Broadcasting House, Salford Quays & TVC

Actually, as already stated, the office block is very rarely used, and its been like that since the old Granada days, and not consolidated ITV days. Most of the offices are now in the "Warehouse building" which used to be the home of the Granada Studios Tour theatre (home of Granada Upfront). So, as said by another, if you mean buildings well yes they are downsizing. But, again, programming wise and use of studios has dramatically increased over recent years as studio-made programmes have made a large comeback.

If I am correct the only things left in the old tower block are the studios, the staff canteen and Granada Newsroom, all other administrative departments are in the Warehouse. But there again in the modern world one does not need much office space to administer programmes as they used to do in the 50s, 60s and 70s, with the advent of microchip technology.

Scottish In Demand comes from Glasgow

Can only speak about Manchester but a lot of the guests do go to Manchester. A quick check on their website and facebook, last night had Tinchy Stryder and and recently they've had Dappy, Labrinth, Matt Cardle and One Direction in Manchester - and while I'm not sure how recent some of these are, I've found pics of Jessie J, Cee-Lo Green, Pixie Lott and Olly Murs at the In Demand studio in Manchester. All of these big names in music currently. (In Demand's biggest get recently was Britney Spears, but I'm not sure whether that interview was conducted in Manchester or not)

Getting this back to the BBC this proves again that guests will travel to Manchester and that Breakfast and 5 Live should be able to get suitable guests into their Manchester studios. Not all those I've listed are a-listers, but then again Breakfast isn't all A-listers currently. Guests like Matt Cardle and Pixie Lott would be fine for Breakfast

But this is just plain wrong, regardless of what opinions you have on the move itself, to claim only those outlets exist in Manchester is plain wrong.

A day of promo could easily go BBC Breakfast, BBC 5 Live, BBC 6 Music (Radcliffe and Maconie), CBBC, Key 103, Smooth Radio (National), In:Demand across much of the North's biggest radio stations.

Then you'll soon have a regional BBC programme for the whole North West too.

You can easily reach as many people being based in Manchester for a day as you can London. Of course it's a fallacy to say that people appear on The One Show, Radio1, Radio2, Daybreak, T4, MTV News, Capital Radio, The Wright Stuff, Loose Women, OK!TV, This Morning in a single day anyway.

The oft-cited big American stars who are here for a day tend to just do press junkets at a hotel so aren't in the studio anyway while politicians are largely down the line from Millbank.

Is the 'modern day' Capital FM the same as was it used to be/people expect it to be?

Living in the Midlands, I'd always assumed that Capital was basically the equivalent to Birmingham's BRMB, it played the latest hits.

Nowadays to me, Capital means a rebranded Kiss (or whatever it was called before here in the Midlands?)!

It seems to me, with all of the changes of ownership/rebrands etc, none of the commercial stations are what they used to be!

From reading various things over the years, the big Manchester station was Piccadilly, then it got split into Key & Piccadilly Gold(?), again the equivalent to me would be 261 BRMB splitting into 96.4 BRMB & 1152 Xtra AM.

Ha ha, did he really say that!?

How are you defining 'biggest'? Audience, share, profit? I'd have thought that Classic FM would be the 'biggest' if there is such an acolade

Kiss, Heart, Capital and to a lesser extent Magic are very different to BRMB, they are all quasi-national networks rather than local stations.

What is the most popular station in Birmingham by the way, presumably their local version of Heart ?

Yeah microchips!

You are right though, although the other factor is that when it (and this goes for all the other big ITV centres) was built it was the HQ of a company. Therefore the building had room for all sorts of backroom functions that just aren't need as much now it's just a branch of a bigger organisation.

Which is curious given this half-baked DQF idea of BBC Three being a feeder for BBC One, surely having both channels' commissioning in one location would make that work better?

All I'd imagine. Yes, I was disregarding the national stations.
I was referring to the London variants.
By far. I think Capital Birmingham is knocking on the door or even beating BRMB now, even with a slightly smaller TSA. Kerrang might be bigger in terms of reach as well.

Things with Capital is that the same music output is shared amongst stations with different licenses. London has a chart music license, but a lot of the ex-Galaxy stations are rythmic music and the Birmingham license is even less chart-orientated. This is why Capital is very RnB dominated, as it satisfies all of the licenses.

What they will do if/when RnB becomes less popular will be interesting to see. If Rock music became popular they would be expected to play it in London and on their chart-music licenses, but not, apart from in very small amounts, on their ex-Galaxy stations

I hope you got the tongue in cheek, as it was meant to be - like Inspector Sands did

Yes, Capital Birmingham as is now was originally licensed as the 'black music' community station Choice FM, it then became Galaxy and then Capital. It is one of those odd situations in the Midlands caused by the merger that formed Global Radio - BRMB was effectively Capital's Birmingham outlet for years and had to be sold, so Capital was put onto another frequency. Similar happened over in Nottingham where their 'heritage' ILR station became Capital and their original Heart was sold.

It's almost like the US way of doing things - there TV stations occasionally switch networks. One week they'll show ABC programmes and the next pop up as a Fox outlet whereas the one down the road will suddenly start showing ABC programmes