BBC North West is the
BBC English RegionBBC English Regions is the division of the BBC responsible for local television, radio, web and teletext services in England. It is one of the BBC's four 'Nations' - the others being BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and BBC Northern Ireland....
serving
LancashireLancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
,
Greater ManchesterGreater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...
,
MerseysideMerseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1,365,900. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool...
,
CheshireCheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
,
WalsdenWalsden is a large village in the town of Todmorden in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England, close to the Greater Manchester border...
in
West YorkshireWest Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
, the
Isle of ManThe Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
(itself not, in fact, part of
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
), north-west
DerbyshireDerbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
, the
Yorkshire DalesThe Yorkshire Dales is the name given to an upland area in Northern England.The area lies within the historic county boundaries of Yorkshire, though it spans the ceremonial counties of North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Cumbria...
including
SettleSettle is a small market town and civil parish within the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England. It is served by the Settle railway station, which is located near the town centre, and Giggleswick railway station which is a mile away. It is from Leeds Bradford Airport...
and Ribblesdale, and southern
CumbriaCumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
.
BBC North West television output is also broadcast in large parts of North Wales as well as in some villages in north Shropshire and Staffordshire, cutting into Stoke On Trent,
BiddulphBiddulph is a town in Staffordshire, England, north of Stoke-on-Trent and south east of Congleton, Cheshire.-Origin of the name:Biddulph's name may come from Anglo-Saxon bī dylfe = "beside the pit or quarry"...
and Newcastle Under Lyme.
The region also covered the rest of Cumbria during the late 1980s, complete with an opt-out television news service for the area, before it was transferred to the BBC North East region owing to high viewer demand.
Television
BBC North West produces regional TV news, current affairs and sports output including the flagship nightly news programme
North West Tonight, alongside daytime
North West Today bulletins and opt-out updates on weekdays during
BBC BreakfastBBC Breakfast is the morning television news programme simulcast on BBC One and the BBC News channel. It is presented live from BBC Television Centre in White City, West London, and contains a mixture of news, sport, weather, business and feature items...
.
Non-news output consists of the topical magazine programme
Inside Out North WestInside Out is the brand name for a number of regional television programmes in England broadcast on BBC One. Each series, made by a BBC region, focuses on stories from the local area...
, a 20-minute opt-out during the weekly
Politics Show and a late night football magazine show
Late Kick OffLate Kick Off was a BBC One regional television football programme which was launched on 18 January 2010 and ran up to and including the 2010-2011 football season...
.
BBC YorkshireBBC Yorkshire is one of the English regions of the BBC. It was formed from the division of the former BBC North region into BBC Yorkshire and BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, based in Hull.-Television:...
's rugby league highlights programme
The Super League ShowThe Super League Show is the BBC's rugby league highlights programme, usually shown on a Sunday afternoon on BBC One in the North of England and on the BBC website. It is fronted by Look North newsreader Harry Gration and Tanya Arnold with a variety of studio guests from Super League...
is also simulcast for North West viewers.
Radio
The region is the controlling centre for
BBC Radio LancashireBBC Radio Lancashire is the BBC Local Radio service for the county of Lancashire, in North West England. It began as BBC Radio Blackburn on 26 January 1971 on 96.4FM, then adding 854 kHz AM in 1972 and changing to its current name on 4 July 1981...
,
BBC Radio ManchesterBBC Radio Manchester is a BBC Local Radio station broadcasting to Greater Manchester in North West England. It broadcasts 24 hours a day from studios at MediaCityUK in Salford Quays via a transmitter at Holme Moss, with a small repeater at Saddleworth covering Tameside and Saddleworth...
and
BBC Radio MerseysideBBC Radio Merseyside is the BBC Local Radio service for the English metropolitan county of Merseyside and north Cheshire. It was the third BBC local radio station to launch on 22 November 1967 initially serving the south west of historic Lancashire....
.
Radio Manchester broadcasts 24 hours a day, with Radio Merseyside and Radio Lancashire broadcasting between 5am & 1am on weekdays, 6am & 12am on Radio Lancashire at weekends and 6am & 1am on Radio Merseyside at weekends. The three stations only simulcast for
BBC News in the North West bulletins each evening, with Radio Manchester and Radio Lancashire also simulcasting the weekday late show and
Indus, an Asian community programme on Sunday evenings.
Online and Interactive
BBC North West also produces regional news & local radio pages for BBC Red Button and
BBC Local News websites for each county.
Radio
Regional broadcasting in the North West had begun on 15 November 1922 when the BBC opened its Manchester radio station
2ZY2ZY was the name of a radio station broadcast by the British Broadcasting Company from Manchester, England, between 1922 and 1927. It had its first test transmission on 450 metres on 17 May 1922 and began regular broadcasts on 15 November 1922, one day after sister station 2LO started daily...
