[1] The site was built by Southern Television, the first ITV contractor for the South of England, as replacement facilities for their converted cinema studios.

[3][4] One unusual feature of the site was the railway line that ran through the car park; this linked the British Rail sidings at Northam to Driver's Wharf where scrap metal was loaded into ships.

The line featured in the first episode of Saturday Banana with a steam locomotive, Bonnie Prince Charlie, from the Great Western Society at Didcot.

In August 1981, TVS completed the purchase of the site but, prior to the new company taking control of the region, they had no office space within the buildings and so based their operations in portakabins located in the car park, while Southern continued their operation inside; this was mocked on the closing night of Southern, with the song "Portakabin TV" performed by its composer Richard Stilgoe,[6] though the arrangement was later repeated by Meridian as they waited to take over from TVS.

As a result, they created a number of extensions with a new car park, scenery blocks, production offices and a location facilities garage in the ex-Fairways Marine building.

They continued successfully until 1991, when another franchise round occurred and they lost, possibly as a result of financial problems the company incurred previously, following the takeover of MTM Enterprises.

[8] The new franchise holder, Meridian Broadcasting, originally had plans to base itself in an office unit (which it did a little over 10 years later), as its operation required only presentation and play out facilities with a small studio for local news; they had no plans to make programmes themselves and would therefore have no use for a studio facility as large as the TVS base in Southampton.

Following Meridian's merger with Anglia Television and HTV to form United News & Media, some playout and presentation facilities for these regions were moved to Northam, saving the company a significant amount of money.

The last network production at the Northam studios was in June 2004, with the last live programme being the late night Meridian Tonight on 17 December that year.