Genius Interview: Andy Waters
Posted on Apr 9, 2025 by FEED Staff
Having played a major role in delivering some of Britain΄s best-loved television shows, Andy Waters΄ decision to uproot his life and move to the north of England followed an impressive 20-year stint at the BBC. He did so to become an instrumental part of the team that launched Dock 10, forming what is known as Media City in Salford, Manchester. Back in 2010, British broadcast was still very London-centric, and didn΄t accurately reflect the diversity in the country that existed beyond our screens. Waters joins FEED to talk about his time as head of studios – and share Dock 10΄s mission to diversify the UK΄s creative output.
Interview by Verity Butler
FEED: Let΄s take it back to the start of your broadcast journey. How did you find yourself landing in this industry?
Andy Waters: I went to Leeds Polytechnic (now known as Leeds Beckett), where I did a sandwich degree, which involves a work placement between studies. The meat in between my sandwich was getting a job at a place called Limehouse Television, which was on Canary Wharf before they actually built Canary Wharf. That’s where I fell in love with the TV industry, and as soon as I finished my degree I applied to and got a job with the BBC. I was then based at Television Centre in London for 20 years, doing various roles. I started off as a studio engineer, before becoming a studio and commercial manager.
During that time, I had four children with my partner and we were very much settled in London. I then applied for a job as head of studios in Manchester and, lo and behold, I got it. That left us with this big decision to make about moving. My wife gave up her job and we moved our whole family up north, about 15 years ago now. I have to say that it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.
It’s been great: I love Manchester, and I love the facility we have built there. When I arrived here, there weren’t any other TV studio people around. So, I had the pleasure and the privilege of recruiting the whole team to open this brand-new facility of ten TV studios – as well as a post-production unit – completely from scratch. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’ve been lucky enough to bring in some of the UK’s best talent and experience, who have made Dock 10 into what it is. It’s been a wonderful 15 years.
Tell us the story of Dock 10. What was the goal of the facility, and why did you want to be a part of that mission?
It all really started back in the early noughties, when the BBC was under a lot of pressure around its licence fees and securing another charter renewal. There was demand for it to be more reflective of the UK as a whole, so the growing expectation for the BBC to move out of London and reflect its audience across the country started to really bear down upon the corporation.
It started with a shift of some of its production up to Scotland; the departments they moved first were sports and children’s TV. Then the decision was made to develop in another new location, for which they chose Salford in Manchester.
The company at the time, Peel Media, decided to build a complex not just fit for the BBC, but a hub for a whole new broadcast and media community to move into.
While this was all happening, I saw the job advert in The Guardian, which someone pointed out to me – so I just went for it, and got it!
Then we had to decide what we were going to do. What we were attempting was to deliver broadcast services outside London, and when you unpack that, it’s also about making sure people from all sorts of different backgrounds are given the same opportunities to work in broadcast media.
Before Dock 10, if you wanted to be a camera assistant or lighting director and you lived in Eccles or Stockport, for example, your only option was to pack up your life, move down to London and find somewhere cheap or sleep on a sofa while you established yourself – which was tough. Dock 10 meant people didn’t have to do that any more, as there were now going to be opportunities outside the capital in the north-west for those sorts of careers.
We had seen a massive brain drain across the UK for years, with the centre of that being London. This was a chance to put a stop to that and start creating jobs, opportunities and skill sets that would invite the production community to be based outside of London. That would then allow high-quality programmes to be made in other parts of the UK.
We’ve always felt Media City was a stake in the ground, showing that those opportunities can be gained elsewhere. We really wanted to create the facilities and resources to be able to deliver that.
That must have injected numerous new career opportunities into the region. What did such
a shift look like?
Over 5000 people now work out of Media City, for a range of major networks and companies. There’s the BBC and ITV, but there are also numerous SMEs and independents that now work here – and many production companies regularly use the facilities within Dock 10 itself. It was a game changer for the industry.
Diversity is central to what Media City offers. It’s true that, before the move away from London, there had always been a bit of a club of people, mainly from more privileged backgrounds, who had exclusive access to the media community.
The BBC tried to do something like this in the nineties, with Janet Street-Porter. The company tried to move youth television up into Manchester, but it didn’t have the level of commitment that we saw with the creation of Media City. That was taking it to a whole new level.
Since the pandemic, we’ve seen a little bit of movement back towards London – and part of our mission is to ensure the initial vision of making sure production also takes place outside of the capital carries on.
What are some of your favourite projects that you΄ve worked on during your time at Dock 10?
Picking a favourite project would be like picking a favourite child – it would be a terrible mistake! They’re all wonderful, and we’re appreciative of all the clients we’ve worked with.
