Welcome to the Barrow office and studio.
I'm Neil Smith and I run the South Cumbria operation for BBC Radio Cumbria.

This page will give you access to some photographs showing our office in Barrow-in-Furness.

At various times of the day you will find Gail, Paul, Anne, myself and Claire working here - although quite often we're out of the office gathering stories and features for our various programmes.
Pop in if you get the chance, you'll find us in Hartington Street. If you're not able to do so in person, then try our "virtual tour" below.

The Front Door

This is what you need to look for when going down Hartington Street. It's the Barrow studio front door.
The studios are open during normal office hours unless staff are out in the field working on a breaking news story.

Reception

Once you make it through the front door, this is what you will see. This is our main reception area. There's a chance to have a natter with Gail, Anne (Lady Hopper), myself, Claire or Paul (if they're in) and there are tables and chairs, so you can sit in comfort and complete a Noticeboard item or dedication.

Newsroom

This is the newsroom, where the bulk of the work gets done. On the desks you can see the computers which link the Barrow office to the rest of the global network of BBC producers and reporters. If I wanted to send a message to our correspondent in India, I could do so with a couple of clicks with the mouse. It's far more likely though that I would be sending messages or news stories to our colleagues in the Carlisle newsroom.

The Studios

There are two studios in the Barrow office, this is the smaller of the two. It's called the NPA (News Production Area) and usually seats a lone operator or reporter. It's used more frequently by contributors coming in to the office as it's more simple technical set-up. Although compact, it has all the equipment needed to get the job done.

This is the NPA's bigger brother - the Main Studio. As you can see, it's a slightly more complex set-up, with the digital mixer taking up the majority of the space. On top of the mixing desk are two monitors and these are used for accessing the BBC computer network and for editing audio material prior to broadcast. Until recently, in some respects the Barrow studio was more advanced than the studios in Carlisle - although you can see a tape machine on the right-hand side of the picture, it rarely gets used these days. Most of the editing of material is done digitally on computers, whereas in Carlisle, a lot of the work is still done using tapes or something called Radioman.

Radioman is a new system which is being introduced in the Carlisle studios. Have a look at the Carlisle Tour to see some of the new technology.

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