home to many popular entertainment programmes. List of shows, studio used and network broadcast on below:
