Owned and operated by Border Television, Century was founded by managing director John Myers, who had also established the north east station four years earlier.

The episode, entitled "Degsy Rides Again", showed Myers' attempts to train lunchtime phone-in host Derek Hatton, a controversial local ex-politician who had never before presented on radio.

They remained United's official radio partner for almost a decade until selling the rights to Xfm Manchester for the 2007–08 season.

The former GMG stations, including Real Radio, continued to operate separately as 'Real and Smooth Limited' until 1 April 2014.

On 12 June 2017, local programming moved from Salford to new studios at the XYZ building in the Spinningfields district of Manchester City Centre.

[9] Regional output was reduced to a three-hour drivetime show on weekdays,[10] plus localised news bulletins, traffic updates and advertising.

All networked programming originates from Global's London headquarters, including Heart Breakfast, presented each weekday by Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden.