New look BBC One news coming very soon

The BBC’s Studio B (New Broadcasting House, London) will come back into service shortly, having been mothballed in the early days of Covid as part of cost-cutting measures.

The newly revamped facility will feature the latest in broadcast automation equipment, including robotic cameras. The studio previously required physical camera operators.

Studio B will be used primarily for the main national BBC One news programmes.

So what will it look like on air?

• Expect evolution rather than revolution. The new set will be familiar yet quite different from what we’ve been used to over the last ten years or so.
• It’ll include a number of presentation areas, including a catwalk.
• There’ll be monolith video walls.
• Parts of the studio will have wood-effect flooring.
• Expect a ‘feature’ from the BBC newsroom.
• In what could be construed as a nod to the Nationwide days, there’ll be a new visual showing a live shot from each of the regional/national BBC News studios across the country.

Sets across the nations and regions will be updated on a phased basis.

Many of the news centres in the English regions will also be upgraded with new HD technical facilities in the coming months. This work is expected to be completed by spring 2023.

In the nations:

• Northern Ireland: a new set is expected to be installed in Belfast’s Studio B in the early autumn.
• Scotland: we were led to believe a new set was to be installed this year. This is yet to be confirmed.
• Wales: updates to the existing set are expected very soon.

Acknowledgements