Granada Television
Granada Television was the
British ITV (commercial television) contractor for the "North of England" weekday franchise from
1954 (broadcasting began on
May 3,
1956) until
1968, and for the "Northwest England" all-week franchise from 1968. Granada was the only one of the original four
ITA franchisees from 1954 which survived as a franchise holder into the twenty-first century, until the merger of its parent company,
Granada plc in
2004 into
ITV plc. It had a strong reputation (along with
Thames Television) of providing public-service programmes for ITV mixing drama, comedy and current affairs.
In the 1930s, Cecil and Sidney Bernstein created a cinema chain in the south of England which, in the contemporary fashion for "exotic" names, they called
Granada Theatres Limited. Some twenty years later like e.g. the
Associated British Picture Corporation, with the dawn of commercial television the Bernsteins decided to be involved in the new industry which was a great competitor to the cinema chains, and since their chain was strongest in the south of England the Bernsteins applied for the franchise for the north of England, in order to minimise competition between their two enterprises. With some eighteen months between the awarding of their franchise and the start of transmission, Granada built a brand new studio centre in
Manchester and determined to develop a strong Northern identity for themselves — Northern voices, Northern programmes, Northern idents ("From The North — Granada", and "Granadaland").
This was counter to the practice of the other franchisees, who adopted fairly nondescript names such as
Associated British Corporation,
Associated TeleVision, and
Associated-Rediffusion, which did not have regional associations so that they could easily move their franchises to other parts of the country — if they did well, in the future the ITA might reward them with a plum London franchise, on the other hand if they did badly they might be cast into the outer darkness of the Channel Islands franchise or lose their franchise altogether. The Northern identity immediately set Granada apart, making them immovable and embedding the company into the psyche of its viewers — so much so that the term "Granada" to this day instantly means Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and Cheshire to many older viewers.
|
The Granada Television studios on Quay Street in Manchester, in the 1950s. |
Granada's policy of regional identification was successful, and the ITA decided that
all franchise contractors, large or small, should identify with their regions in this way — this was a problem which was to dog ATV for the rest of its existence and be the direct cause of the company's demise.
The culture of Granada was distinctly more Socialist than the more conservative (in all senses of the word) companies further south. The company produced gritty dramas and hard-hitting documentaries, such as
World in Action and
Seven-Up.
Jeremy Isaacs worked as a Producer at Granada from 1958 and was involved with developing a significant portion of the Channel's factual programming. The classic soap opera
Coronation Street which started a 13-week, two episodes a week run on
9 December 1960, is still producing five episodes a week in 2006.
In 1968 it set up a unique experiment employing actors to work in television and theatre on the same contract - the Stables Theatre Company directed by
Gordon McDougall.
Granada did not produce light entertainment extravaganzas of its own, but was quite happy to transmit those produced by its co-franchisees, but by the mid-1970s it was producing programmes for an international audience, such as
Laurence Olivier Presents (1976-78),
Brideshead Revisited (1981), and from 1984
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Also in 1984 came the dramatisation of
The Jewel in the Crown. The productions of
Brideshead and
Jewel were well received at the time, but coincided with the BBCs disastrous
The Borgias and the screening of the American adaptation of
The Thorn Birds in each instance, giving the commercial channel a certain glow in the Thatcher era over its public funded rival.
Another of its flagship programmes was the long-running
quiz show,
University Challenge — the name and format of which were eventually taken over by the
BBC in the
1990s, although still produced by Granada today.
Granada Television were very protective of their name and 1972, when the
Ford Granada car was released by Ford of Great Britain, Granada threatened legal action against Ford but later backed down.
In 1968, Granada's contract was changed from weekdays across the whole "north of England" region (Lancashire and Yorkshire) to one covering the whole week in Lancashire alone. Granada had little difficulty in retaining its franchise in the 1981 round, and, despite bidding significantly less than its rivals, survived the 1991 round by virtue of the "quality threshold" applied by the regulator. (Granada had been out-bid for their franchise by rivals
Mersey Television, but the other company was not granted the licence as their package was not deemed to meet the required quality threshold)
By the late 1980s it was thought that the UK commercial broadcasters were too small to be able to compete in the world television market - a problem exacerbated by the
1990 Broadcasting Act which instigated quotas on independent programming, removed the ITV's advertising monopoly and instigated the expensive auction process of the 1991 franchise round.
The Conservative government responded by relaxing the regulatory regime, so that
ITV contractors could take each other over, and Granada responded by going on an acquisition spree which resulted in Granada establishing an effective duopoly of ITV with
Carlton Television, excepting only the small franchises in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Channel Islands.
In the late 90s, Granada went through a significant period of expansion and subsequent contraction, as several of the company's side ventures were sold or closed. This included the ill-fated 'G-Wizz' service in 2000, offering Internet access and high-quality content. Several of Granada's programmes also ran their websites through G-Wizz, including This Morning, Coronation Street and Emmerdale. Unfortunately, the
Flash-heavy pages were largely unusable by their subscribers, who were largely modem-based, and take-up was low. Less then a year after it opened, Granada closed G-Wizz in March 2001, after costing the company £9 million.
