Photo copyright, Philip Morgan, no reproduction without permission.
These photos were taken by Philip Morgan in autumn 2004, when Pebble Mill had been emptied, and just prior to the auctioning off of equipment.
The top photo shows one of the Radio WM studios, with the second one showing a close up of the ringmain selector, which is mounted on the back wall.
I particularly like the piece of paper stuck to the wall reminding presenters not to forget to include the travel in the 7pm news bulletin, as well as the reminders for how to get accurate time signals!
Andy Walters added the following information:
“That was the NPA (News Presentation Area) at the end of the newsroom nearest WM. The ringmain was a separate one for the newsroom and there were several of them dotted around. in the NPA the red and gren dials appeared as monitoring sources on the desk. I remember having to remake those labels. Even though we had computer playout from 2001 the cartridge machines were still used for regional news bulletins to the end. There was a similar studio next door (The TPA!) and in Wolverhampton. Here’s the same room on it’s last day of action in June 2004. Due to some error none of WM’s equipment was auctioned and was slowly picked off by other stations who were still using the same equipment.”
News presentation area (NPA), photo from Andy Walters
Radio WM newsroom, the NPA, was just off here. Photo by Andy Walters