The Bill (series 1) The Bill (series 1) The first series of "The Bill", a British television drama, consisted of eleven episodes, broadcast between 16 October 1984 and 22 January 1985. Whilst "Woodentop" used a traditional three-wall set built at Thames Television's studios at Teddington, for the series, Sun Hill Police Station was created by converting the premises of a two-storey former cigarette packing company on the corner of Artichoke Hill and Pennington Street, in Wapping, East London. The police station was significantly smaller than subsequent versions, with almost-all of the interior offices being seen on-screen - Only the original packing/warehouse area alongside the
BBC television drama productions, a figure equalled only by outside broadcasts. In Christmas week 1938, drama accounted for fourteen of the twenty-two hours of programming broadcast. By the following year, drama programming had fifteen producers working on it, compared to nine for all other types of programmes combined. In 1939, the total audience for the BBC's programmes had grown to an estimated audience of 100,000 viewers, watching on 20,000 television sets. However, BBC television broadcasting ceased on 1 September 1939 in anticipation of World War II. The station remained off-air for the duration of the conflict. The British Government were afraid that the