North West

The North West television region encompasses the former ITV franchise area that served Liverpool, Manchester, and the surrounding conurbations—an industrial heartland that defined 20th century British manufacturing. Granada Television, the franchise holder from 1954 until consolidation, became synonymous with northern identity through productions from Coronation Street to World in Action. The region's boundaries were drawn by transmitter coverage at Winter Hill, creating a media territory that grouped Lancashire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and parts of Cheshire and Derbyshire into a coherent audience. Unlike administrative regions, television regions followed electromagnetic logic: whoever could receive the signal was part of the community. The North West represents perhaps the UK's clearest example of post-industrial transformation. Manchester and Liverpool, once rivals in cotton and shipping respectively, now compete as cultural and service economy centers while legacy industrial towns in between—Bolton, Blackburn, Wigan—struggle to find new purposes. The 2019 'levelling up' agenda specifically targeted this region's disparities, acknowledging that London's growth came partly at the expense of northern productivity. MediaCityUK in Salford represents deliberate government intervention to relocate BBC production northward, a recognition that cultural infrastructure shapes economic geography. As a Google advertising targeting category, 'North West' persists because advertisers still segment audiences by regional identity. By 2026, whether investment in transport (HS2 controversies aside) and digital infrastructure actually closes the gap with London will determine if this region escapes its industrial decline narrative.