Manchester - Media

Media

The ITV franchisee Granada Television which has headquarters in Quay Street produces Coronation Street, local news and programmes for North West England. Although its influence has waned Granada had been described as 'the best commercial television company in the world'.

Manchester was one of the BBC's three main centres in England. Programmes including Mastermind, and Real Story, were made at New Broadcasting House. The Cutting It series set in the city's Northern Quarter and The Street were set in Manchester as was Life on Mars. The first edition of Top of the Pops was broadcast from a studio in Rusholme on New Year's Day 1964. Manchester was the regional base for BBC One North West Region programmes before it relocated to MediaCityUK. The Manchester television channel, Channel M, owned by the Guardian Media Group operated from 2000 but closed in 2012.

The city has the highest number of local radio stations outside London including BBC Radio Manchester, Key 103, Galaxy, Piccadilly Magic 1152, Real Radio North West, 100.4 Smooth FM, Capital Gold 1458, 96.2 The Revolution, NMFM (North Manchester FM) and Xfm. Student radio stations include Fuse FM at the University of Manchester and MMU Radio at the Manchester Metropolitan University. A community radio network is coordinated by Radio Regen, with stations covering Ardwick, Longsight and Levenshulme (All FM 96.9) and Wythenshawe (Wythenshawe FM 97.2). Defunct radio stations include Sunset 102, which became Kiss 102, then Galaxy Manchester), and KFM which became Signal Cheshire (now Imagine FM). These stations and pirate radio played a significant role in the city's house music culture, the Madchester scene, which was based in clubs like The Haçienda.

The Guardian newspaper was founded in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian. Its head office is still in the city, though many of its management functions were moved to London in 1964. Its sister publication, the Manchester Evening News, has the largest circulation of a UK regional evening newspaper. It is free in the city centre on Thursdays and Fridays, but paid for in the suburbs. Despite its title, it is available all day. The Metro North West is available free at Metrolink stops, rail stations and other busy locations. The MEN group distributes several local weekly free papers. For many years most of the national newspapers had offices in Manchester: The Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, The Sun. Only The Daily Sport remains based in Manchester. At its height, 1,500 journalists were employed, though in the 1980s office closures began and today the "second Fleet Street" is no more. An attempt to launch a Northern daily newspaper, the North West Times, employing journalists made redundant by other titles, closed in 1988. Another attempt was made with the North West Enquirer, which hoped to provide a true "regional" newspaper for the North West, much in the same vein as the Yorkshire Post does for Yorkshire or The Northern Echo does for the North East; it folded in October 2006. There are several local lifestyle magazines, including YQ Magazine and Moving Manchester.