Paul Morley (born 26 March 1957 in Stockport, Cheshire, England) is an English journalist, who wrote for the New Musical Express from 1977 to 1983, during one of its most successful periods, and has since written for a wide range of publications. He has also has been a band manager and promoter, as well as a television presenter.

Morley was educated at Stockport Grammar School, a co-educational from 1980 independent school (at the time of his education, a partly fee-paying direct grant grammar school), in the town of Stockport in Greater Manchester (at the time in Cheshire), followed by the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Morley is credited with steering the marketing and promotion of the phenomenal early success of ZTT's biggest act, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Although it has never been confirmed, it is generally accepted that it was Morley who authored the provocative slogans on the band's T-shirts (e.g. "Frankie Say Arm The Unemployed", "Frankie Say War! Hide Yourself").

For a period of time, Morley produced and managed Manchester punk band The Drones. However, Morley first came to wider attention with a brief appearance in the video for ABC's "The Look of Love" (in which he mimes the words "what's that?" in a call-and-response routine with singer Martin Fry), but he achieved genuine notoriety as co-founder, with Trevor Horn, of ZTT Records, and electronic group Art of Noise.

Janice Long (born 5 April 1955) is an English radio broadcaster currently working on BBC Radio 2. Her show is on Sunday to Thursday nights from midnight to 02:00. She is the older sister of TV and radio personality Keith Chegwin.

Following a career in the airline business, Long became a station assistant at BBC Radio Merseyside in Liverpool. She started presenting shows for the station shortly thereafter. After interviewing Paul Gambaccini, the latter recommended her to Radio 1.

Janice joined Radio 1 in December 1982 with her own Saturday evening show from 7:30 to 10 pm. From 1984 to 1987 she presented the Monday – Thursday Janice Long Show from 7.30-10pm, a mix of new music and current affairs, and record review programme Singled Out on Friday evenings from 5.45-7pm. On television, Long was a regular presenter of the BBC One chart show Top of the Pops between December 1982 and August 1988, and she returned to co-present its final show in July 2006.

In 1989, she joined London station BBC GLR, taking over from Nick Abbot on the breakfast show. At the time, GLR was being run by future Radio 1 controller Matthew Bannister and future Radio 1 executive Trevor Dann. In 1991, Long left the breakfast show of her own volition but continued to work for the station, where she took over a weekend show. In addition to this, she was heard presenting and producing occasional shows on the old BBC Radio 5. Long became involved with XFM in London, when it had a restricted service licence, and played a crucial part in its bid for a permanent licence.

Simon Armitage CBE (born 26 May 1963, Huddersfield) is a British poet, playwright, and novelist.

Simon Armitage was born in Marsden, West Yorkshire. Armitage first studied at Colne Valley High School, Linthwaite, Huddersfield and went on to study geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic. He was a post-graduate student at Manchester University where his MA thesis concerned the effects of television violence on young offenders. Until 1994 he worked as Probation Officer in Greater Manchester. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters in 1996 from the University of Portsmouth. He then lectured on creative writing at the University of Leeds, the University of Iowa and the Manchester Metropolitan University. In February 2011 he took up the position as Professor of Poetry at the University of Sheffield.

He lives in West Yorkshire.

Armitage's poetry collections include Book of Matches (1993) and The Dead Sea Poems (1995). He has written two novels, Little Green Man (2001) and The White Stuff (2004), as well as All Points North (1998), a collection of essays on the north of England. He produced a dramatised version of Homer's Odyssey and a collection of poetry entitled Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus The Corduroy Kid (which was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize), both of which were published in July 2006. Many of Armitage's poems appear in the AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) GCSE syllabus for English Literature in the United Kingdom. These include "Homecoming", "November", "Kid", "Hitcher", and a selection of poems from Book of Matches, most notably of these "Mother any distance...". His writing is characterised by a dry Yorkshire wit combined with "an accessible, realist style and critical seriousness."

Peter Alan Waterman OBE (born 15 January 1947) is an English record producer, occasional songwriter, radio and club DJ, television presenter, president of Coventry Bears rugby league club and a keen railway enthusiast. As a member of the Stock Aitken Waterman songwriting team he wrote and produced many hit singles. He is the owner of significant collections of both historic and commercial railway locomotives and rolling stock, a passion and expensive hobby made possible by the commercial success of the acts he signed.

Born in Stoke Heath, Coventry, Warwickshire, Waterman had left Whitley Abbey Comprehensive School (now rebuilt and called Whitley Abbey Community School) to work at a railway depot. After closure of the depot, Waterman chose to follow a career in music, being inspired by The Beatles. To supplement his income as a DJ, Waterman became a gravedigger and then an apprentice at General Electric Company, becoming a trade union official.

Building a record collection through rare US imports, his DJ work began to take him across the UK, entertaining bigger crowds with a blend of rhythm and blues and soul music tunes he had sourced. Given a residency with the Mecca Leisure Group, he developed new initiatives including matinée discos for under 18s at Coventry’s Locarno club, which gave him a valuable insight into what music interested a younger audience. Waterman noticed that the younger dancers preferred records with high beats per minutes and this influenced his later work. It was at the Locarno that Waterman first met Neville Staple, later to be a vocalist for The Specials - a band that Waterman would manage for a brief period. In early 2009, Waterman wrote the foreword to Neville's biography "Original Rude Boy", which was published by Aurum Press in May 2009.

Anthony Howard Wilson known as Tony Wilson (20 February 1950 – 10 August 2007), was an English record label owner, radio presenter, TV show host, nightclub manager, impresario and journalist for Granada Television and the BBC.

Wilson was the music mogul behind some of Manchester's most successful bands. He was the founder and manager of The Haçienda nightclub, and was one of the five co-founders of Factory Records (Joy Division's label). Wilson was also known as Mr. Manchester, dubbed as such for his work in promoting the greater cultural status of Manchester throughout his career. He was portrayed by actor Steve Coogan in Michael Winterbottom's 2002 film 24 Hour Party People, and by Craig Parkinson in Anton Corbijn's 2007 film Control.

Wilson was born 20 February 1950 in Hope Hospital, Salford, Lancashire to Sydney Wilson and Doris Knupfer (who was 20 years her husband's senior), and moved to Marple, Stockport at the age of 5. His maternal grandfather was German. After passing his Eleven plus exam, Wilson attended the De La Salle Grammar School in Weaste Lane, Pendleton, Salford. He developed a love of literature and language, ignited by a performance of Hamlet at Stratford upon Avon. Wilson started his professional career in 1968 at the age of 17, working as an English and Drama teacher at Blue Coat School in Oldham. He later graduated with a degree in English from Jesus College, Cambridge.