In
1996 Granada teamed up with
BSkyB to form a joint venture
Granada Sky Broadcasting to provide content and new channels to the satellite platform.
Granada Breeze, the daytime lifestyle channel, was broadcast from a custom-built conservatory studio in the grounds of the existing studios, but was the first channel to disappear, closing in
2002.
Granada Plus (a channel devoted to showing Granada's back catalogue of TV programmes, including classic episodes of their most popular show,
Coronation Street) was first retitled 'Plus', and then eventually turned into
ITV3 with just minutes' notice to staff in
November 2004. Only the male-oriented channel,
Men & Motors, which is now fully owned by ITV, remains from the now ceased relationship.
Channels
Granada Plus
Owned by GSB, 50% owned by Granada, the channel was later known as G Plus and finally simply Plus, this channel showed archive programmes. It was closed to make way for ITV3.
Granada Breeze
Launched as Granada Good Life, Granada Breeze was owned by GSB, 50% owned by Granada, this channel was aimed at women and was a lifestyle channel aimed at female viewers and showed programmes on lifestyle, cookery, health and US daytime television such as Judge Joe Brown.
Granada Talk TV
Another GSB channel, this one focusing on chatshows. It closed after less that a year on air.
Shop!
Wellbeing
From
1997 until
2002 Granada and Carlton invested and lost over £1,000,000,000 over their joint venture into
pay-TV digital terrestrial broadcasting,
ONdigital, which was rebranded as ITV Digital in the summer of 2001, to the fury of
Scottish Television,
Ulster Television, and
Channel Television which attempted to block the renaming on the grounds that it would damage the ITV brand. The competition offered by the new Sky Digital service, launched in 1998, was too great an obstacle for the service to overcome and, inevitably, ITV Digital ceased broadcasting on
May 1,
2002.
Later in 2002, talks on a proposed merger between Granada and Carlton were broken off after a failure to agree terms.
On
October 28,
2002, and in accordance with a network-wide relaunch, Granada Television was rebranded on air to ITV1 Granada. The Granada name is now only seen before regional programmes, the rest of the time the only brand shown is ITV1. Since this rebrand, all continuity announcements have been made from London including regional announcements, as is now the case for all English ITV stations. The Granada logo still appeared at the end of its own programmes until
31 October 2004.
Towards the end of 2003, Granada plc was given the green light by the UK government to merge with its main ITV partner, Carlton. On
February 2,
2004, this merger took place, with the new company being called
ITV plc. Subsequently, from
1 November, 2004, Granada Television productions became known as "Granada Manchester". This new company owns all the
ITV franchises in England and Wales.
Following this merger, there are now plans to sell off most of the Quay Street complex in
Manchester, with the remaining staff, studios and offices moving into the large bonded warehouse on the site, which, from
1988 to
1999, housed the
Granada Studios Tour. In 2005, they sold
Tyne Tees Television's studios on City Road in
Newcastle upon Tyne.
Notably, the Granada studio complex at Quay Street still, as of
2005, has the original signage that was fitted when it was opened in the mid-1950s, despite the logo change and rebrands that have taken place.
On
September 21,
2005, it was announced by ITV that Granada's name would no longer appear at the end of programmes made for the network, the in-house production arm being renamed '
ITV Productions'. This change came about on
January 16,
2006, coinciding with a relaunch of ITV's on-screen graphics. Granada's name and logo continue to be used at the end of programmes made for other networks, such as
University Challenge on
BBC Two and old programmes shown on Sky One, Two and Three. The credits for Granada TV productions (programmes like
Stars In Their Eyes) still carry the copyright line:
Copyright, 2006 Granada Television in their end credits.
The Adventures of Sherlock HolmesAll Our YesterdaysBrideshead RevisitedChildren's WardCoronation StreetCrackerThe DustbinmenFamiliesJeeves and WoosterThe Jeremy Kyle Show
*The Jewel in the Crown
*The Krypton Factor
*Living with Michael Jackson
*The Lovers
*The Royle Family
*Seven Up! and sequels every seven years
*So It Goes
*Stars in Their Eyes
*This Morning
*University Challenge
*Watching
*What the Papers Say
*World in Action
*You've Been Framed
*Runway
*Starstrider
*Tickle On The Tum
*Alphabet Zoo
*The Sensible Show
*The Fame Game
*Remote Control (A Co-production with Action Time for Channel 4)
*Prime Suspect
*Connections''
*
Granada Productions*
Granada plc*
itv.com - ITV Granada*
ITV plc, the company currently merged with Granada TV
*
Examination of Granada's branding from Ident by Transdiffusion
*
Original Granada animated logo, 1956, from 625.uk.com (requires
Macromedia Flash).
*
Animated Granada logo, early 1960s, from 625.uk.com
*
Granada Television at TV Ark
