Fountain Studios was an independently owned television studio in Wembley Park, northwest London. The company was last part of the Avesco Group plc. Several companies owned the site before it was bought by Fountain in 1993. Originally a film studio complex, it was formerly the base for the ITV contractors Rediffusion from 1955 to 1968, and London Weekend Television from 1968 to 1972. More recently, the studios were best known for being the venue for the live stages of ITV shows The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. The last show to be broadcast live (and recorded) at the studios was The X Factor on 4 December 2016, after which the studio was closed, and the site sold to property developer Quintain. History In 1927, Ralph J. Pugh and Rupert Mason founded British Incorporated Pictures with the intention of creating an American-style studio complex in the former British Empire Exhibition's Palace of Engineering. They bought a lease at Wembley in June 1927, though it was for the Lucullus Garden Club Restaurant site, not the Palace of Engineering. Their financial backing fell through and in May 1928 the lease was sold to Victor Sheridan. Sheridan announced that £500,000 was to be spent on developing the biggest and best-equipped studio centre in Europe, British Talking Pictures engaged with Dynamics Corporation of New York to develop and supply a new improved Electromagnetic horn driver known as the Type 1 for its state of the art studio. Sheridan sold his lease to British Talking Pictures a few months later. In September 1928, British Talking Pictures formed a subsidiary, British Sound Film Productions, to make films at Wembley. Wembley Studios was Britain's first purpose-built sound studios. Its three sound stages were officially opened in September 1929. Perhaps because of a major fire, the studio was never as successful as had been hoped. They were taken over by the American Fox Film Company, who leased the site and then bought it outright in 1936. Fox used the studio for the production of their 'quota quickies'. A change in the law in 1938 led 20th Century Fox to use other studios, but it retained ownership. During the war the studios were leased to the military (the Army Kinematograph Service and RAF Film Unit), with intermittent rental to independents. Ealing Studios filmed Ships with Wings at Wembley in 1941. There was a fire at the studios in 1943.