Media in Manchester
A wide array of award-winning British television programmes have originated from, and often been set in Manchester, such as Coronation Street, A Question of Sport, Dragons' Den, The Royle Family, University Challenge, Mastermind, Songs of Praise, Top of the Pops, It's a Knockout, World in Action, Seven Up!, Jewel in the Crown, Brideshead Revisited, Stars in Their Eyes, The Krypton Factor, Red Dwarf, Life on Mars, Cold Feet, Cracker and The Street.
[14]The first edition of Top of the Pops was broadcast on New Year's Day 1964 from the studio,[15] and Yorkshire host Jimmy Savile stated: "anything they didn't want to do in London, they slung up into this old church.
The 1970s marked a change for the BBC's involvement in Manchester and it appeared that the city had been given more licence to produce programmes for national consumption.
The new Network Production Centre (NPC) in the north of England was given licence to produce programmes for national consumption, one of its first successes .
Programmes including A Question of Sport, Mastermind,[19] and Real Story,[20] are made at New Broadcasting House on Oxford Road, just south of the city centre.
[23] Between 1956 and 1969, the old Capitol Theatre at the junction of Parrs Wood Road and School Lane served as the northern studios of ITV station ABC Weekend Television.
[25] The building was demolished in the late 1990s to make way for a residential development,[24] but the name lives on in the form of a new theatre space in the heart of the M.M.U.
Kenneth Clark stated as early as 1958 that: "We did not quite foresee how much Granada would develop a character which distinguishes it most markedly from the other programmes companies and from the BBC.
"[27] It was the only original franchisee formed in 1954 that kept its licence for North West England into the 21st century, fuelled by commercially successful productions such as its flagship programme, Coronation Street.
[28] Granada produces the world's oldest and most watched television soap opera, Coronation Street,[29] which is screened five times a week on ITV.
By the 2000s, Manchester had proved itself as a key base for the ITV brand with its Granada franchise and BBC North at New Broadcasting House.
The vacuum for local programming has since been filled by Manchester.tv and QuaysNews.net In June 2004, it was revealed that the BBC planned to redevelop the aging New Broadcasting House on Oxford Road in Manchester and with it will take the opportunity to transfer 1000 jobs out of London to bring investment in Northern England to the level the BBC invest in London, Birmingham and Bristol.
[32] In July 1925 the BBC opened a much higher powered transmitter at Daventry, Northamptonshire, which broadcast on 187.5 kHz (1562 metres) Long wave and was receivable across most of Britain.
The BBC opened a central Control Room on Piccadilly in Manchester in 1929 from where many network radio programmes were made or transmitted and several technical innovations were installed – including volume metres, the precursor of the PPM.
[37] The number of hours of productions made in Manchester then increased until at its peak in the 1990s around 20% of the output on the newly opened BBC Radio 5 Live in 1994.
[41] Throughout the last 40 years Manchester has also heard many pirate, student, temporary (Restricted Service Licence) and unofficial radio stations.
[40] One of the earliest pirate stations, started in 1979 on 94.6 MHz FM, was called Andromeda which broadcast to the entire conurbation from various locations on the hills around Tameside.
[43] Defunct (official) radio stations include Sunset 102 (which became Kiss 102, now Capital Manchester), and KFM (which became Signal Cheshire, now Imagine FM).
These stations, as well as many 1990s pirates, played a significant role in the city's House music culture, also known as the Madchester scene, which was based around clubs like The Haçienda (which had its own shows on Sunset and on Kiss 102).
Others include Velvet Goldmine starring Ewan McGregor, and Sir Alec Guinness's The Man in the White Suit.
In 2010, the car chase scene in Captain America: The First Avenger was filmed on Dale Street in the Northern Quarter.
The movie was filmed in such locations as the Northern Quarter, Jersey Street in Ancoats and inside Manchester Town Hall.
The most recent Festival was held in March 2013[50] At certain points in the 1800s Manchester had up to seven newspapers – this was not unusual, many towns and cities had a plethora of papers at this time.
[53] The Metro North West is available free at Metrolink stops, rail stations and other busy transit locations.
[55] An attempt to launch a Northern daily newspaper, the North West Times, employing journalists made redundant by other titles, closed in 1988.
With over 100,000 unique readers a month, the title has established itself as the biggest media outlet outside London spanning an array of initiatives, awards and three annual expos.
