BBC TV Centre broadcasts last network news bulletins

Media caption,

TV Centre opened in 1960 with BBC News moving from Alexandra Palace in 1969

The last TV network news from Television Centre in west London has been broadcast on BBC One.

Mishal Husain presented the programme from studio N6 at 22:00 GMT, signing off nearly 45 years of bulletins.

TV Centre, which has been sold for redevelopment, opened in 1960 and the news first went out from the site nine years later.

From Monday the entire BBC news operation will be based at Broadcasting House in central London.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s news bulletins on BBC One fronted by the likes of Richard Baker, Angela Rippon, Anna Ford, Moira Stuart, Peter Sissons and Martyn Lewis attracted audiences of up to 10 million people.

Media caption,

Mishal Husain signs off the last TV network news bulletin from Television Centre

Its impact was demonstrated by reporter Michael Buerk's 1984 report on the Ethiopian famine which inspired the original Live Aid concert the following year.

The bulletin became a story itself in 1988, when as Sue Lawley and Nicholas Witchell hosted the Six O'Clock News, the studio was invaded by a group of women protesting against a law which prevented councils from promoting homosexuality.

By 1998, when news moved into new studios in the last part of TV Centre to be completed, bulletins were being broadcast round the clock on News 24, now the News Channel, which launched the previous year.

Hotels and flats

The main TV news bulletins went on to be presented by George Alagiah, Fiona Bruce, Huw Edwards, and Sophie Raworth, who on Friday hosted the last Six O'Clock News from TV Centre.

The News Channel will continue to broadcast from TV Centre on Monday until the One O'Clock News becomes the first domestic news programme to go out from the BBC's new studios at Broadcasting House.

Image caption,
The BBC's Broadcasting House in central London has been extended

The TV news journalists will join those BBC News colleagues that have already moved into their new home - staff working on Newsnight, World TV, the news website and the BBC Red Button news pages, as well as those on radio news other than BBC Radio 5 live, which relocated to Salford.

Television Centre, which was sold for £200m last year, closes on 31 March and will be redeveloped into hotels, flats, a cinema and office space.

The main television studios will be retained and refurbished for leasing out to production companies, including the BBC, from 2014.

Around the BBC