page_title: Media in Manchester
section_title: Radio
hierarchical_section_title: Media in Manchester / Radio
caption_attribution_description: English: Now given the banal title, City Tower, having been redeveloped by Leslie Jones Architects for ubiquitous local property developers Bruntwood. Very prominent on the city's skyline and impressive by virtue of its sheer size. The narrow end facing the street is decorated with "relief designs derived from circuit boards". The tower is one of three buildings comprising the massive Piccadilly Plaza development by Covell, Matthews &amp; Partners, 1959-65. The three are linked by a podium.
context_page_description: Media in Manchester has been an integral part of Manchester's culture and economy for many generations and has been described as the only other British city to rival to London in terms of television broadcasting. Today, Manchester is the second largest centre of the creative and digital industries in Europe.
  Most notable television exports include the longest running serial soap drama in the world in Coronation Street and the longest running documentary series in 7 Up!. 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, Dragon's 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. In the BFI TV list of greatest British television programmes decided by industry professionals in 2000, nine television programmes which were devised and produced in Manchester made the top 50.
context_section_description: A number of regional and national radio stations broadcast from Manchester:
  BBC Radio 5 Live – National
  BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra – National
  BBC Radio Manchester – Manchester area
  Capital Manchester – Manchester area
  Hits Radio Manchester – Manchester area
  Greatest Hits Manchester – Manchester area
  Manchester was an important location for early radio broadcasts in Britain, the first of which were made by the Marconi Company when it began experimental transmissions of a station that was known as 2ZY on 17 May 1922. The British Broadcasting Company was granted a licence for AM radio broadcasts in October of the same year and inaugurated a station called 2LO in London on 14 November 1922, followed the next day by 2ZY, the BBC's official Manchester station. 2ZY made regular transmissions from the Metropolitan-Vickers factory in Trafford Park on 800 kHz (375 metres) Medium Wave).
  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 station was called 5XX and it conducted its first experimental stereo broadcast from a concert in Manchester. The 5XX Long Wave transmitter beamed the right channel and all the local BBC Medium Wave transmitters broadcast the left channel. 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. Radio plays and concerts were staged in an old converted repertory theatre hall in Hulme which was renamed 'The Radio Playhouse'. The 2ZY Orchestra created in 1922 went on to play a pivotal role in the establishment of the Northern Wireless Orchestra (and later the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra).
  Programme content made in Manchester included radio features on subjects like Cotton and Coal. One example, Joan Littlewood and Olive Shapley's The Classic Soil (1939), on the Manchester poor, was inspired by an assertion of Fredrick Engels that the city was "the classic soil . . . where capitalism flourished". Many well-known networked radio comedies and concerts as well as Woman's Hour were produced in Manchester. It was not until the late 1960s that true local radio services began across Britain and BBC Radio Manchester was first launched in 1970 on 95.3 MHz VHF. The Medium Wave frequency of 1458 kHz (206 metres) was opened later. Independent Commercial radio began in Britain in 1973 so on 2 April the following year Piccadilly Radio was launched in Manchester on 1146 kHz (261 metres) medium wave and 97.0 MHz vhf (the frequency was changed in 1986).
  The BBC's original radio studios became cramped and outdated so all operations were moved to a large new purpose built studio complex on Oxford Road which was named New Broadcasting House (known as NBH) which were in use for both TV and radio production by the spring of 1976 (the old studios on Piccadilly were finally closed in 1981). 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. Around 10% of BBC Radio 4 programming and a daily afternoon show on BBC Radio 1 (Mark & Lard) were all being made in and broadcast from Manchester.
  The commercial station Piccadilly Radio was re-branded in 1988 when the services were split in two: AM became Piccadilly Gold and FM was named Key 103. A number of new local commercial services were licensed by the Radio Authority in the late 1980s and 1990s. This proliferation has meant that the radio market in Manchester now has the highest number of local radio stations outside London including BBC Radio Manchester, Key 103, Greatest Hits Manchester, Capital Manchester, Heart North West, Smooth North West, 106.1 Real Radio XS, Gold and The Revolution BBC Radio Manchester returned to its original title in 2006 after becoming BBC GMR in 1988.
  Throughout the last 40 years Manchester has also heard many pi
caption: City Tower is a main broadcast station for many of Greater Manchester's radio stations
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