Designing a community inclusive Media City

Media City – the new northern home of the BBC, was designed as a partnership between universities and the local community in Salford. Part of its aim was to develop new futures for Salford and Greater Manchester. It uses distributed learning, alongside more traditional approaches, in what some call a media conversation. Media city will go beyond broadcast, it properly engages local communities through new forms of television. The approach of developing social and virtual networks, as well as physical ones were send as exemplary by the BBC when it decided to bring half it workforce to the North.

Physically, MediaCityUK is a 200-acre (81 ha) mixed-use property development site at Salford Quays on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford and Trafford, England. The project is being developed by Peel Media, and its principal tenants are media organisations and Salford University. The land occupied by the development was part of the Port of Manchester

Salford City Council developed and is fully supportive of the development of MediaCityUK. They see it as a fantastic opportunity to make a real difference for its communities, creating tangible opportunities for all its residents. Salford City Council has been involved in the development of the site from the start, developing its transport infrastructure from the very beginning to create an accessible investor, visitor and employee destination. In addition, we are using this exciting development as a catalyst to raise the profile of Salford, to raise aspirations and to create job opportunities for local residents.

The Manchester Metrolink was extended to MediaCityUK with the opening of the MediaCityUK Metrolink station on 20 September 2010 and further extensions are planned. Road access was improved by the construction of Broadway Link Road. So the new city is now connected both physically and virtuously in a powerful way

The BBC signalled its intention to move jobs to Manchester in 2004, and the Salford Quays site was chosen in 2006. The Peel Group was granted planning permission to develop the site in 2007, and construction of the development, with its own energy generation plant and communications network, began the same year. Based in Quay House, the principal tenant will be the BBC, whose move marks a large-scale decentralisation from London. BBC Children's, BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Research and BBC Sport are among the departments scheduled to relocate to the development. ITV's Granada division plan to move from their Granada Studios to MediaCityUK in 2012. The Studios on Broadway house seven high-definition studios, claimed to be the largest such facility in Europe.

MediaCityUK will also house one of the largest high definition studio facilities in Europe, featuring seven high definition television studios and two audio studios (one dedicated to the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra). The neighbouring Pie Factory is already a successful TV and commercial production site - recent productions include The Street, The Royle Family Christmas special and Paradox.

The University of Salford also has a major presence at MediaCityUK, with a brand new campus for more than 1500 students and staff. Specialist courses, designed in conjunction with the BBC, will equip students with the skills to help them access job opportunities on site.

Mobile phone users now have an enhanced view of the MediaCityUK website (http://www.mediacityuk.co.uk) on their handsets; after the Manchester-based agency, Drumbeat Creative, devised a mobile compatible site. The mobile site features distilled content from the main website, including news, commercial lettings opportunities and transport and travel details.

Paul Newman, Director of Communications, The Peel Group, said: “Our website has a rapidly-growing number of unique visitors per week, so we were keen to ensure these visitors could successfully access information about MediaCityUK on their handheld devices as efficiently as possible.  We are pleased with the cost-effective and user-friendly solution that Drumbeat has delivered. Andy Heggs, Creative Director, Drumbeat Creative, said: "The corporate site content has been tailored and restructured to appeal to a mobile audience. From the main site analytics, we  already knew the proportion of visitors accessing the site via mobile and the types of device used.  We could also map the pages they populated most frequently. This data has informed the direction of the mobile site design to ensure it feels like an intuitive user experience with a complementary look.”

Local other developments such as People Voice Media’s ‘Community Reporters programme is also turning the MediaCity into a place of two way communications where local residents of Salford have the opportunity of being part of a new media development and opening their views up to the world.