Tony Steyger – What Was Pebble Mill?

Front Room mug

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Thanks to Jonathan Relf for sharing this mug from the series Front Room, which was presented by Jason Bradbury, who has gone on to find fame with the Gadget Show. It went out in 1999 on BBC Knowledge, which was one of the BBC’s first digital channels.

The series was recorded in Studio 1 (built as a radio studio). Studio C’s gallery was cross-wired to cover Studio 1.

Jonathan recalls that the show included, “the cutting edge of “new media” content. I can remember a segment involving the “Take Hart” gallery music too, but was internet related.” The show involved viewers sharing ideas via webcams, video diaries, online chat and email.

Jonathan thinks he was training as a lighting operator on the show, probably under the tutorship of Dave Bushell.

I seem to remember that Tony Steyger was the Exec and Caroline Jones the Series Producer, with Bob Davies as Studio Director.

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Front Room

This title grab is taken from the interactive educational series Front Room. The show was described in the Radio Times as the: interactive show presented by Jason Bradbury in which viewers exchange views and ideas using webcams, video diaries, online chat and e-mail http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?q=Front+Room#search.

It was aired from June 1999, and finished in 2000, going out on the newly formed BBC Knowledge channel. Which was one of the BBC’s first digital channels, whose remit was to produce educational programming in a fun and interactive fashion. See this link of Wikipedia for more information about the channel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Knowledge.

BBC Knowledge was short-lived as a channel, closing in March 2002, to make way for BBC Four.

Caroline Jones was a producer on the show, and Tony Steyger certainly worked on it, possibly as editor, and Bob Davies was the show’s studio director. The show was quite innovative, and Tony was ideal to work on it, with his background of working for Maverick TV, on self-shot shows like Trade Secrets.

Thanks to Ian Collins for making the grab available.

The Great Escape

The Great Escape was a BBC1 Daytime show, presented by Nick Knowles. It was transmitted in May and June 1997. The series was an interactive holiday show, which never escaped from its Pebble Mill studio!

Thanks to Ian Collins for making this titles grab available.

The following comments were left on the Pebble Mill Facebook page:

Joolz Richards: ‘I remember it very well. Tony Steyger was the Exec and I was his PA. It was Nick Knowles’ first BBC gig and it also featured a very young James Martin and Simon Calder as regular expert contributors. Chris Fox was one of the studio directors, Pam Creed was a producer for a while. We shot two shows a day in four day blocks over the bank holiday if I remember rightly. It was a bonkers show to work on and my very first experience of production!’

Linda Flavell: ‘I was PC on so e of it, particularly remember the show about Australian meats…kangaroo went down well..’

Gill Thompson: ‘Yes I remember this show, I organised the studio audience for it.’