New £3m London facility targets international customers

A new west London television production centre, offering studios, satellite delivery and production services, is due to open in October 2002.
The Wescom Media Centre's (WMC) £3 million facilities are targeted at the many international broadcasters based in London, as well as those seeking a production base in the capital.
WMC has been set up by Wescom Holdings, a privately owned company with extensive leisure and media interests.
Heading up WMC, as Director of Production, is Erfan Arab, a well-known presenter and broadcaster who worked for MBC, BBC, Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV. He said: “London is an important and popular media base for many international broadcasters and news organisations. We believe there is a good opportunity to provide a comprehensive range of production facilities and services for hire to this market, particularly in news, current affairs and light entertainment. At the same time, the facilities and location will be attractive to many UK broadcasters and production companies as they are situated close to the BBC in White City.”
The main facilities at WMC include a 120sqm studio and a smaller 36sqm studio, both with fully equipped production galleries and extensive automated control of cameras to reduce production costs.
The facilities boast one on-line edit suite and two off-line suites along with a further graphics suite. A serial digital infrastructure forms the backbone of the whole complex. The facility is being built with comprehensive transmission facilities and links to international teleports, enabling live programming and news reports to be broadcast.
A major feature of WMC, in the second phase of development, will be the use of media asset management. John Reid, Commercial Director of Engineering said: “Media asset management linked to archives is becoming a key requirement for many broadcasters and we will be offering this facility at WMC.
“Many international broadcasters and production companies broadcasting regularly from London are seeking more comprehensive facilities to manage the whole content production process. Media asset management at WMC will allow customers to build a secure, dedicated archive of material that can be searched and accessed quickly by the production team and allow them to reshape and re-use material across a range of programmes. In time we see this developing so that we can hold content for broadcasters and programme makers providing a secure electronic platform for programme sales.”
Along with media asset management and a station server, WMC is also installing a dedicated newsroom system later in the year.
The design and system engineering for the project is being handled by PBDS, part of the Wescom group of companies, who have carried out a wide range of studio and OB projects in Russia, the Middle East and Asia, including the recent $16m news project for Television Centre in Moscow.
(GB)