The Coronation Street tour drew 5.25M fans — Granada shut it anyway

Granada Studios Tour opened in Manchester in July 1988, next door to the television studios that made Coronation Street. Fans could walk the cobbles of the actual exterior set, drink in a replica Rovers Return, and later ride the MotionMaster simulator and the Skytrak flying coaster. In its first eight months it drew 600,000 visitors, and more than 5 million came in total.

By the mid-1990s the crowds were sliding — around 780,000 a year in 1996, falling fast after that. The Skytrak coaster, opened in October 1997, was shut within a year over reliability problems, and the complex grew tired. In December 1999 the tour stopped admitting the public at all, running only for pre-booked groups.

On 18 January 2001 Granada Media announced the attraction would close for good at the end of February, with the loss of 38 jobs, after a year-long review: it was no longer appealing enough in a fiercely competitive market and did not fit the company's core media business. Granada's money and attention had moved to ONdigital, the digital TV venture that would soon collapse in its own right. The site was cleared to extend Coronation Street's filming set.