Over the years, we’ve had a number of anchor tenants. Part of opening Dock 10 was about settling the BBC in with their move, and one of the big elements of that was Match of the Day (MOTD). That was a big deal – it was and still is a flagship show with many millions of viewers – and moving that in was an important task. Then we had to evolve their workflows. Back in 2018, we had to work on a plan to transition them into a virtual studio workflow. Going through that whole exercise of working with the BBC, as well as other networks and studios, and then moving them into these virtual worlds was tremendously interesting.
Another personal favourite of mine – because I’ve always felt quite attached to it from watching as a kid – is Blue Peter, which is now in its 64th year. When I joined the BBC as an engineer in my early twenties, and throughout my 20 years at the BBC, I regularly worked on the show. Coming up to Salford and bringing it with me was really special – it has been a part of my professional life for 35 years and beyond – having been totally enthralled by it as a child.
We’ve done many great shows here, from The Voice to Countdown and University Challenge – we’ve even handled key election debates and Sports Personality of the Year. They were all amazing to be part of.
Can you share any of the biggest challenges you and the team have faced over the years – how did you overcome them?
One of the stories I always tell is how, when we moved to the world of virtual studios for the BBC in 2019, we couldn’t initially afford to dedicate a whole studio just to MOTD – we also needed to make an episode of Blue Peter in the middle of that week.
We needed to be able to take the conventional studio we were using for Blue Peter – which involves bands, music, sticky-back plastic, etc – have that go live on a Thursday night, and turn it all around quickly enough that by Saturday lunchtime we could do a live show called Football Focus, then Final Score, then MOTD. Then we’d take all of that incredible virtual technology out and turn the studio back into a conventional one again.
The task of building up the ability and skills of the team to achieve that was an enormous challenge, but one that ultimately made them incredibly talented and flexible; enabling them to offer these complex solutions in any of our studios. Whether it’s our 12,500 sq ft HQ or one of our little baby studios, we’re prepared to set up a virtual studio at any moment.
Covid-19 was extraordinary for a number of obvious reasons, but from a professional point of view, we were never closed – we had to stay open. One of the things we did with our virtual studio was produce BBC Bitesize, for parents who were going nuts with their kids stuck at home. With this sudden demand for educational content, we were left trying to work out how best to deliver.
The virtual studio was ideal for this sort of content, and we also brought in new technologies like motion capture to create characters such as Clogs – a robot classroom assistant to help presenters with delivering lockdown teaching programmes for the BBC.
Another thing I will say, which comes part and parcel of opening a new facility of this scale, was the lack of staff and infrastructure. At the Television Centre in London, we had decades’ worth of both those things, so when you do your first show in a brand-new studio complex that’s never been used before, you’re naturally going to be missing quite a few things. As you can imagine, there were many trips to Maplin during those first few months, to buy cables and other bits and pieces.
Are there any technical trends the team at Dock 10 are paying particular attention to?
We have a team at Dock 10 that’s dedicated to innovation – it’s the same team that brought virtual studios into our market. So we’ve seen that adoption of virtual studio for sports and news, but we believe passionately that they can be used for entertainment shows too.
This will allow us to continue broadcasting great-looking shows at affordable prices. Within that virtual transition, you effectively start building 3D content, whether it’s for gaming or for VR headsets like the Apple Vision Pro. Seeing that convergence of technologies is exciting for us, and we’re starting to see an increase in enquiries from production companies who want to explore that. Interactive content is also very much on our radar.
What about AI?
At the end of March 2025, we will be completing a UKRI research grant, which involves funding from the UK government. We collaborate with the University of York and a company called 2LE Media, and the grant we received is called Bridge AI.
We had a proposition about creating improved lighting for virtual sets – how virtual elements can interact with real ones – and using AI to composite much more realistic people in virtual environments.
An example would be if you were in a virtual world, and one minute you’re in a sunny desert and the next a snowstorm happens – and so on. By putting this through an AI engine, the lighting on the real person in the studio could be altered and driven by the effects in the virtual world. This has been a very exciting project, and while it’s currently at an early stage of research, we’re looking forward to developing that further and seeing where it will take us.
How is the future looking for UK broadcast – and what part will Dock 10 play in that?
As I’m sure you’re more than aware, the industry has had a tough stretch in the last couple of years, but I’m feeling very optimistic about the year ahead. We’re seeing all the UK public service broadcasters start to commission new formats, new shows and generally invest more in production again.
Another thing is that BBC Sport has always been really important to us, and the appetite for sports coverage doesn’t seem to be diminishing; it just grows and grows and grows. The desire for sports content, as well as analysis, is stronger than ever, and we’ve seen huge domination from streamers, who are becoming a big part of sports content. Whether it’s through a linear channel or a streamer, there’s going to be a long future for that kind of television – irrespective of how it gets delivered to people’s screens.
This feature was first published in the Spring 2025 issue of FEED.
