Piccadilly 90s plays the decade Manchester spent at the centre of British music. Madchester, Britpop, and the dance records that ran alongside them — free, around the clock, from anywhere.
Live now
Piccadilly 90s
Press play. No app, no sign-up, no advert before it starts. Find it at 91.9 on the tuner.
What it plays
The guitars and the beats side by side, the way they actually sounded on the radio at the time. Madchester and the bands that came out of it, the Britpop years in full, and the dance and club records that shared the same charts.
Manchester was not a bystander in the nineties. For a stretch of that decade the city set the agenda for the whole country, and this channel plays it as it was heard.
The Piccadilly name in the nineties
By the start of the decade the original station had already been split in two — Key 103 on FM and Piccadilly Gold on AM, both since 1988. The Piccadilly name gradually disappeared from the dial over the years that followed as the industry consolidated.
That disappearance is the reason this project exists. We have set out the full sequence on our what is Key 103 called now page.
Shows on this channel
Alongside the continuous stream we are building a set of recorded shows for this channel — properly put together, with a running order and continuity, rather than a playlist on shuffle. They will appear here as they are finished.
If you presented on Piccadilly, or you simply know this music better than most, we would like to hear from you.
What this is not
We should be clear, because it matters. This is not a recording of Piccadilly Radio, and we are not the original station. Piccadilly Radio 261 is an independent, non-profit heritage project with no connection to Bauer Media or any current rights-holder of the Piccadilly name.
The original station's archive is held by Manchester Central Library, and the Manchester Digital Music Archive has done a great deal to preserve it. If you want the genuine article, that is where it lives. What we can offer is the sound.
The rest of the network
Piccadilly 90s is one of six live channels, all free and all running around the clock:
- Piccadilly Radio 261 — the flagship stream, at 261 on the dial
- Piccadilly 261 Heritage — the 1974 sound, at 1152
- Piccadilly 80s — non-stop 1980s hits, at 88.8
- Piccadilly 90s — this channel
- Piccadilly Gold — timeless classics, at 95.5
- Piccadilly 103 — the FM years, at 103.0
Each one sits at its own position on the tuner on our Stations page. Slide the needle and it will find them.
Read the story behind it
We have written the history up properly rather than leaving it to a single page: what happened to Piccadilly Radio, what Key 103 is called now, and the presenters and DJs who passed through, from Chris Evans to Karl Pilkington.
And if you listened at the time, tell us what we should be playing. These channels get better the more people tell us what they remember.