CBS Television City

Coordinates: 34°04′28″N 118°21′36″W / 34.07444°N 118.36°W / 34.07444; -118.36

CBS Television City in Los Angeles

CBS Television City is a television studio located in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles at 7800 Beverly Boulevard, at the corner of Beverly and Fairfax Avenue. It is one of two CBS 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.

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. 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.

History

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, 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 CBS 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 Rogers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" was recorded. CBS programs were generally in black-and-white until Norelco PC-60s were installed starting in 1964.^[1]

Its most famous soundstage is Studio 33 (the Bob Barker Studio), which 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. The Barker Studio on the winter of 2007 (July) broadcast an episode of the Australian chat show Rove Live live via satellite to Australia.

This soundstage was also the home of The Carol Burnett Show in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as notable game shows, Match Game (the 1973-82 Gene Rayburn hosted version, and the 1998 version), Hollywood Squares (hosted by Tom Bergeron), Bullseye, the daytime and nighttime versions of Wheel of Fortune, and the 1986 revival of Card Sharks. 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 sitcoms were taped in front of a studio audience in the 1970s, many shows were recorded on soundstages at CBS 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 CBS Television City.

CBS Television City is also home to CBS' visual effects studio, CBS Digital. "Television City" is a registered trademark of CBS for its TV production facilities.

"From Television City in Hollywood..."

These are shows that originated from this historic television studio. Some shows taped here used the title line in the opening announcement.

References

1. ^ Reitan, Ed. ""Early Color Television Studio Facilities"". http://www.novia.net/~ereitan/studios.html. Retrieved 2008-05-22. 

• The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows
• Behind the Scenes at CBS Television City
• CBS.com
• Internet Movie Database