Brit Awards 2026 heads to Manchester as broadcasters mount live red‑carpet push
Manchester will host the brit awards 2026 ceremony on Saturday, marking the first time the event has been held outside London. The move arrives amid a coordinated plan for extensive live and social coverage from national broadcast teams and sustained local interest in Greater Manchester’s long record at the awards.
Manchester's first outside‑London staging and four decades of regional winners
Organisers say this will be the first time the ceremony has been held outside London. Artists from Manchester and the wider Greater Manchester region have been winning the awards' statues for four decades, a legacy organisers and local audiences are foregrounding as the city hosts the weekend.
Organisers invited local input with a call to "Tell us which stories we should cover in Greater Manchester" and encouraged listeners to contact newsroom staff by sending story ideas to 0808 100 2230. They also highlighted a local radio service and social channels as outlets for coverage and features linked to the ceremony.
Brit Awards 2026: coordinated live, red‑carpet and backstage coverage
A coordinated push across a national radio and digital group will place presenters at the centre of the night’s coverage, with live broadcasts planned from the red carpet to capture nominees and winners as they arrive and to record reaction throughout the evening. Presenters are scheduled to report from backstage and the winners' room, and short‑form content will be shared across social platforms and video channels.
That push is built around live red‑carpet interviews, backstage reporting and real‑time reaction across radio, social and digital channels, with dedicated teams focusing on arrival interviews and winners' responses throughout the night.
Longstanding category sponsorship and show scheduling in Manchester
A long‑standing sponsorship of the Song of the Year category will continue into this year’s ceremony, remaining in place for nearly two decades. As part of the build‑up, a flagship presenter will host a Saturday morning show from 9am to 12pm live from Manchester while the group’s showbiz team reports from the arena. The broadcast follows a branded week of build‑up promoted as a "Winning Weekend" tied to the ceremony.
Red carpet shifts into daytime and after‑party coverage
A showbiz correspondent is scheduled to report live from the red carpet on Saturday afternoon, then return with backstage stories and coverage of the after‑parties on the following Monday breakfast programme. Another channel within the same group will concentrate on red‑carpet and backstage interviews, while a retrospective music programme will air a "Best of the BRITs" slot on the Friday before the ceremony, revisiting previous performances and winners from past years.
Executive comment and wider industry updates around the ceremony
James Rea, the group’s chief broadcasting and content officer, said the BRIT Awards is one of the biggest nights in music and that the organisation would make sure audiences could experience every minute of the event. The wider industry calendar and station news items arriving alongside the ceremony this week include a new real‑time whodunit podcast launched by two presenters, a major summer festival moving to Stirling in Scotland for 2026, and one station announcing a full lineup of awards nominees for 2026.
Other sector developments mentioned in the same coverage stream include a rebrand of a national radio academy and appointment of a new chair, a commercial broadcaster taking ceremony coverage across Europe, and a regulator moving to require stations to create local news locally. Separate station updates note a weekday breakfast appointment, a DAB+ expansion on a regional service, and the exit of a station chief following expansion.
Local and national headlines framing the weekend
Local and national headlines around the ceremony reflect broader news: a popular detective character will exit a drama in a major kidnap twist; a convicted attacker who once punched an MP has returned to custody after another violent incident; Prestwich faces fears of becoming a "ghost town" as it endures 8 more weeks of crippling road closures; and a councillor has spoken about a four‑year hate campaign amid abuse directed at local leaders.
Other items running in the same news briefing include a presenter seeking heart‑warming stories from Bolton for a programme feature, a regular comedian from a topical panel show heading to a Warrington venue, a party leader vowing to fight on after a historic Green by‑election win, and commentary that the Green victory shows insurgent parties are here to stay. International and political headlines cited include testimony about a photograph involving a former president, anxious days in Iran as speculation grows of US strikes, analysis of how Hollywood and a political movement aligned over a studio deal, and a political scientist saying that a Green win makes the future of British politics more uncertain. The briefing also included an explainer question on tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
