| CBS Television City | |
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CBS Television City in Los Angeles |
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Location within Western Los Angeles
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| Alternative names | Television City |
| General information | |
| Type | Television studios |
| Location | Fairfax District, Los Angeles |
| Address | 7800 Beverly Boulevard Los Angeles, California 90036 |
| Coordinates | |
| Current tenants | CBS |
| Inaugurated | November 16, 1952 |
| Design and construction | |
| Owner | CBS Corporation |
| Website | |
| cbstelevisioncity.com | |
| References | |
| [1] | |
CBS Television City is a television studio complex located in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles at 7800 Beverly Boulevard, at the corner of North Fairfax Avenue. It is one of two CBS television studios in southern California — the other is CBS Studio Center, located in the Studio City section of the San Fernando Valley, which houses additional production facilities and the network's Los Angeles local television operations (KCBS and KCAL). Since 1961, it has served as the master control facility for CBS' west coast television network operations; prior to that, it was based at Columbia Square. The company's West Coast radio production center is located more than a mile away to the south, in the Miracle Mile neighborhood.
Since Television City opened in 1952, numerous TV shows have been broadcast live or taped at the facility, including many shows not broadcast on CBS. Many films have also been produced in-part at Television City, such as the 1996 feature That Thing You Do! starring Tom Hanks and Liv Tyler. During the opening credits of many of the shows taped here, a voice-over announced the phrase "From Television City in Hollywood". The complex currently houses a total of eight separate studios. Backstage tours occasionally take place, with the guests being escorted by a CBS page.
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Television City opened on November 16, 1952. It was built on the site of a former football field and race track, Gilmore Stadium. Before the stadium, it was an oil field.
Gilmore Stadium was part of a sports/entertainment complex that included Gilmore Field and the Pan Pacific Auditorium. The stadiums and auditorium were built on what was once 287 acres (1.16 km2) unincorporated known as Gilmore Island, and the fortune that led to their construction had origins similar to a television sitcom plot.
Arthur Fremont Gilmore brought his family to Los Angeles from Illinois in 1874, started a dairy business and eventually made enough money to buy part of Rancho La Brea, roughly bounded by Beverly Boulevard, 3rd Street, and Fairfax and La Brea Avenues. By the late 1930s, the Gilmore company had built both the football stadium and the baseball park. Gilmore sold the stadium to CBS in 1950, and that year's Turkey Night Grand Prix midget race (now held at Irwindale Speedway) was the last race run on its track. Two years later, CBS built Television City on the site. After the Hollywood Stars transferred out of the city in 1958, the ballpark was razed and that property also became part of the Television City complex.
The stark modern architecture at Television City consists of black and white planes meeting at razor-sharp corners, with accents of dazzling red, the work of Pereira & Luckman of Los Angeles. The studio facility was built to handle the larger production needs for the network, most of which took place at the rather cramped Columbia Square.
The building initially held four soundstages (Studios 31, 33, 41, and 43), but a renovation in the late 1980s added two new soundstages (Studios 36 and 46) plus additional office space and technical facilities such as editing rooms and storage. Later, another renovation added a further two studios (Studios 56 and 58) in what had been rehearsal halls in the original building.
Studio 43 was equipped with RCA TK-40A color cameras in 1954, with cables allowing any of the original four studios to use those cameras. In 1956, Studio 41 was equipped with RCA TK-41s. However, CBS color broadcasts decreased in frequency until the following decade, when the 1964 production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella was recorded. CBS programs were, in general, in black-and-white until Norelco PC-60s were installed starting in 1964.[2]
Studio 33 is the current home of the long-running CBS game show The Price Is Right and the HBO late-night series Real Time with Bill Maher. This soundstage was also the home of The Carol Burnett Show from its entire 1967-1978 run, and The Red Skelton Show prior to that (1953–1970), as well as the notable game shows Match Game (the 1973-82 Gene Rayburn-hosted version, and the 1998 version), Hollywood Squares (hosted by Tom Bergeron), Bullseye, Wheel of Fortune, the 1986-1989 revival of Card Sharks, and the 1988-1995 run of Family Feud. In March 1998, on the 5000th episode of The Price Is Right (actually number 5133), CBS named Studio 33 as the Bob Barker Studio in honor of the show's longtime host and executive producer.
When it became standard for sitcoms to tape in front of a studio audience in the 1970s, many shows were recorded on soundstages at Television City, such as All in the Family, Maude, and Good Times. The ABC sitcoms Three's Company and Welcome Back, Kotter were also taped at Television City.
CBS Television City is also home to CBS' visual effects studio, CBS Digital, and the CBS Records music label. "Television City" is a registered trademark of CBS for its TV production facilities.
In July 2011, CBS introduced a website dedicated to Television City, containing historical photographs of the stars and shows that called the studio home, as well as listings of every production ever taking place at Television City, from 1953 to the present.
Below is a partial list of programs that have taped episodes at Television City.[1]