A television studio is an installation in which television or video productions take place, either for live television, for recording live on tape , or for the acquisition raw footage for postproduction. The design is similar to and actually derived from movie studios, with a few amendments for the special requirements of television production. A professional television studio generally has several rooms, which are kept seperate for noise and practicality reasons. These rooms are connected via intercom, and personnel will be divided among these workplaces. Generally, a television studio consists of the following rooms:

Studio floor

The studio floor is the actual stage on which the actions that will be recorded take place. A studio floor has the following characteristics and installations:

• decoration and/or sets
• cameras on pedestals
• microphones
• lighting rigs and the associated controlling equipment.
• several video monitors for visual feedback from the production control room
• a small public address system for communication
• A glass window between PCR and studio floor for direct visual contact is usually desired, but not always possible

Production control room

The production control room is the place in a television studio in which the composition of the outgoing program takes place. Facilities in a PCR include:

• a video monitor wall, with monitors for program, preview, the VCRs, the cameras and most of the other video sources
• vision mixer
• audio mixing console and other audio equipment such as effects devices
• character generator
• digital video effects and/or still frame devices (if not integrated in the vision mixer)
• technical director's station, with waveform monitors, vectorscopes and the the camera control units or remote control panels for the CCUs
• VCRs may also be located in the PCR, but are also often found in the central machine room

Central machine room

The central machine room houses equipment that is too noisy or runs too hot for the production control room. It also makes sure that wire lengths and installation requirements keep within manageable lengths, since most high-quality wiring runs only between devices in this room. This can include:

• The actual circuitry and connection boxes of the vision mixer, DVE and character generator devices
• camera control units
• VCRs
• patch panels for reconfiguration of the wiring between the various pieces of equipment.

Other facilities

A television studio usually has other rooms with no technical requirements. Among them are:

• one or more make-up and changing rooms
• a reception for visitors