, followed two years later by the opening of a Liverpool-based relay station, 2LY. At this point, the Manchester operation covered the entire North of England and northern parts of the Midlands, with relay stations in Leeds (2LS), Hull (6KH), Nottingham (5NG) and Stoke-on-Trent (6ST) carrying 2ZY output.
When the
BBC National ProgrammeThe BBC National Programme was a BBC radio station from the 1920s until the outbreak of World War II.-Foundation:When the BBC first began transmissions on 14 November 1922, the technology for both national coverage and joint programming between transmitters did not exist – transmitter powers were...
commenced from London, programming from Manchester was moved to the
BBC Regional ProgrammeThe BBC Regional Programme was a UK radio network which operated from the end of the 1920s until the outbreak of World War II in 1939.-Foundation:...
, and in 1929 began broadcasting from a leased studio complex at Broadcasting House in Piccadilly Gardens. From March 1936, the Manchester-based Northern radio service began serving Northern Ireland after the opening of a new transmitter at
LisnagarveyThe Lisnagarvey transmitting station is a facility for mediumwave broadcasting located in the townland of Magherageery, on the southern edge of Lisburn, Northern Ireland...
(albeit with an additional local opt-out). A year later, the opening of the Stagshaw transmitter also allowed listeners in the North East and Cumbria to receive an opt-out from the main service.
When regional radio services resumed after the Second World War, Manchester-based output was broadcast on a Northern version of the
Home ServiceThe BBC Home Service was a British national radio station which broadcast from 1939 until 1967.-Development:Between the 1920s and the outbreak of The Second World War, the BBC had developed two nationwide radio services, the BBC National Programme and the BBC Regional Programme...
, which would continue to serve Northern Ireland until January 1963.
BBC Local RadioBBC Local Radio is the BBC's regional radio service for England and the Channel Islands, consisting of 40 stations. They cover a variety of areas with some serving a city and surrounding areas, for example BBC Radio Manchester; a county, for example BBC Radio Norfolk; an administrative region for...
was introduced to the North West on 22 November 1967 with the launch of
BBC Radio MerseysideBBC Radio Merseyside is the BBC Local Radio service for the English metropolitan county of Merseyside and north Cheshire. It was the third BBC local radio station to launch on 22 November 1967 initially serving the south west of historic Lancashire....
in Liverpool, followed on 10 September 1970 by
BBC Radio ManchesterBBC Radio Manchester is a BBC Local Radio station broadcasting to Greater Manchester in North West England. It broadcasts 24 hours a day from studios at MediaCityUK in Salford Quays via a transmitter at Holme Moss, with a small repeater at Saddleworth covering Tameside and Saddleworth...
and on 26 January 1971 by BBC Radio Blackburn (later relaunched as BBC Radio Lancashire).
The expansion of local radio services led to a gradual reduction of regional radio programmes (covering both the North West and Yorkshire areas) on what had now become
BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
. The last regional programme aired on Radio 4 North was an early evening news opt-out on Friday 12 September 1980. Regional output for the North West would later resurface on the BBC's local radio stations in evening and late night time slots.
Television
When the BBC launched daily regional television news in September 1957, the whole of northern England was initally covered as one region from Manchester. Short bulletins called
News from the North began broadcasting on 30 September to what are now the North West,
Yorkshire & North MidlandsBBC Yorkshire is one of the English regions of the BBC. It was formed from the division of the former BBC North region into BBC Yorkshire and BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, based in Hull.-Television:...
,
East Yorkshire & LincolnshireBBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, sometimes abbreviated to BBC Yorks & Lincs, is the name for the BBC's twelfth English Region, based in Hull and created from the division of the former BBC North region, based in Leeds...
and
North East & CumbriaBBC North East and Cumbria is the BBC English Region covering Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham, North Yorkshire, Teesside and all but the southern part of Cumbria...
areas.
Five years later, the bulletins were expanded into a 20-minute magazine programme and renamed
North at Six. The opt-outs were refocused to cover the North West and Yorkshire & Lincolnshire areas, as the North East and Cumbria was now receiving its own nightly programme,
Home at Six. The current North West region was introduced on 25 March 1968 when a separate Leeds-based edition of
Look North for Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the North Midlands was launched.
Between 5 April 1976 and 12 September 1980, BBC North West made use of regional presentation and continuity announcers during weekday evening programmes on BBC1. Also in 1980, the Manchester edition of
Look North was renamed
Look North West in an attempt to avoid confusion for neighbouring viewers in Yorkshire. Regional television news remained at the BBC's Old Broadcasting House in Picadilly until finally moving into New Broadcasting House in Oxford Road on 18 May 1981. On 3 September 1984, the programme reverted to its current title of
North West Tonight. Between 1986 and 1989, the region also covered parts of Cumbria that were previously served by the Newcastle edition of
Look North and provided a news opt-out for the area served by the Caldbeck transmitter at lunchtime. However, viewers' complaints led to Cumbrian news coverage being switched back to
Look North in Newcastle.
