CBS is apparently looking to sell historic Television City complex. SOLD!!

I've dug up some photos from 2005-2008. Quality is lacking a bit...but if these are of any interest to someone other than me, I'm happy to share some.

The Price Is Right set with lights out, and no one there but me. It's strange to see it like that, like a Thanksgiving dinner table stocked with food, but no one in the house.

 

Saw an amazing Jeff Lynne/ELO taping at CBS Television City back in 2001:

 

The legendary Price Is right wheel. Yes, I spun it! And some other photos of varying focus quality...other Price Is Right games in storage.

 

The door to Studio 41, where a number of classic shows from All In The Family to Maude had been filmed, and a glimpse inside, at a then-current set of The Young and The Restless. Something I found interesting was that the camera feeds from the various studios were piped throughout the entire building via cable, so you could be anywhere in the complex, and watch exactly what was happening in the studios in real time, if you had a TV or a computer with a coaxial converter. It was a goof watching soap operas being filmed, through the actual filming cameras themselves. They sure banged those episodes out quickly...

This first shot was terribly dark, I had to brutalize it a bit to get it to be visible, but that explains why the red recording light looks like Star Wars...

 

A number of miscellaneous internal/external wall facades, stashed away together but ready to be rolled out for use on the set:



I found it interesting that, in this screening room where pilots were shown and discussed, CBS chose to transmit a sense of its esteemed history by honoring Burns and Allen, and the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, even though neither of those were filmed at Television City.

 

I'll close out my indulgent nostalgia trip here with a few photos from the rooftop, which I loved. Or love more in retrospect, now that I work in a giant skyscraper in Manhattan with no roof access...

 

Thank you Pines Brook for all of the great "behind the scenes" photos!

I know it's only "The Bold And The Beautiful", but it's still interesting to see all of the hard work that goes into getting the empty square footage of a studio from nothing to filming ...

 

You're very welcome, that's an amazing video! That's Studio 31, right behind Studio 41 I posted my rather unimpressive shots of before. Apparently the Bold & the Beautiful has been filmed in that one studio for over thirty years straight now.

 

I love that movie, even if it was a bit cheesy. Tom Hanks did a great job capturing that time period and more importantly, the "feel" of that time period. The scene when they hear their song on the radio for the first time is priceless to me!

 

Don't see anybody holding onto the property for tours, no significant return in the investment on that. If an insurance company or some other such administrative-use interest could put some use to the building beneficial to their company in that location, they might consider having public tours on the building if they could do it without disrupting the progress of day-to-day business, and make some brownie points with the community.

But seriously, what sort of company that needs that much office space, really cares that badly about making brownie points with the community...

 

I think it's not about office space, or even tours, it's that the complex holds seven or eight great studio spaces for filming. Other networks and production companies have been using those spaces for years, which explains why I was passing by Paula Abdul's designated parking spot every day in that CBS lot, even though American Idol was on FOX.

CBS has of course its larger Studio Center aka Radford, and that's likely sticking around forever, but that's in the valley, while TV City is on the west side - a much better location generally in my personal opinion.

 

So looks like Mr. O'Connor drove a humble Mercedes sedan, Ms. Struthers drove herself in a Monte Carlo, Ms. Stapleton arrives to work in some sort of I'm guessing Chrysler coupe, and Mr. Reiner walked.

Cool pix!

dan c

 

That's not my opinion, it's an observation. Real estate is real estate, and if this place just went to the highest bidder (or whomever paid their price first), I'm pretty sure the new owner isn't gonna do anything with it aside from getting a tenent to offer to pay the lease...and that could mean a nail salon, for all they care.

Closest they could come to doing something like television with it...is if a real guy named Gus buys it to turn it into a laudromat...with a meth lab in the basement.

 

Recently read an LA Times article on the value of studio space in SoCal, and it's through the roof. Basically there aren't enough sound stages available for all of the production going on, which includes everything from features to little YouTube shows. That's basically why Rupert sold the 20th Century Fox movie "studio" to Disney but kept the actual physical Fox studio lot. He makes bank on it.

So that said, it's a good possibility Television City will go on indefinitely, albeit eventually surrounded by new development.

Or...it's toast. Guess we'll know in a few years.

dan c

 

They're now building a new studio complex in the San Fernando Valley that will be the first big construction site of its kind in many years.

A new Hollywood soundstage just got the green light to break ground in Sun Valley

And another company has bought the Culver Studios and they're adding something like 6 new stages, with the whole place to be occupied by Netflix...

Amazon Studios moving to Culver Studios in Culver City - Los Angeles Times

Apple Studios is getting ready to take over 280,000 square feet of space in Santa Monica...

Apple to Take Culver City HQ After HBO Backs Out

There's a ton of construction going on in LA and it's getting very crazy. What freaks me out is that the traffic is already really, really bad here. And the traffic around CBS TV City has been bad for years and years.

 

And that folks is what the $330 million dollar annual tax incentive package is doing for the industry, without it production would have largely died in L.A. by now. This month marks 6 years since I joined United Scenic Artists Local 829 covering the New York City region in order to expand my opportunities and survive at a time when finding work was very hard due the incentives elsewhere in the country and out of the country. That California tax incentive was recently renewed as it has proved a huge boon to the local economy as production, especially for series TV has greatly expanded. It still saddens me greatly that movie production in L.A. is a faint shadow of what it once was, but thank goodness for the huge appetite for scripted series, jobs, jobs, jobs!

Ironically for me the shift to working in NYC 6 years ago has really paid off with continual opportunities that keep me here. But one of these days I'll actually work back home again, and my family will glad to see me. And BTW, I live just a few minutes walk from the CBS Radford lot yet have never worked there, always room for more irony!

 

If this is the winning architectural design, I'd hate to see the losing competition entries.

 

While I largely share your sentiments, and also avoidance of contemporary Pasadena, there's a distinction between The Grove Mall and Old Town Pasadena. The Grove was conceived as the shopping mall artifice it is, and is as an outdoor mall in my opinion quite a success (You can even buy a Shinola Runwell turntable there). Old Town Pasadena is the sad story, a REAL place that's largely been turned into a mall. But hey, at least one can mosey further down the road and hit Canterbury Records!

 

I literally lived across the street from CBS, just around the corner from Canters! I loved it there. I would go to the Farmers Market for lunch and see actresses and beautiful people -- myself not among them, but I can dream. I once saw Pamela Reed and my eyes nearly popped out: I was so in love with her after "The Right Stuff." She gave me a dirty look. I don't blame her. I look like a cross between H.R.Geiger and Steve Bannon, which is bizzare being half-asian, and my face doesn't score well with modern audiences -- maybe in Saxony, 1631. Thanks gene pool.

But that story has a sad ending, because I was excited to live so close to CBS (for six months until my roomate bailed) because my dream was always to be on "The Price is Right." Man, I never missed that show as a kid. But I never went over there because I figure I was too ordinary looking to get picked. So that sucked. America would much rather watch a MI*F jumping around and screaming. Well, that's why I watched it as a kid.

 

Is it Granada I see? Or only Asbury Park?

 

Eh, a studio is just a big building that's quiet, secure, and has a lotta power for lighting, plus space for the crew and enough room to build a lotta sets. If you think this is ugly, you should've seen Cinecitta in Rome (before half of it burned down).

I've seen the drawings for the new Culver City Studios, and it's no architectural triumph, either. But I'm glad it'll potentially mean a lot more jobs for our industry here in LA.

 

The Black Maria was no beauty.

 

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