Local TV

London Live are in a similar position, but unlike Channel M, there is rivalry between the LL and Standard newsrooms with very little sharing of resources, bar the occasional journalist popping up on their 'news' programmes in the early days.

The Standard would stop LL from outscooping the newspaper. LL's news operation could have been decent if they hubbed the tv and newspaper newsroom with sharing of copy.

That’s right, the G-MAN MUX didn’t appear until after DSO. By this point Channel M was down to an afternoon news magazine only, and the damage had been done. They stopped all live local output by the end of 2010, before disappearing all together by around 2012. The G-MAN MUX is still on the air, I couldn’t tell you exactly what the channel line up is on it now, but it seems to be more for Sony’s channels.

I think if they had got themselves onto Freeview when they had got themselves onto NTL and Sky, I think they really could have been a success.

They had a weekly Manchester City magazine (pre-Abu Dhabi owned days) that was quite successful. The channel really could have played to Manchester’s strengths in Sport, Music and Culture.

I do remember watching Channel M on Sky (down here in Hampshire) Was I watching it via Manual Tuning, or did it have a UK wide EPG slot, I can't remember ?

(It was indeed very watchable, even from 200 miles away !)

I remember Andy Crane on Channel M as well.

Urbis (site of Channel M's studio) was an oddity in itself - initially a rather ill-defined head-scratching "museum of the city", it flopped and slowly morphed into a fairly well-regarded contemporary arts space before shutting altogether. It was one of those strange and incredibly expensive regeneration projects conceived around the turn of the millennium, presumably during a particularly heavy session in one of Manchester's fancier nightspots. The building is now the successful National Football Museum.

Channel M was very much a product of its era in the recent history of Manchester. Its run from 2000 to 2010 (2012 on automation) pretty much precisely reflected a period in Manchester's development where New Labour held the reins both locally and nationally, the city's self-confidence was sky high, cranes (and not just Andy!) were everywhere, money was flying around for all sorts of projects and it felt like anything was possible. The financial crisis brought everything back down to earth and spelled the end for some of the more ambitious projects, including Channel M. Until Covid-19, it felt like Manchester was approaching a similar bubble once again.

I went to see one of the final exhibitions at Urbis before it closed - Manchester, Television & the City: Ghosts of Winter Hill.

I remember visiting that exhibition too, it was a strange layout as you had to start from the near top of the building downwards in order to see the exhibition in full.

After a spell off the terrestrial airwaves following digital switchover, Channel M was allocated Freeview channel 200. And they weren't happy about that, given at the time 200 was behind children's, news and adult channels.

The only way they could have secured a higher ranking slot is if they had stayed on and fought for a new style local TV licence.

Here's the TV Forum thread from the time https://tvforum.uk/tvhome/channel-m-is-it-all-over-30851/page-2

In the end, the G_MAN channels did get moved to the 50s, but it was already too late for Channel M.

Channel m also had a weekly rugby league magazine programme, Code 13. That once again emphasized the sports in Greater Manchester. It was the sort of programme that is distinctly lacking on sky sports.

I do wonder if channel m could have also expanded its footprint to cover Lancashire as well.

Talking of rugby Rugby AM seems to have outlived local TV programming and now airs on Freesports I believe having previously aired on I think the Made TV Network.

Local TV Limited (The former Made TV Channels) has obtained a regular Ofcom DTT licence for "Manchester TV". Might we see the channel go head-to-head with That's TV via the GMAN (ex Channel M) mux, but without the regulatory requirements of a L-DTPS licence?
http://static.ofcom.org.uk/static/radiolicensing/html/tv/cs/dtps103718ba1manchestertv.htm

From what I recall, Made TV did an excellent job covering the Manchester Arena terrorist attack despite not covering Manchester.