Choosing a video podcast studio
The London podcast market has grown considerably over the past few years, and with it, the number of studios offering recording space. For independent creators, agencies, and brands, choosing the right studio is one of the most important production decisions you can make. Get it right and your show looks and sounds exceptional every time. Get it wrong and you spend more time firefighting logistics than focusing on great content. Here are the four things worth thinking through carefully before you book.
Dry hire or full service?
The first question to ask is what level of support you actually need. Some studios offer dry hire, which means you rent the space and bring your own equipment and crew. This can work well for experienced production teams who have their own gear and engineers they trust. But for most video podcast productions, a full-service studio is the smarter choice.
A full-service studio like BISON provides the space, the cameras, the microphones, the lighting rig, the vision mixing, and a dedicated engineer to run everything on the day. That means your hosts and guests arrive, sit down, and focus entirely on the conversation. You are not spending the first hour of your session troubleshooting audio issues or adjusting camera angles. For agencies managing multiple productions, the reliability of a full-service setup is particularly valuable. You can brief the studio once, trust the workflow, and deliver consistent results across every episode.
Set design: existing, customisable, or build your own?
Different shows have different visual identities, and the studio you choose needs to support yours. Some studios offer a fixed set that looks the same for every client. Others, like BISON, offer a customisable environment where lighting, layout, and background elements can be adjusted to suit your brand. A third option is building your own set from scratch, which some larger productions choose for flagship shows.
For most clients, a customisable studio strikes the right balance. It gives you a professional, polished look without the cost and complexity of a full set build, and it allows your show to have a visual identity that feels distinct. Before booking any studio, ask to see examples of how the space has been used for different productions, and check whether you can make meaningful changes to the look and feel.
Be clear on references for look and feel
Before you even start contacting studios, spend some time gathering visual references for your show. A wellness or mental health podcast typically calls for warm tones, soft lighting, and an intimate feel. A podcast focused on business, technology, or expertise tends to want something sharper, more structured, and visually authoritative. These are genuinely different briefs, and not every studio can deliver both.
Bringing clear references to your first conversation with a studio saves a significant amount of time and helps you assess quickly whether they can deliver what you have in mind. Show them three or four examples of podcasts with a look you admire and ask how they would approach something similar. How a studio responds to that question will tell you a lot about their editorial experience and whether they understand your vision.
Location matters more than you think
For single-host podcasts, studio location is a practical consideration. For interview-format shows, it is a critical one. Every time you bring a guest into your studio, you are asking them to give up their time. A studio that is difficult to reach, poorly connected, or in an inconvenient part of the city creates friction that puts guests off and can affect the quality of the conversation before it even starts.
BISON is located at 445 Hackney Road, E2, in East London. It is two minutes from Cambridge Heath Overground station and ten minutes from Bethnal Green Underground, making it straightforward to reach from most parts of London and easy for guests coming in from outside the city via Liverpool Street. The surrounding area also gives guests and production teams good options for coffee, food, and hospitality before or after a session.
When you are weighing up studios, check the transport links carefully and think about where your regular guests are coming from. A slightly cheaper studio on the wrong side of London can cost you more in cancelled appearances and rearranged schedules than you save on the day rate.
If you are looking for a video podcast studio in London that offers full-service production, a customisable set, and a straightforward location for guests, get in touch with BISON to check availability or request a rate card.
