Strangeways Brewery is believed to have been founded in 1778. It was set up by grain merchants called Thomas Caister and Thomas Fray. They built the brewery just outside the boundaries of Manchester in order to avoid paying a tax to the Manchester Grammar School, which had a monopoly on the grinding of grain within the town. The brewery was established on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, when the growth in population and industry created a ready market for locally brewed beer. Henry Boddington arrived at the brewery in 1832 to work as a traveller for the company. In 1848, when Henry was only 34 years old, he was made a partner in the business. Within five years he had become sole proprietor of the company. Boddingtons became a family business, as three of Henry’s sons joined their father in the management of the brewery. The 1870s and 1880s was a time of expansion for Boddingtons. The company acquired several other breweries and extended the works at Strangeways. By 1877, Boddingtons had become the biggest brewery in Manchester. It was one of only 30 companies in the country to brew more than 100,000 barrels a year and already owned 71 public houses. Henry Boddington delighted in innovation and progress. In 1877, the local and national press reported that his company had become the first business in Manchester to install a telephone link between two of its sites. In 1887, Boddingtons Breweries Ltd became a publicly registered company. In the following years, despite trade fluctuations caused by the First World War and the Great Depression, the company consolidated its position as one of the leading breweries in North West England. On the 22 December 1940, the brewery was struck when Manchester was hit by a massive air raid. The site was very badly damaged and brewing was forced to stop for seven months whilst repairs were made. After the war, the Boddingtons took the opportunity to modernise the brewery, embarking on a major construction programme. The Strangeways Brewery was once again expanded and state-of-the-art brewing equipment was installed. In the post-war period, Boddingtons fought off several attempts to take over the brewery. Members of the family continued to run the business until 1989. In October of that year, the brewing section of the business was purchased by the Whitbread Beer Company. Under Whitbread, large-scale investment in the Strangeways site allowed Boddingtons to increase production from 200,000 to 600,000 barrels in 1994. The connection with Whitbread gave Boddingtons access to a national distribution network that included 7,000 pubs. This was also supported by the famous ‘Cream of Manchester’ advertising campaign, which helped to catapult Boddingtons into the national arena as an instantly recognisable and well-loved brand. The brewing section of Whitbread’s business was bought out by InterBrew UK (now InBev) in 2000. Two years later, the company was forced to put off plans to close the Strangeways Brewery following a concerted campaign by local people. However, in 2005, the decision was finally taken to close the Strangeways site after 227 years. Production of keg beer was switched to InBev’s other sites in Salmesbury, near Preston, and Magor, South Wales. Boddingtons beer was brewed under licence at Hyde’s brewery, Moss Side, but this brewery closed in 2012 meaning that Boddington’s beer is no longer brewed in Manchester.

Whitbread & Co. was founded in 1742 by Samuel Whitbread and Godfrey and Thomas Shewell. They acquired breweries at Old Street and Brick Lane in London, later acquiring the Chiswell Street brewery in 1750. In 1761, Whitbread acquired Shewell's share of the business for £30,000. The company adopted the name Whitbread & Co Ltd in 1799. In 2001, Whitbread Group Plc sold all its breweries and brewing interests to to Interbrew, which later became AB InBev. Its pub estate was sold to Enterprise Inns in 2002. Whitbread Group Plc continues to hold interests in the leisure and hospitality industry.

Advertising and marketing agency founded in London in 1982.

The BBC is the world's largest public broadcasting organisation. It was established in 1922 by the General Post Office as the British Broadcasting Company. John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. The company was initially financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers. In 1923, the BBC introduced a licence fee of 10 shillings. In 1926, following the Government's acceptance of the recommendation made by the Crawford Committee (1925–26) that the British Broadcasting Company be replaced by a non-commercial, Crown-chartered organisation, it became the British Broadcasting Corporation. The British Broadcasting Corporation came into existence on 1 January 1927, and Reith – newly knighted – was appointed its first Director General. Experimental television broadcasts were started in 1932, using an electromechanical 30-line system developed by John Logie Baird. Limited regular broadcasts using this system began in 1934, and an expanded service (now named the BBC Television Service) started from Alexandra Palace in 1936, alternating between an improved Baird mechanical 240 line system and the all electronic 405 line Marconi-EMI system. The superiority of the electronic system saw the mechanical system dropped early the following year. Television broadcasting was suspended from 1 September 1939 to 7 June 1946, during the Second World War. The BBC moved much of its radio operations out of London, initially to Bristol, and then to Bedford. In the late 1960s the BBC reorganised and renamed their radio channels. On 30 September 1967, the Light Programme was split into Radio 1 offering continuous "Popular" music and Radio 2 more "Easy Listening". The "Third" programme became Radio 3 offering classical music and cultural programming. The Home Service became Radio 4 offering news, and non-musical content such as quiz shows, readings, dramas and plays. As well as the four national channels, a series of local BBC radio stations were established in 1967, including Radio London. In 1969, the BBC Enterprises department was formed to exploit BBC brands and programmes for commercial spin-off products. In 1979, it became a wholly owned limited company, BBC Enterprises Ltd. In 1974, the BBC's teletext service, Ceefax, was introduced, created initially to provide subtitling, but developed into a news and information service. In 1988 the BBC sold off the Hulton Press Library, a photographic archive which had been acquired from the Picture Post magazine by the BBC in 1957. The archive was sold to Brian Deutsch and is now owned by Getty Images. BBC Enterprises was reorganised and relaunched in 1995, as BBC Worldwide Ltd. In 1998, BBC studios, outside broadcasts, post production, design, costumes and wigs were spun off into BBC Resources Ltd. In 1990 Radio 5 was launched as a sports and educational station, but was replaced in 1994, with Radio 5 Live. In 1997, BBC News 24, a rolling news channel, launched on digital television services and the following year, BBC Choice launched as the third general entertainment channel from the BBC. The BBC also purchased The Parliamentary Channel, which was renamed BBC Parliament. In 1999, BBC Knowledge launched as a multi media channel, with services available on the newly launched BBC Text digital teletext service, and on BBC Online. In 2002, several television and radio channels were reorganised. BBC Knowledge was replaced by BBC Four and became the BBC's arts and documentaries channel. CBBC, which had been a programming strand as Children's BBC since 1985, was split into CBBC and CBeebies, for younger children, with both new services getting a digital channel: the CBBC Channel and CBeebies Channel. In addition to the television channels, new digital radio stations were created: 1Xtra, 6 Music and BBC7. BBC 1Xtra was a sister station to Radio 1 and specialised in modern black music, BBC 6 Music specialised in alternative music genres and BBC7 specialised in archive, speech and children's programming. In 2003, BBC Choice was replaced by BBC Three, with programming for younger generations and shocking real life documentaries, BBC News 24 became the BBC News Channel in 2008, and BBC Radio 7 became BBC Radio 4 Extra in 2011, with new programmes to supplement those broadcast on Radio 4. In 2008, another channel was launched, BBC Alba, a Scottish Gaelic service.