Studios
From 1929 until 1981, many of the BBC's Manchester operations were based at Broadcasting House in the Piccadilly Gardens area of Manchester City Centre. The building had been leased to the Corporation from a bank on the ground floor and became the central control room for regional and network radio production from the city.
In 1954, a former Methodist church on Dickenson Road in
Rusholme-Etymology:Rusholme, unlike other areas of Manchester which have '-holme' in the place name is not a true '-holme'. Its name came from ryscum, which is the dative plural of Old English rysc "rush": "[at the] rushes"...
became the BBC's first Manchester television studio, having been brought from
Mancunian FilmsMancunian Films was a British motion picture production company organized in 1934.Founded by John E. Blakeley, the company originally produced films in London on extremely low budgets. Blakeley's first studio consisted of a single soundstage in a loft space above a taxi garage...
, who had converted the building. The Dickenson Road facilities became the main home of the city's network production base where early editions of long-running series including
Top Of The PopsTop of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
and
A Question of SportA Question of Sport is a long-running BBC quiz show which started on 2 December 1968 and continues to this day. It is currently recorded at The Studios, MediaCityUK...
were produced. The BBC's Northern outside broadcast units were located at another former church in
LongsightLongsight is an area of Manchester, England, about south of the city centre. Its population is about 16,000.-History:Longsight has been known over the past for its gang related violence, similar to that of nearby Moss Side. Most of the violence came from tensions between 2 gangs; The Longsight...
. Meanwhile, regional television news and presentation began at Broadcasting House in Piccadilly in September 1957.
By 1967, planning had begun on creating a new broadcasting centre which would house radio and television on both network & regional levels as well as rehearsal space (Studio 7) for the BBC's Northern Symphony Orchestra (later to become the
BBC PhilharmonicThe BBC Philharmonic is a British broadcasting symphony orchestra based at Media City UK, Salford, England. It is one of five radio orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The orchestra's primary concert venue is the Bridgewater Hall....
).
New Broadcasting HouseNew Broadcasting House is the home of the BBC on Oxford Road in Manchester city centre. The studios house BBC Manchester, BBC North, BBC North West, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Religion and Ethics department...
on Oxford Road began operations in July 1975 when network television production was transferred from the Dickenson Road studio into the much larger Studio A. Studio B, which would be used for regional TV news (
Look North West,
North West Tonight) was opened in May 1981, allowing the BBC to vacate its studios at Piccadilly after 52 years.
Regular production in Studio A continued until 2000, when it was mothballed. Meanwhile, the BBC launched a joint facilities venture with
Granada TelevisionGranada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
, called
3SixtyMedia3sixtymedia is a joint venture production facilities company, based in Manchester and co-owned by Granada Television and BBC Manchester...
, which saw both broadcasters pool their studio resources at both Oxford Road and
Granada's Quay Street complexThe Manchester Studios is a television studio on Quay Street in Manchester with the facility to broadcast live and film drama programmes. The studios have been home to Granada Television since its inception in 1954...
. As a result, Studio A was re-opened in 2005 as a four-waller, primarily for drama productions including
Life on MarsLife on Mars is a British television series broadcast on BBC One between January 2006 and April 2007. The series combines elements of science fiction and police procedural....
.
BBC North West is due to move into new studios at MediaCityUK in
Salford QuaysSalford Quays is an area of Salford in Greater Manchester, England, near the end of the Manchester Ship Canal. Previously the site of Manchester Docks, it became one of the first and largest urban regeneration projects in the United Kingdom following the closure of the dockyards in...
during Autumn 2011. The new development will house all departments based at New Broadcasting House alongside
BBC ChildrensCBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
,
BBC SportBBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC. It became a fully dedicated division of the BBC in 2000. It incorporates programmes such as Match of the Day, Grandstand , Test Match Special, Ski Sunday, Rugby Special and coverage of Formula One motor racing, MotoGP and the Wimbledon Tennis...
,
BBC Radio 5 LiveBBC Radio 5 Live is the BBC's national radio service that specialises in live BBC News, phone-ins, and sports commentaries...
,
BBC BreakfastBBC Breakfast is the morning television news programme simulcast on BBC One and the BBC News channel. It is presented live from BBC Television Centre in White City, West London, and contains a mixture of news, sport, weather, business and feature items...
,
BBC LearningBBC Learning can refer to the following:* A department within the BBC , part of BBC Vision* The portal website created by BBC Learning* A website created by BBC Worldwide-BBC Worldwide:...
and BBC Future Media departments and services, creating the biggest broadcast operation outside London. As part of the move, New Broadcasting House was sold off to Reality Estates Ltd for £10 million in April 2011.
In addition to their headquarters, BBC North West has
local radioBBC Local Radio is the BBC's regional radio service for England and the Channel Islands, consisting of 40 stations. They cover a variety of areas with some serving a city and surrounding areas, for example BBC Radio Manchester; a county, for example BBC Radio Norfolk; an administrative region for...
stations and news bureaux located in
LiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and
Blackburn and a district office in
ChesterChester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
.