Piccadilly Gold was the AM service of Piccadilly Radio after the 1988 split, playing golden oldies on 1152 AM in Manchester. It was later renamed Piccadilly 1152 and Magic 1152, then Key 2, Key Radio and Greatest Hits Radio Manchester, and the 1152 AM signal was switched off on 26 April 2021.
Where Piccadilly Gold came from
Piccadilly Radio went on air at 5am on Tuesday 2 April 1974 on 261 metres medium wave, with an FM service alongside it. On Saturday 3 September 1988 the two were split. The FM frequency became Key 103, a contemporary music station. The AM service carried on as Piccadilly, and took a golden-oldies format, which is where the name Piccadilly Gold comes from.
Its home was medium wave. The signal began on 1151 kHz and moved to 1152 kHz on 23 November 1978 under an international frequency plan, which is why people remember it as “Piccadilly 1152”.
The names, in order
- Piccadilly Gold: the AM service after the 1988 split
- Piccadilly 1152: from the mid-1990s, as the music moved from golden oldies towards classic and easy-listening hits
- Magic 1152: around 1999 to 2000 under EMAP, to match its Magic stations elsewhere. Sources differ on the exact year
- Key 2 (2015), then Key Radio
- Greatest Hits Radio Manchester & The North West (2019), after Bauer’s rebrand
The exact dates of the early name changes are not firmly documented, so we have only given years where the sources agree. If you remember when the name changed on air, tell us.
When 1152 AM went quiet
In February 2021 Bauer announced it would close the medium-wave services in Manchester (1152 kHz) and Lancashire (999 kHz), saying most listeners had moved to FM and digital. AM output ended on 26 April 2021, with a retune message played for a few days afterwards. Greatest Hits Radio still reaches Greater Manchester on FM and digital.
Is Piccadilly Gold the same as Key 103?
No, and the two are often confused. Key 103 took the FM half of the 1988 split and is now Hits Radio Manchester. Piccadilly Gold took the AM half and is now Greatest Hits Radio. They share a parent, not a name. For the FM side, read what Key 103 is called now.
Hear the sound again
Piccadilly Radio 261 is an independent, non-profit heritage project. We are not the original station and not connected to Bauer, and we say so plainly. Our Piccadilly Gold channel is built around the sound that name stood for, free to listen, 24 hours a day. For the whole story from 1974, read what happened to Piccadilly Radio.
Sources
Drawn from publicly documented radio history, including Wikipedia’s article on Greatest Hits Radio Manchester & The North West, Bauer’s announcement about its medium-frequency changes and Radio Today’s coverage of the AM closures. If you worked at Piccadilly and something here is wrong, please tell us and we will put it right.