Television Technical Center

(full name, 50th Anniversary of the October Revolution Television Technical Center), the largest (as of 1975) television station in the world, located in Moscow. The Television Technical Center is an enterprise of the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Television and Radio and produces programs for Central Television. It consolidates the television complexes in the Ostankino area (constructed between 1964 and 1970) and on Shabolovka Street (1938), and a system of mobile television facilities. Central Television programs are broadcast by transmitting stations located in the Ostankino television tower. The Television Technical Center is linked by cable, radio-relay, and satellite communications facilities with practically all television centers in the USSR. The center also provides for the exchange of television programs over the Intervision and Eurovision networks.

The Ostankino television center records sociopolitical programs and programs of artistic performances in ten studio-control room units, each of which has complicated engineering equipment, video and sound directors’ rooms, and a studio equipped with special lighting rated at 300–400 kilowatts; the largest studio has 1,000 sq m of floor space. In the concert studio, which has 800 seats, television programs are usually recorded with a studio audience. Programs for broadcast are directed from the program control rooms, which have facilities for televising the announcer in the studio, motion pictures, videotape recordings, and transmissions relayed from outside the studio. Television films are made in four film studios, the largest of which has 1,000 sq m of floor space. Film processing, editing, printing, duplication, and restoration are handled by the film production services. Preparatory work on sets used in television and motion-picture films is done in painting, model and property, decorating, wardrobe, and furniture-requisition shops, comprising more than 200 rooms and 17,000 sq m of floor space. An air-conditioning system with a total capacity of 420,000 cu m per hr maintains the proper air temperature and humidity for studios, control rooms, and shops.

The Ostankino television center occupies a total space of 1.07 million cu m. It has a total floor space of 154,000 sq m, a length of 420 m, and a width of 87 m. It is divided into two units: a three-story studio unit, which is 420 m long, 80 m wide, and 21 m high, and a ten-story office unit with an overall height of 53 m. The chief architect was L. I. Batalov, and the chief engineers were V. B. Renard and S. O. Girshgorn. The center’s equipment was developed by the Leningrad All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Television.

The Shabolovka television complex—the first television center in the USSR—prepares color and black-and-white scientific, educational, and children’s programs. The complex’s television antennas are located atop a tower designed by V. G. Shukhov.

The Television Technical Center’s mobile facilities provide news reporting, sports broadcasts, recordings and broadcasts from theaters and concert halls, and rebroadcasts of selected programs from cities in the USSR and abroad. The Television Technical Center has facilities and equipment for mobile color television recording, videotape and radio-relay stations, diesel-electric power plants, and mobile sound equipment.