Johnny Carson famously made fun of "Beautiful Downtown Burbank." So did "Laugh-In." Jay Leno still teases his show's home base. But that's all about to change.
Well, in four years. NBC is officially announcing today that its west coast news operations, as well as KNBC and sister Telemundo outlet KVEA, will move into a new building to be erected above the MTA Red Line subway stop on Lankershim in North Hollywood (across the street from Universal City). NBC Entertainment will also likely be making the move, but perhaps on to the Universal lot.
NBC is touting the new site as "green" friendly, pointing particularly to its location above a subway as one way to encourage public transit use. New building will also be equipped for high definition broadcast.
Curbed LA first leaked word of the announcement yesterday; by late in the day, the LA Business Journal and LA Times had stories as well. Now, a little history lesson, as I wrote last night for Variety:
Before moving to Burbank in the early 1960s, NBC's West Coast headquarters were on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. That building, dubbed NBC Radio City, was demolished in 1964. A Washington Mutual bank now sits on the site.
After the NBC move, Burbank will still be home to two broadcast networks, ABC and the CW. Not far away, CBS is readying a move from the Fairfax district to Studio City, on its Radford lot.
NBC isn't completely abandoning Burbank. The company plans to sell its 34-acre Burbank lot, but lease back some of the space for various uses.
No comments:
Post a Comment