The Fountain Studios, Wembley

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The Fountain Studios is an independently owned television studio located in Wembley, north-west London, close to Wembley Park underground station. Originally film studios and then the base of London ITV stations Associated Rediffusion and later London Weekend Television the studios fell into disrepair when the latter vacated to new facilities in central London in the early 1970s. A number of independent companies owned the site until Fountain purchased the site in the early 1990s. Much of the original studio complex was demolished. This included Studio's 1 through to 4, leaving only Studio 5 standing.

Studio 5, at over 130 × 90 metric feet within the firelanes, is the largest single fully-equipped television studio in Britain, some 30% larger than Studio 1 at BBC Television Centre. Recent productions to have been made there include Pop Idol and The X Factor, and the London wedding storyline of Friends, Britain's Got Talent for ITV, Test the Nation for the BBC, as well as many sitcoms and audience shows, including The Kumars at No. 42.

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.

[edit] History

Once the main production centre for the London weekday ITV contractor Associated-Rediffusion, the studios were home to some of the most popular programmes on the ITV network during the 1960s. These included Ready, Steady, Go!, No Hiding Place, The Rat Catchers, Blackmail, At Last, The 1948 Show and The Frost Report. In mid 2008 Bremner, Bird and Fortune The Britains Got Talent semi-finals were filmed at the studios in May 2008.