Granada Plus

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Plus
Granada Plus
Launched October 1, 1996
Closed November 1, 2004
Owned by Granada Sky Broadcasting
Formerly called Granada Plus (1996-1998),
G Plus (1998-2002),
PLUS (2002-2004)

Granada Plus was a satellite channel run by Granada Sky Broadcasting. It was launched on 1 October 1996 and was later rebranded as G Plus or G+ and then simply Plus. However it was generally still referred to by the public at large by its former name.

[edit] Launch and early years

From launch, the channel initially showed only programmes made originally by Granada Television and London Weekend Television (itself recently acquired by Granada Television), such as On The Buses, Crown Court, The Comedians and The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club. One of the channel's biggest selling points was a thrice-daily repeat of classic Coronation Street episodes from 1976. Broadcasting hours were shared with Granada Men & Motors.

Many of these programmes would have been unshown since their original transmissions, and hence were of value to those interested in classic television, but these early schedules lacked the commercial appeal of rival channel UK Gold, which had long since moved from showing little-seen gems to showing TV's 'greatest hits'. Many of the programmes had originally been recorded on relatively low-quality VT stock, which was common practice in television at the time, as it was never really envisaged that repeated programmes would have any commercially-exploitable value. This gave the programmes a badly-dated appearance, which wasn't helped by the abundance of 1970s and 1980s fashions sported by the characters on screen.

It wasn't long before Granada Plus revamped their onscreen identity, and in order to look more contemporary, they started showing more recent programmes made by the ITV network (at the time, Granada were busy buying up old rivals such as Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television, in preparation for a unified ITV plc), as well as programme stock which had been originally shown on the BBC. Many of the channel's programmes were cut by up to 5 minutes for commercial timing purposes, which was not a popular choice with viewers.

[edit] Closure

The story of Granada Plus's closure is of note. Come November 1, 2004 — ITV3's launch date — it was looking increasingly likely that ITV3 would not be launched on Sky Digital. However, frantic discussions were going on behind the scenes: ITV wanted the 7 million or so Sky viewers available; Sky didn't want to give Freeview any advantage; and to further complicate matters, ITV wanted the new channel to be as high up on the EPG as possible.

At 3pm, just 6 hours before launch, ITV and Sky finally reached a deal: ITV would buy out Sky's 49.5% stake in GSB for £10 million.

ITV stopped broadcasting Granada Plus at 4:30 pm. Thus, ITV2 was to broadcast at channel number 118 in the EPG and ITV3 at 119.

Granada Plus were caught unaware; they had sent out their regular highlights email at 3:50 pm. Viewers would have seen Granada Sky Broadcasting disappear mid-programme at 4:30 pm, and ITV2 & ITV3 slides appearing at 5:15 pm. The countdown to launch appeared at 8pm, with the launch taking place 1 hour later.

The channel's closure annoyed many viewers, as most programmes were not moved over to the new channel.

[edit] Past Programmes


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Defunct Granada and Carlton channels