| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Media |
| Founded | 1954 as Granada Television |
| Headquarters |
London, United Kingdom 1954-2004, Manchester2004-present, London |
| Products | Television |
| Owner(s) | Granada Limited (1954-2004) ITV plc (2004-) |
| Website | itvstudios.com |
Granada Productions was a British commercial television production and distribution company. The company took its name from the successful North West ITV franchise, Granada Television.
Granada Productions previously worked a "three hub model"[1] with production bases in London at The London Studios, Manchester at Granada Studios and Leeds at the Leeds Studios. However Granada vacated the Leeds Studios in 2009 and now primarily operate from London and Manchester.
From January 2006, the company used the name ITV Productions when making programmes for the ITV family of channels. From March 2009 the company has been fully rebranded as ITV Studios Limited, which has also been extended to some productions for other UK broadcasters (such as Channel 4's Countdown) and to ITV's US arm, ITV Studios, Inc. Most international productions are now labelled as ITV Studios, with the exception of Australia and Germany where they are still credited to Granada.
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ITV Studios is a major commercial TV producer in the UK, creating over 3,500 hours of original programming each year across all genres except news. Programmes including Coronation Street; Emmerdale, Heartbeat, Marple and Agatha Christie's Poirot, Brainiac: Science Abuse, University Challenge, I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, Parkinson, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Tonight, The Jeremy Kyle Show and This Morning.
ITV Studios also produces programmes for numerous UK television channels including the ITV Network, BBC One and BBC Two, Channel 4, Five and Sky One, based in production centres in London, Manchester, Leeds, and Norwich. The Bristol arm which was originally part of HTV closed in 2006. [1]
ITV Studios comprises the following network production divisions from its predecessor companies*:
* Border Television and Westcountry Television rarely contributed network programmes, so were largely unaffected by the creation of ITV Studios.
The division is also responsible for ITV's production facilities The London Studios, 3SixtyMedia at Granada Studios, The Leeds Studios, location hire company ProVision and Leeds-based post production companies Film Lab North and The Finishing School. Granada International and Granada Ventures are part of ITV Global Entertainment. Both arms have been re-united and recently merged as part of the new Global Content division of ITV, led by Lee Bartlett (a former Fox executive and previously chief operating officer of the division under Dawn Airey).
Programmes on non-ITV channels (except S4C, which uses the name ITV Cymru) retained the Granada brand (examples are Channel 4's Countdown and The Royle Family for the BBC) until 2009.
Co-based in Sherman Oaks, California and New York City, ITV Studios America produces programming primarily for US networks, such as: Fox's Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, Sit Down, Shut Up, and Nanny 911; NBC's Hit Me Baby One More Time and Little Friends; CBS' Eleventh Hour; VH1's But Can They Sing? and Celebrity Fit Club; A&E's Airline, The First 48 and House of Dreams; and MTV's Room Raiders.
In 2006 Granada, in association with FremantleMedia North America, produced Gameshow Marathon, an American version of Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon for CBS.
Television movies from Granada and ITV Studios America include: Molly Shannon in 12 Days of Christmas Eve; Jason Priestly in The Reality Of Love; Farrah Fawcett in Hollywood Lives, based on Jackie Collins’ best selling novel; Anne Heche in Dead Will Tell; Melanie Griffith in Lethal Seduction; Aidan Quinn and Mary Louise Parker in Unexpected Journey; and Susan Sarandon in Icebound.
Until recently the Chief Executive Officer of ITV Studios was David Gyngell, son of the late Bruce Gyngell, the former managing director of ITV breakfast franchisee TV-am (now ITV Breakfast) and Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television.
The company was formerly Granada America but was re-branded in May 2009.[2]
Established in 1998, Granada Productions Australia produces over 120 hours of television every year, such as Seven's Dancing with the Stars (2004–present); W's Mars Venus; Nine's Merrick and Rosso Unplanned (2003), World Comedy Unplugged and Celebrity Super Powers; FOX8's Australia's Next Top Model; Ten's Australian Princess (2005); Lifestyle Channel's Come Dine With Me and Ten's upcoming 2012 version of Young Talent Time
The company was originally founded as Artist Services, a company formed by a group of investors including Steve Vizard, producing many shows such as Fast Forward, Full Frontal and SeaChange. Granada purchased the company in the late 1990s.
Granada Germany programmes include Ich bin ein Star – Holt mich hier raus! (the local version of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!), Star Duell and Deutschlands Beste Doppelgänger (Stars And Their Doubles) for RTL; and East-West German comedy Ei Verbibbsch for Sat.1.
ITV Studios Global Entertainment is the worldwide distributor of programming produced by Granada / ITV's production teams, as well as independent producers.
Programmes include films like Brief Encounter, and the Carry On... films. Also a part of this collection is the ITC Entertainment feature film library, including The Eagle Has Landed, The Return of the Pink Panther, and On Golden Pond.
The television library features programming by most of the major ITV companies (except Thames Television, which belongs to RTL Group) including titles such as Prime Suspect, Dr. Zhivago (2002 miniseries), The Forsyte Saga (2002), Inspector Morse and Agatha Christie's Poirot, plus children’s shows, TV movies, wildlife documentaries and other factual programming.
Independent productions distributed by ITV include programming produced by Wall to Wall (Ancient Egyptians, The Story Of Us), Darlow Smithson Productions (Seconds From Disaster), Wark Clements (A Mother's Journey), Aardman Animations (Creature Comforts), Chorion (Agatha Christie's Marple and Poirot), Carnival Films (Rosemary & Thyme) and Red Productions (Bob and Rose, Second Coming).
The company also incorporates ITV Studios Home Entertainment, and a publishing and consumer licensing division, responsible for merchandising rights of ITV Productions and third-party programmes (including CBeebies' Numberjacks). Both have recently been merged in a restructuring of ITV's international arm, which saw the new entity firstly named ITV Worldwide and now ITV Studios Global Entertainment.
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