The Centre Of Television

Well that is perhaps stretching it but yesterday I did visit A centre of television. Sky News HQ in Isleworth is a sprawling complex of buildings which are all terribly confusing unless you know exactly where you want to go. The name of a person is not enough as there are many different receptions.

I was there to have a chat about an opportunity to do work experience there for a few weeks and after over an hour of riding the London underground, I finally arrived at Osterley station where a friendly driver gave me a lift on the Sky News shuttle bus. A good thing too, for the mass of motorways and main roads were baffling and pretty dangerous to navigate on foot.

I was taken on a tour by the extremely kind person who had invited me to visit and it was amazing to see how TV all works behind the scenes. That fancy desk they have? It is literally placed in the middle of a vast open plan hall, surrounded by workstations as a hive of activity goes on throughout the day. It is a quiet hive though, since no person would like their angry voice shouting “Tom, have you edited that video yet!” To appear on live television.

One of the rooms that interested me the most was where they work on the live programme. It felt like I had seen this ro before and I realised I had. Only it was not in real life but in the movie Morning Glory in which a producer battles to increase the ratings of her morning show. If you haven’t seen it then you should definitely consider giving it a chance.

The funny thing about working in a television environment is that they understand things such as the need to take photos. “Proof that you were at Sky,” he explained.

Apologies for the rubbish quality, I only realised later that it was on video and the lowest quality at that!