Why put up with the hassle and expense of filming in London when you can opt for Birmingham instead? That’s what producers thought when looking at locations for a new TV drama.

Film crews are set to finish work in the region in August on the new BBC1 drama By Any Means, set to be screened in November.

A city centre building in Waterloo Street was turned into the Colombian embassy - with South American flags flying proudly outside - while Spring Grove House in the grounds of West Midland Safari Park was used for interior scenes.

The drama is called By Any Means - made by Red Planet Pictures, which also made Hustle - and was also filmed at Birmingham Magistrates Court, Hotel La Tour and the Hyatt, Colmore Row, New Street, the Mailbox and Cannon Hill and Sutton Parks.

Producer Tim Key said: "London is increasingly hard to shoot in, so we felt we’d get much more for our money elsewhere.

"I’ve shot in Liverpool and Manchester, but as I’m from Bewdley, I thought of Birmingham. The company had a good experience filming Hustle here."

And with gangster drama Peaky Blinders heading to BBC2 in autumn 2013 and filming in progress on a second series of Father Brown, Birmingham remains a key city for television production.

In addition, discussions are under way for another run of WPC 56, telling the story of the first woman police officer at a 1950s Birmingham station. The programme filmed at locations including the Black Country Living Museum, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham Town Hall, Jewellery Quarter, Victoria Law Courts, the Electric cinema and Dudley Zoo.

It stars Jennie Jacques, who comes from Coventry, alongside Birmingham-born John Light, as Chief Inspector Roger Nelson, and Cannock actor Chris Overton as PC Eddie Coulson. It's set in the fictional Birmingham suburb of Brinford, with the facade of the Birmingham and Midland Institute in Margaret Street standing in for the front of Brinford police station.

These are the latest projects in a long line of TV shows made in the region over the decades.

Some programmes have been recorded in studios in Birmingham, others have been filmed on location in the city and several have been produced here but filmed elsewhere.

Here we take a look at some of the many programmes to emerge from the city through the years.

The BBC retains a healthy presence in the city despite closing the national factual programme-making unit based at The Mailbox in 2012.

Shows including Gardeners’ World, Countryfile, The Sky at Night, Points of View, Coast, Hairy Bikers, See Hear and coverage of the RHS flower shows were once produced at The Mailbox until the BBC decided in October 2011 to close the unit and move it to Bristol.

In spite of that, the garden used for Gardeners’ World is still in the Midlands. Once set in Edgbaston, the programme is now presented from Monty Don’s garden in Herefordshire.

In Selly Oak, the BBC Birmingham Drama Village is home to BBC1 soap Doctors, as well as one-off dramas and series including Land Girls and WPC 56 - currently in talks for a second series - along with Father Brown, the crime drama starring Mark Williams. Father Brown has been re-commissioned by BBC One Daytime and production recently started on its second series.

In the 1960s, BBC Birmingham pioneered TV programmes aimed at the Asian community and went on to produce Empire Road, the first BBC television drama with a predominantly black and Asian cast. It aired from 1978 to 1979 on BBC2.

The former BBC studios at Pebble Mill were also the base for chat shows Pebble Mill At One and Saturday Night At The Mill.

Other shows to emerge from Pebble Mill included Gangsters (1975-1978) - set in the city’s set multi-cultural criminal underworld - and Kinsey, the 1991-1992 BBC1 drama about a maverick Midlands lawyer, who was played by Leigh Lawson.

In addition, the BBC motoring show Top Gear was originally made at Pebble Mill. The first edition aired on April 22, 1977, with Angela Rippon and Midlands Today newsreader Tom Coyne as presenters.

In 2002, a year after Top Gear had been cancelled by the BBC, Channel 5 launched its own version called Fifth Gear, featuring many of the Top Gear presenters and produced by North Street Television in its Birmingham studios. Track tests were done at Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire.

North One also recorded Channel 5 technology series The Gadget Show at studios in the city.

Veteran sports fans will recall that the BBC2 snooker show Pot Black was originally made in Birmingham before moving to Blackpool, London and eventually Sheffield.

More recently, the sixth, seventh and eighth seasons of Hustle were filmed in Birmingham, although Series Six was still set in London, while the second season of BBC1 post-apocalyptic drama Survivors was shot in Birmingham.

Dalziel and Pascoe, the BBC1 fictional drama about two Yorkshire police officers, was produced by BBC Birmingham and used a number of locations in the area.

Several classic game shows have emerged from the city over the years. First was The Golden Shot, fronted by Bob Monkhouse. It was followed in later years by Jim Bowen's darts-themed Bullseye and then by Blockbusters, which was presented by Bob Holness.

Talent show New Faces was recorded at The ATV Centre in Birmingham during the 1970s. One of the winners, Marti Caine, went on to host a revived version filmed at the Birmingham Hippodrome a decade later. Others who found fame on the show included Dudley-born comedian Lenny Henry.

The legendary teatime soap opera Crossroads was made in and around Birmingham while Boon, starring Michael Elphick, was made by Central TV and filmed on location in the city and other parts of the Midlands.

The first series of satirical puppet show Spitting Image was recorded at Central’s studios in Birmingham and the Saturday morning children’s television programme Tiswas was broadcast from Studio 3 at the ATV Centre in Birmingham between 1974 and 1982.

Early series of Central’s children’s TV show Woof!, about a boy who could transform into a dog, were filmed in Moseley, Birmingham, before production transferred to Nottinghamshire.

Ragdoll Productions used a Birmingham narrowboat as the setting for its children’s TV show Rosie & Jim, filming the puppets’ stories on the local waterways.

The Stratford-based production company was also behind children's series Brum, about the adventures of a half-scale replica car that came to life in a museum and set off to explore “the Big Town.” That town was none other than Birmingham and all episodes were filmed in the city.

Rosie & Jim
Rosie & Jim

Some location filming was done in the Black Country during the 80s for the BBC1 series Juliet Bravo, about a female police inspector in the fictional town of Hartley, Lancashire. Other location filming was done in Lancashire and Yorkshire.

And while vets’ drama All Creatures Great and Small was filmed on location in North Yorkshire, some of the indoor scenes - including all those of the interior of the Skeldale House veterinary surgery - were shot at the BBC’s Pebble Mill studios in Birmingham. The surgery set is now on display to the public at the Richmondshire Museum in Richmond, North Yorkshire.

The BBC nursing drama Angels (1975 to 1983) was set first at the fictional St Angela’s in Battersea and then at Heath Green Hospital in Birmingham. But there is no such hospital in the city: it’s also fictional. Filming for Angels took place in London and then in Coventry, where the former Walsgrave Hospital  - now replaced by University Hospital Coventry - was used for exterior shots.

Although shot on location in Liverpool, Boys from the Blackstuff was made by BBC Birmingham’s regional drama department.  Similarly, BBC Birmingham made the yachting drama Howards’ Way, which was filmed on the Hampshire coast.

Pebble Mill was also used on occasions when London productions required studio space, as happened on occasions with such programmes as The Brothers, Play School and Jackanory.