Granada Television
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Based in | Manchester |
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| Broadcast area | North 1956-1968 North West England 1968- |
| Launched | May 3, 1956 |
 A Granada TV logo from the black and white era. |
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| Closed | Lost on-air identity, October 27, 2002,
Lost on-air identity before regional programming November 2006 (known verbally as ITV1 Granada before regional programming only) |
| Replaced | ABC Weekend TV on weekends from 1968 |
| Replaced by | Yorkshire Television in east of original region from 1968 |
| Website | itvregions.com/granada |
| Owned by | ITV plc |
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.
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[edit] Origins
In the 1930s, Cecil and Sidney Bernstein created a cinema chain in the south of England which they called Granada Theatres Limited, after a visit to the area of Granada in Spain by Cecil in 1926. He was so amazed by the beauty and mystery of the area that he chose the name for his cinema chain.
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. It is often mistakenly quoted that the London-based brothers picked the north of England after looking at two maps; one which showed greatest intensity of population and another which showed highest levels of rainfall on the basis that areas where it rained heavily would result in people having to stay indoors and watch television (indeed it was Sidney who started this rumour).
The truth was a little more mundane - the brothers wanted somewhere that would generate a strong regional identity. London was one option but they feared the quantity and quality of other candidates. Of the remaining two areas the Midlands was considered too bland for a strong regional identity but the rivalry between Lancastrians and Yorkshiremen gave the brothers the opportunity they wanted.
[edit] The Early Years
With some eighteen months between the awarding of their franchise and the start of transmission, Granada built a brand new studio complex on bomb clearance land in Manchester. This was revolutionary on two counts; Firstly the new ITV companies tended to build production centres in London and just have regional offices in their constituencies (strategies used by both ABC and ATV). Granada wanted to be 'at the heart' of their area and so built a main base in the centre of Manchester.
Secondly they were the first British television company to create facilities purpose-built for television production. Prior to this companies converted former film studios or cinemas. The centre at Manchester pre-dated the BBC's Television Centre by four years. To emphasise that the company was bigger than it was the studios were named Studio 2, 4 and 6 as opposed to 1, 2 and 3.
The company also opened a small production office in Leeds to serve the area that would be eventually covered by the Emley Moor transmitter. In the early 1980's and in response to criticism the station was neglecting Merseyside it opened a news centre at the Albert Dock, Liverpool.
Granada was 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.
All this involved large capital outlay and this put great pressure on the early finances of the station. The predicted audiences for ITV were slow in coming and Sidney Bernstein had to personally visit large companies to persuade them to advertise on Granada. The company was having trouble paying salaries and was very close to collapse by early-1957.
Only the intervention of London station Associated Rediffusion prevented this when they agreed to underwrite Granada's costs in exchange for a significant share in their profits over the next eight years. Although this deal saved the company and seemed a good idea at the time, the popularity of ITV soon increased and the profits started flowing in, most of it going straight to Rediffusion. Understandably this upset Granada who asked if they could change the contract; equally understandably Rediffusion kept them to their word and this soured relations between the two for many years to come.
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.
[edit] Corporate culture
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.
[edit] Franchise renewals
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. This led Sidney Bernstein to declare that 'if the ITA interfered in the territory of Granadaland he would go to the United Nations'.
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 franchises in Central and Northern Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Channel Islands.
[edit] Accusations of bias
One charge that has been levelled at the company over the years is that it neglects certain areas of its franchise - particularly Liverpool and Merseyside - and has shown a slant in the setting of its programmes, levels of investment and local news coverage that show a favouritism towards the Manchester area.
This was one of the main reasons cited by Mersey Television in their failed bid to win the northwest franchise in the 1990s. Whatever the truth of the accusations, it must be noted that Granada increased its levels of investment in the city in the late eighties, moving the regional news service to prominent buildings in the city's Albert Dock complex and basing its daytime networked show "This Morning" there for several years. The programme moved to The London Studios in the late 90s, and the reason cited for this was that it was difficult to get top name guests to travel from London to Liverpool that early in the morning. Since then, the Albert Dock studios have been vacated and sold.
With changes in the broadcasting environment making loss of its franchise highly unlikely though, some have argued that Granada has again returned to earlier ways, with investment in the Liverpool area comparatively small when compared with the facilities that exist in Manchester.
[edit] G-Wizz
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 what they themselves termed "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 mostly unusable by their subscribers, who were largely modem-based, and take-up was low. Less than a year after it opened, Granada closed G-Wizz in March 2001, after costing the company £9 million.
[edit] Granada Sky Broadcasting
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.
[edit] Channels
[edit] Granada Plus
Owned by Granada Sky Broadcasting, a 50-50 joint venture between Granada Television and British Sky Broadcasting, Granada Plus was a general entertainment channel aimed at older audiences and ran from archived material. The channel, initially launched as "Granada Plus", was later known as "G Plus" and finally simply "Plus". It continued to broadcast up until 1 November 2004, when ITV sealed a deal to buy out Sky's stakes in GSB to close down the channel in order for ITV's new channel, ITV3, to take Plus' low EPG position on Sky Digital.
[edit] Granada Breeze
Originally "Granada Good Life", Granada Breeze another GSB owned venture. The 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. Most of these shows were hosted or presented from a large custom-built conservatory studio right outside the main Coronation Street studio. The link was also reinforced by the short-lived appointment of Julie Goodyear, presenting an ill-fated talk show. It closed in March 2002 due to poor viewing figures, and in the face of the many other better-resourced lifestyle channels on Sky, and the coming-of-age of UK daytime television schedules.
[edit] Granada Talk TV
The last of the original GSB channels, Granada Talk TV focused primarily on chat shows. It closed after less than a year on air.
[edit] ITV Digital
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. This chapter in Granada's story was single-handedly responsible for sweeping cuts within the organisation, including the cutting back of budgets for their flagship drama serials and productions, the sale of numerous assets and the loss of many staff from the Manchester headquarters.
Later in 2002, talks on a proposed merger between Granada and Carlton were broken off after a failure to agree terms.
[edit] Rebranding and merger
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. A full and permanent move to the forthcoming "Media Village" in Salford is still under consideration. 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.
As of November 2006, ITV1 Granada lost its Visual on-air identity, although announcers still verbally refer to the channel as ITV1 Granada before regional programming over a generic ITV1 ident.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- ITV Granada at itv.com
- ITV plc at itv.com
- ScreenOnline: Granada Television History of the company, by the British Film Institute.
- 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
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Companies: ITV plc | SMG plc | UTV plc | Channel Television Ltd ITV Franchises Northern Scotland: Grampian • Central Scotland: Scottish • Scottish/English Border and Isle of Man: Border Non-franchise regions Northern & Central Scotland: stv • Thames Valley: ITV Thames Valley • London: ITV London News: ITN | ITV News • Sport: ITV Sport • Children: CITV • Online: ITV.com | ITV Local • Mobile: ITV Mobile Channels: ITV1 | ITV2 | ITV3 | ITV4 | CITV Channel | ITV Play | ITV HD | Men & Motors See also: British TV | British TV Channels | ITV Channels | ITV Idents and Presentation |
