The Event
Event Programme
Panel
Video
Research Results
Recommendations
DLIB Actions
Event Sponsors
Delegates
Gallery

Anthony Wilson

Still working for Granada, after all these years; program credits include Granada Reports, Which Way, So it Goes, World In Action, Flying Start, Up Front, and The Other Side of Midnight. Independent work included being a founder-presenter of Channel 4’s legendary After Dark as well as fronting the award winning channel 4 documentary, The Amber Room. Working as a TV journalist in the arts field led to putting a variety of bands on television for the first time from the Sex Pistols to Dire Straits, from Blondie to the Stone Roses. More recently he gave Steps their first outing but that probably doesn’t count. This in turn led to Wilson inducing a group of friends into, first, running a venue, The Factory, in Manchester’s Hulme, then a record label, Factory Records which released its first records in January, 1979. He was then persuaded by the same partners to open a nightclub, the Hacienda in 1982 and finally the first of the UK’s designer bars, Dry in Manchester’s Northern Quarter in 1986. The Factory label was described on its deathbed in 1992 as the coolest label in the world; it had launched half a dozen platinum artists but was most famous for its two great bands, Joy Division/New Order and The Happy Mondays as well as a fastidious approach to design and a resolute northern independence. In the early 90’s, Wilson helped his partner Yvette Livesey establish ‘In The City’, the UK’s annual music industry convention and more recently the spin-off e-commerce conference, Interactive City and In The City Live, the biggest urban music festival in Europe taking over large parts of the centre of manchester. In April, 2002, “24 hour party people” a movie by Michael Winterbottom and Frank Cottrell-boyce about the story of factory records and the hacienda opened in the UK. Wilson, an associate producer on the film, was played by the respected English comedian Steve Coogan. In 2004, Wilson hosts the sports talk show, “Sport Exchange”, for Granada, having just completed the six part series, “workshop of the World” on the history of the industrial revolution in the North West.

Back

Print this Page
Send to a Friend
Bookmark Page
Subscribe to Newsletter

Design by TM3
All information © Downtown Liverpool In Business 2005 - Disclaimer