The London Studios

The London Studios is a television studio complex within ITV's London Television Centre on London's South Bank next to the Royal National Theatre.

The Building

It encompasses the distinctive black and white layered tower that was home to London Weekend Television (LWT) (and named Kent House for much of its life) and a neighbouring building known as Gabriel's Wharf (where Studio 8 - home to long-running ITV daytime show This Morning - is located). The site for the development was purchased in 1969 and construction work commenced in 1970 with the centre opening for transmission in 1972, although it wasn't fully-operational until 1974. At that time it was the most-advanced television centre in Europe. The builders were Higgs and Hill Limited.

ITV

The studios are home to many ITV and independent shows across all a range of channels, such as Have I Got News for You and Room 101 (both Hat Trick Productions for the BBC); The Friday Night Project and TV Heaven, Telly Hell (both for Channel 4); Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (Tiger Aspect for the BBC), and Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (ITV Productions for ITV1).

LWT also leased space to weekday broadcaster, Carlton Television (it housed Carlton's London-based post-production facilities) until 2002 when it was replaced (along with LWT) with the unified ITV London. The site is currently home to breakfast broadcaster GMTV. ITV's channels (including the clean ITV1 feed to SMG, UTV and Channel), plus the southern English regional and Welsh ITV1 services were broadcast from the site by LNN (jointly owned by Carlton and LWT) until 2004, when the broadcasting arm of the company was integrated into ITV plc and became known as the Southern Transmission Centre. In 2007, the service was outsourced to Technicolor Network Services (owned by Thomson), and all of ITV's southern transmission operations (and staff) moved to TNS's broadcast centre in Chiswick.

Today, The London Studios is the main studio production facility for ITV, and The London Television Centre also houses the head office of ITV Productions.

The London Studios is home to Studio One which has been seen by many British viewers on shows on ITV, BBC and Channel Four with the ever recognisable audience seating. The studio has a permanent balcony seating in place, with this along with pull out seating the studio can accommodate an audience of over 600. The studio has been used for An Audience withs.., Al Murray's Happy Hour, Parkinson, Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Friday Night Project, The Dame Edna Treatment, and more.

Studio Two (which is only slightly smaller than Studio One) was originally home to ITV music show CD:UK, from August 1998 to September 2003, when it moved to Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. Studio Two is now the home of The Paul O'Grady Show for Channel Four. It has also been used recently for The Graham Norton Show for BBC2 & Have I Got News For You for BBC1. There is Studio Three which is used for current affairs shows. The London Studios is used by many television productions as the complex is based in the heart of London in contrast to other studio facilities.