BBC Bush - Really Closed Down

I passed Bush House on a trip to London a week ago. Did a 360 tour of the outside. There are still a few traces that BBC World Service were ever in the building - mostly references to BBC security cameras and IDs. But all the posters in the window and the famous sign-age have gone

Abandoned security gate reminds me of Checkpoint Charlie just after the Berlin Wall fell

Wonder where the sign is now?

Remember the BBC World Service Shop?

Posters have vanished - as planned

I spotted a very peculiar sign at the entrance. BBC World Service has indeed moved to New Broadcasting House. BBC Bush House is indeed closed. But the last line "Thanks for listening" indicates to the uniformed that the station is past tense. I would have used that space to explain about BBC's new future premises (and how to find it) and that the station is very much alive. Missed opportunity.

Goodbye to Bush House - The Final Exit

It's 1105 Greenwich Mean Time on July 12th 2012. A rather momentous moment for those of us in international broadcasting. For the last news bulletin has just been read from the studios of Bush House. Iain Purdon is the last human voice heard from the building on the BBC radio airwaves.

The staff of the BBC World Service have been gradually leaving Bush House and move into its new home at BBC Broadcasting House at the Langham. There have been some tearful on-air farewells (Julian Marshall on Newshour on July 1st for instance). I can imagine why. Foreign language broadcasting builds strong families because of a common purpose. The walls of Bush House must have heard more stories than many hundreds of buildings in London put together. I saw an interesting article yesterday about how the contents of the studios are being sold off at auction. Some of the studios were quite new - others more like museum pieces.

Pete Myers, with Dheera Sujan and Maggie Ayre. Took the picture in the garden of Radio Netherlands in 1993

I was pleased that Newshour honoured the late Pete Myers by including his famous "Goooooood Morning Africa" call in their sign-off piece. I often thought he must have inspired Adrian Cronauer's famous call in Good Morning Vietnam, although, apparently, the film was largely fictitious. Pete later came to Radio Netherlands to start Afroscene and Mainstream Asia. I remember him showing me his scrapbook of newspaper cuttings compiled during his days in Ghana and at the BBC African Service.

How quickly will the memories fade?

I do wish the BBC World Service would compile one page with all the tributes to Bush House. I note that some of the programmes are already getting disconnected, appearing on different pages. And I'm sure that some will disappear forever as they descend to the bottom of archive. So, I've made an audio compilation of what I heard about Bush. I can hear a characteristic 50 Hz hum in the background to the documentary from John Tusa. But only on the bits that he voiced. They weren't doing much to maintain the studios in the last couple of years.

Two videographers have made a superb video compilation of the now empty Bush House. They've used bits of the John Tusa documentary as a background. Beautiful - a great tribute. Shame it is not shareable. It should be, just this once.

And do have a listen to this sound montage from studio manager Emma Crowe




And that reminds me that Margaret Howard, a familiar voice on BBC World Service in the 60's, 70's and 80's, also mentioned her work as a studio manager in Bush House.


Margaret Howard from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Bush House Secrets Part 1

As  many of my colleagues at BBC World Service are moving out of Bush House, I've been looking at the building from another angle. The back side. Why? Because it is frankly much more interesting. The BBC never owned Bush House. And they weren't the only tenants. Everyone knows the shot above from the Kingsway entrance.  You may have also waited in the Centre Block reception for "someone to come down and get you". And it's only natural to look up and stare at the incredible ceiling.

But I got fascinated with the other entrance on the South side. Look up and you see a ship sailing across the Atlantic. There are names of US Presidents on the left (Washington, Lincoln, Grant and Hamilton) and names of UK senior politicians on the right (Chatham, Burke, Canning and Bright).  This has nothing to do with the BBC. It was put there by the owner of the building, the American businessman Irving T Bush.

I didn't know that Bush has distant Dutch connections. Irving T. Bush's family name comes from Jan Bosch, a native of the Netherlands. He emigrated to New Amsterdam, later to become New York, in 1662. 

Irving also built Bush Terminal, which has since been renamed "Industry City. It is a historic shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the waterfront in the Greenwood Heights neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York City. More photos on Flickr.

Disappearing before your eyes (and ears)

It's a week ago since the BBC World Service broadcast from a special tent inside Bush House. 7 days is a magic time in UK public broadcasting, because after a week a lot of content expires and is no longer available. And that's started to become the case already with the programmes from the tent. Yes, they are still up there as streams, but the Mp3 version of the interview with Attenborough has gone. And why is the two part programme on Bush House with John Tusa on a different page altogether, mixed with the infamous announcement of the drastic cuts to World Service in January 2011? BBC World Service has great content. But you have to really consume it on the day of transmission. Finding stuff, in context, especially a few months later is difficult, if not impossible. In fact a lot of useful stuff (like extended news bulletins are not available as an archive). That's where a rewind button on the digital radio is rather useful.

I found the 2 hr Newshour special on the future of international broadcasting (as billed) was fascinating. Lyse Doucet described it more accurately at the start of the programme as the future of international news. Major difference. It's clear that the BBC World Service has a clear vision of what it wants to do as a news organisation. I was left rather confused as to what it really wants to do with radio, especially features and anything that is not "rolling news". To me, the future needs to be hybrid. And a coherent mix of radio, TV and online. Radio is awful for sharing lists of facts (better off using a map during an emergency), but it's much better at gathering, sharing and debating opinions. Especially in countries where cameras are inhibiting people from speaking frankly, radio could be doing a lot more to gather those thoughts. Watched with interest the experiments with audio that Al Jazeera did in Moscow. Thought they might be using audio because people were afraid to speak openly. But then they posted pictures with the audio which defeated the object. I would have mapped the video clips in that case.