As a co-founder of the independent label Factory Records and founder-manager of the Haçienda nightclub, Wilson was behind some of Manchester's most successful bands, including Joy Division, New Order, and Happy Mondays.

[3] After passing his Eleven plus exam, Wilson attended De La Salle Grammar School in Weaste Lane, Pendleton, Salford.

[4] Wilson started his professional career in 1968 at the age of 17, working as an English and Drama teacher at Blue Coat School in Oldham.

[3] After his graduation in 1971, Wilson began as a trainee news reporter for ITN, before moving to Manchester in 1973, where he secured a post at Granada Television.

Through the 1970s and 1980s he was one of the main anchors on Granada Reports, a regional evening news programme, where he worked with Judy Finnigan and Richard Madeley among others.

Wilson reported for ITV's current affairs series World in Action in the early 1980s and hosted editions of After Dark, the UK's first open-ended chat show, first on Channel 4 and later BBC Four.

Journalist Fergal Kinney wrote in 2021: “His appearances on Channel 4’s freewheeling late-night debate show After Dark...are exhilarating, pitched somewhere between a malevolent David Dimbleby and a slightly effete Jonathan Meades.”[6] Paul Morley's book From Manchester with Love: The Life and Opinions of Tony Wilson quotes Wilson as nearly falling asleep on the programme but waking up to hear one of the guests attacking him for naming his band Joy Division.

[7] In 1988, Wilson hosted The Other Side of Midnight, another Granada weekly regional culture slot, covering music, literature and the arts in general.

Wilson co-presented the BBC's coverage of The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium with Lisa I'Anson in 1992.

[10] A semi-fictionalised version of his life and of the surrounding era was made into the film 24 Hour Party People (2002), which stars Steve Coogan as Wilson.

[14] Along with others including Ruth Turner, he started a campaign for North West England to be allowed a referendum on the creation of a regional assembly, called the "Necessary Group"[15] after a line in the United States Declaration of Independence.

[24] Wilson’s funeral was at St Mary's RC Church, Mulberry Street, Manchester (The Hidden Gem) on 20 August 2007.

[27] His black granite[27] headstone, erected in October 2010,[28] was designed by Peter Saville and Ben Kelly,[28] and features a quotation, chosen by Wilson's family,[27] from Mrs G Linnaeus Banks's 1876 novel The Manchester Man,[27][28] set in Rotis serif font.

[27] The quotation reads: "Mutability is the epitaph of worlds/ Change alone is changeless/ People drop out of the history of a life as of a land though their work or their influence remains.