Studio 8H

Studio 8H is an American TV/radio broadcast studio located at NBC Universal's headquarters in Rockefeller Center, Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Between 1937 and 1950, it primarily served for on-air concerts, recording sessions, and rehearsals by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini (1867—1957). Since 1975, Studio-8H has been hosting NBC's late-night sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. Other notable productions include the 1980 televised concert series Live From Studio 8H by Zubin Mehta with the New York Philharmonic, NBC's 75th anniversary celebration in May 2002, and MSNBC's "Morning Joe" news talk show. The facility, which began construction in 1933, was designed for large-scale productions, such as radio variety shows with full orchestra and 1,500-seat audience. Three stories high and measuring 40×24 m (132x78 ft, or 567 m² / 6102 sq. ft), it became the world's largest designated radio studio. In December 1937, a recently established NBC Symphony Orchestra under Toscanini inaugurated Studio-8H with a debut on-air concert. The famed conductor's 12½-year tenure was marred by controversies surrounding the venue's acoustics and tonal characteristics. Despite resembling a concert hall, Studio 8 had practically no reverberation and sounded very "dry" and "flat" — tonal characteristics desirable for precise control in broadcast and recordings but less than ideal for live orchestral music. Charles O'Connell (1900—1962), who supervised most early NBC Symphony sessions, claimed that RCA Victor soon began receiving customer complaints about harsh, dull-sounding 78 RPM shellac discs. According to Harvey Sachs, the maestro himself was utterly disappointed in gramophone records, as they failed to reproduce all sounds Toscanini heard in the actual performance. The first alterations at Studio 8H began in 1939; most notably, an acoustic shell was installed in the fall of 1941 during Leopold Stokowski's brief "stand-in" tenure. The sound quality of Toscanini's records, however, barely improved. O'Connell complained the maestro would fail to cooperate with him during sessions; other experts argued the conductor's preference for close "mic"-ing, perhaps in the attempt to capture all nuances, was another negative factor. Several musicians quoted in Cesare Civetta's 2012 book "Real Toscanini," such as violists Nathan Gordon and Leon Barzin, claimed that Studio 8H recitals were even notably faster, as Toscanini would subconsciously increase the tempo to escape the room's deafening "acoustic vacuum." By June 1950, NBC converted the studio for television broadcasting and relocated NBC Symphony to Carnegie Hall. In 1975, Studio 8H underwent a major $200,000 renovation ($1.2 mln in today's currency) before it became SNL's home base.