Broadcasting House, Salford Quays & TVC

Sounds like it.

The problem is that guests and their PR's have got out the habit of going outside London for interviews. They can do 5 in a day in London or get a taxi into Soho and do the whole country's radio stations down the line from one studio.

Years ago the likes of Pebble Mill, Open Air, Russell Harty, This Morning, The Tube, Ann & Nick had no problem getting people to appear on them. Now they don't have to as there's no regional production and no local radio.

Once everything's up in Salford and settled people with a book to flag will be quite happy to go up there for the day and do the North West media circuit: Breakfast, pop into Piccadilly or Smooth Radio, Richard Bacon in the afternoon, maybe a pre-record for Blue Peter too, and there's any other programme that develops up there. It won't even cross their mind as being odd in a few years

Pop in to Piccadilly? Key 103, get with it!

Not just Key 103 , but its sister station Magic 1152 also Real Radio, Xfm Manchester, Real Radio XS, Tower FM, WiSh FM, The Revolution,Salford City Radio, ALL FM, Wythenshawe FM, Capital FM Manchester, Tameside Radio, Imagine FM, Gold Manchester and that's just those based within the Manchester area, then of course the various local radio stations in Lancashire, Chesire and Merseyside!

I was talking centres as in for the whole country, not just the BBC. The country should have one capital and all national/international organisations operations should be centred there.

The argument is that the BBC being in London doesn't represent the whole UK properly, but of course that's rubbish because London isn't just some city in the South, it's our capital and represents the whole country.

People complain that news channels concentrate on a fire in Oxford Street London more than they would a fire in Oxford Street Manchester - of course they do, London is our capital.

Why's that a problem? Surely it makes complete sense!

If I was organising something, and had to meet with 4 or 5 different companies, it'd make more sense if all those companies were in the same city and I spent my day talking to them rather than travelling around the country to various different HQs.

It's not a problem to them, it's a problem to the BBC wanting to move stuff to Salford.

It's a lazy habit to get into and one that will change as more stuff moves out of London

I'm more of a Light programme listener myself


Some of them aren't very guest friendly being either networked services from London or specialist music services, others are probably a bit small too, but the point remains: there are other outlets in the north for a celebrity to plug their wares.

And it's not just media outlets of course, the 'hook' for a large number of interviews are new books, they can combine a couple of book signings while they're there. I bet Waterstones in Manchester is very keen on MediaCity

Avoiding work is lazy. Avoiding unnecessary work to give you more time to do necessary work isn't.

And this is why moving out of London is a stupid idea. More people will spend more time on the road being unproductive!

I hadn't thought about that actually. Book shops right across the country constantly have book signings with pretty big (or at least TV worthy) celebrities. If they're will to travel to more minor cities to flog a few books to a handful of punters they'll surely be more than happy to go up to Salford to flog it to the nation.

To me Moz, as a Londoner, London is just a big city in the South, and doesn't necessarily represent the whole of the UK--to me at least, it can be a very unfriendly city, I much prefer visiting somewhere like Leeds, where more locals seem to have the time of day for you.

And HMV, both the Market Street store and the Trafford Centre store - and possibly the smaller ones in the surrounding towns