Lime Pictures
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| Lime Pictures (Mersey Television) | |
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| Type | TV Producers |
| Founded | Mersey Television (1982-2006) Lime Pictures (2006) |
| Headquarters | Liverpool, Merseyside - North West England |
| Key people | Phil Redmond (Founder) Carolyn Reynolds Tony Wood Sean Marley |
| Industry | TV production |
| Products | Brookside (1982 - 2003) Hollyoaks (1995 - present) Grange Hill (1978 - 2008) |
Lime Pictures, formerly known as Mersey Television, is a British television production company, founded by renowned producer and writer Phil Redmond in the early 1980s. Its first major production was the soap opera Brookside for Channel 4, which ran from the channel's foundation in 1982 until 2003, when it was taken off air due to declining ratings. A spin-off ('soap bubble') of Brookside was produced in 1987: Damon and Debbie.
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[edit] 1991 ITV Franchise bid (North West Television)
In the 1991 ITV network franchise auction, Mersey Television under the name of North West Television made an audacious bid against holders Granada Television for the North West England franchise, which had been Granada's ever since the inception of independent television in the 1950s, with Granada one of the biggest and most established of the ITV companies. The bid was supported financially by Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television and the bid had aimed to provide a more balanced television service for the North West, in particular featuring more content from Liverpool as opposed to Manchester. However, although North West Television bid more money for the franchise totalling £35 million as opposed to Granada's £9 million, the licence stayed with Granada as the Independent Television Commission declared that the Mersey Television bid did not meet the required quality threshold.
[edit] Hollyoaks and Grange Hill
In 1995, the company began producing a second soap opera for Channel 4, Hollyoaks, which still runs as of 2008. Both Brookside and Hollyoaks were created by Redmond himself, and in 2003 the company took over production of another series he had created, the children's drama Grange Hill, which had first been broadcast on BBC One in 1978 and had been made in-house by the BBC until Mersey Television took over. The company moved production of the series to their Liverpool base, with the fictional school no longer being established as in London but instead its location in the UK was no longer specified.
[edit] Sale and name change
Mersey Television was bought by All3Media in June 2005 and, in a contractual requirement, renamed Lime Pictures in 2006. In April 2006, a foul up on the website exposed thousands of applications CV's and personal details. [1]
[edit] See also
- Conker Media
