Television and radio

ITV franchisee Granada Television has its original headquarters on Quay Street in the Castlefield area of the city. The city is the main UK television production centre outside London and is where programmes including Coronation Street and many Children’s ITV presentations are produced.

The BBC has its headquarters for Northern England in New Broadcasting House on Oxford Road in the south of the city. Programmes including A Question of Sport, Mastermind and Real Story are made here. Manchester is also the regional base for the BBC One North West Region so programmes like North West Tonight are produced here. The BBC intends to relocate large numbers of staff and facilities to Manchester from London, once a new, larger site has been selected. The Childrens(CBBC), Comedy, Sport (BBC Sport), BBC Three and New Media departments are all scheduled for a move from London to Manchester before 2010.

Manchester has its own television channel, Channel M, owned by the Guardian Media Group and operated since 2000. It has several local radio stations including BBC GMR soon to be renamed BBC Radio Manchester (its original name before 1988), Key 103, Galaxy, Piccadilly Magic 1152, 105.4 Century FM , 100.4 Smooth FM, Capital Gold 1458 and Xfm. There is also a community radio network coordinated by Radio Regen[3], and with stations covering the South Manchester communities of Ardwick, Longsight and Levenshulme (ALL FM 96.9) and Wythenshawe (Wythenshawe FM 97.2)

Several now defunct radio stations are much lamented including “BBC Radio Manchester” - now BBC GMR, Sunset (which became) Kiss 102 (now Galaxy) and KFM which became Signal Cheshire (now Signal 1). The latter three played a significant role in the city’s emerging House music culture, also known as the Madchester scene, which was partly based around clubs like the the Hacienda which had its own show on Kiss 102. There were also scores of pirate radio, student radio (currently consisting of Fuse FM at the University of Manchester and Shock FM at the University of Salford) and community radio stations and initiatives in Manchester.

Film

Manchester is home to the Manchester film festival and has held the commonwealth film festival. This is a partial list of films set in Manchester:
Grand Hotel (1932)
My Son, My Son! (1940)
Hell is a City (1960)
Billy Liar (1963)
East is East (1999)
There’s only one Jimmy Grimble (2000)
The Parole Officer (2001)
24 Hour Party People (2002)
28 Days Later (2002)
Millions (2005)
Control (2006)

Even Hollywood has featured Manchester occasionally in its films, a fine achievement for an English provincial city.My Son,My Son!, made in 1940, directed by Charles Vidor and starring Brian Aherne and Louis Hayward, is set in Manchester, and in MGM’s all-star opus of 1932,Grand Hotel, most of Wallace Beery’s dialogue seems to consist of him furiously shouting “Manchester!” throughout his entire part.

Manchester has also been mentioned several times in GTA games series. Several references are made as well as Macca a character in GTA: Vice City came from Manchester.

Newspapers

The Guardian newspaper was founded in Manchester in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian. Its head office is still in Manchester, though many of its management functions were moved to London in 1964. It still shares a Manchester office on Deansgate with its sister publication, the Manchester Evening News, Manchester’s biggest-selling daily paper. Free commuting papers include Manchester Evening News Lite and Metro North West, both of which are available from Metrolink stops, rail stations and other busy locations across the city at rush-hour.