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Granada Television
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Granada Television is the United Kingdom ITV contractor for North West England. It previously held the "North of England" weekday franchise, which also covered most of Yorkshire, from 1954 until 1968 when its broadcast area was divided into two franchises. Broadcasting began on 3 May 1956
Granada is the only one of the original four ITA franchisees from 1954 that has survived as a franchise holder into the twenty-first century.
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Encyclopedia
Granada Television is the United Kingdom ITV contractor for North West England. It previously held the "North of England" weekday franchise, which also covered most of Yorkshire, from 1954 until 1968 when its broadcast area was divided into two franchises. Broadcasting began on 3 May 1956
Granada is the only one of the original four ITA franchisees from 1954 that has survived as a franchise holder into the twenty-first century. Granada's parent company, Granada Limited, merged with Carlton Communications to form ITV plc in 2004. The station is now owned and operated by ITV plc under the subsidiary of ITV Broadcasting Limited.
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.
Some twenty years later with the dawn of commercial television, similarly to Associated British Picture Corporation, the Bernsteins decided to be involved in the new industry which was a competitor to the cinema chains.
The North of England was selected to create a strong regional identity. Other possible areas included the London franchise, which was not selected since Granada feared the quantity and quality of other candidates, and The Midlands franchise, which was considered too bland for a strong regional identity. A franchise in the north of England would also not have any detrimental effects on the business of the largely southern-based cinema chain.
The Early Years
With 18 months between the award of the franchise and the start of transmission, Granada built a brand new studio complex on bomb clearance land close to the River Irwell in Manchester. The studios proved to be revolutionary. The three other new ITV companies tended to build production offices in London with regional offices in their areas. This was the strategy used by both ABC and ATV and similar to present day ITV. However, Granada wanted to be 'at the heart' of their area and so built a main base in the centre of Manchester.
Granada were also the first British television company to create facilities purpose-built for television production. Before this (and for some time after), companies converted former film studios, cinemas or other large buildings. The centre at Manchester pre-dates the BBC Television Centre by four years. To embellish the scale, studios were numbered with even numbers only. Of six original studios only four still exist. Studio 4, a small continuity studio, was eventually mothballed and converted to office space. Studio 10 wasn't part of the Manchester complex at all, but actually the in London, owned by the Bernsteins and used by Granada for recording comedies and variety shows with acts who couldn't or wouldn't travel to Manchester. It was eventually disposed of in the mid 1960s. Studio 2 is currently a CSO studio, used for programmes such as What The Papers Say and Tonight with Trevor McDonald. All the existing studios are now operated by 3sixtymedia, ITV's joint venture company with BBC Resources.
Granada also opened a small production office and studio in Leeds. This was to serve the area eventually covered by the Emley Moor transmitter. In the early 1980s and in response to criticism that the company was neglecting Merseyside, Granada converted a former traffic office at the Albert Dock, Liverpool into studios and moved much of its regional news operation (Granada Reports) to the news centre. The studios have since been replaced with a smaller district newsroom based in the Liver Building.
Granada was determined to develop a strong Northern identity for themselves — Northern voices, Northern programmes, Northern idents (Granada in the North, From The North - Granada and Granadaland). This was counter to the practice of the other franchisees, who adopted fairly non-descript names such as ABC, ATV, and Rediffusion. These 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. 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 viewers, although it also covers the south of Cumbria (around Barrow-in-Furness), parts of North Wales (Wrexham and the coastal resorts of Rhyl and Prestatyn) and the High Peak district of Derbyshire (Glossop, Buxton).
All this put great pressure on the early finances of Granada. 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. Granada was having trouble paying salaries and was very close to collapse by late 1956.
To prevent this, Granada sought the help of London station Rediffusion who, without the knowledge or consent of the Independent Television Authority (ITA) who would have blocked it, agreed to underwrite Granada's costs in exchange for a percentage of their profits over the next four years. Granada accepted the deal but the popularity of ITV soon increased and profitability followed..
Analysts began to question how Rediffusion, ABC and ATV were making annual profits of up to £2.7m by 1959 and yet Granada's profits were well under £1m. With the increase in income, the deal 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. By the time the deal had finished, Rediffusion had taken over £8m (2008:£129m) from Granada..
Programming
The culture of Granada was distinctly more 'Socialist' than the more conservative companies (and BBC) further South. Granada produced hard-hitting documentary series, most famously the controversial but multi-award winning weekly World in Action (between 1963 and 1998) but also Seven Up! and gritty dramas such as A Family at War (1970-1972). The classic 'Socialist' (in Northern working-class terms) soap opera Coronation Street, which started a 13-week two episodes a week regional run on 9 December 1960, was, almost 50 years later, still being produced at the rate of five peak-viewing episodes a week.
Jeremy Isaacs was involved with developing a significant portion of Granada's factual programming but Granada produced a whole generation of major British TV 'players' from Lord John Birt, Director General of the BBC, to Lord Gus Macdonald, his fellow World in Action producer as well as Michael Parkinson and other alumni. In drama, in 1968, Granada 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.
By the mid-1970s Granada was producing programmes for an international audience, such as The Stars Look Down (1974), Laurence Olivier Presents (1976-78), Brideshead Revisited (1981), the multi-award winning Disappearing World series (between 1969 and 1993) and, from 1984 on, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Also in that year came the dramatisation of The Jewel in the Crown. These shows (amongst many others) were sold overseas through a separate division known as Granada Television International. Granada did not produce light entertainment extravaganzas of its own, but was quite happy to transmit those produced by its co-franchisees.
The productions of Brideshead and Jewel were well received at the time, but coincided with the BBC's disastrous The Borgias and the screening of the American adaptation of The Thorn Birds in each instance, giving Granada a certain glow in the Thatcher era over its public funded rival.
Another of Granada's flagship programmes was the long-running quiz show, University Challenge — which was revived by the BBC in the 1990s, although still produced by Granada. One of Granada's longest running programmes, What The Papers Say, is unique in having had three different broadcast "homes". The programme, which began in the same year Granada did, 1956, was also picked up by the BBC in the early 90s, after having been previously shown by Channel Four as well as Granada. Granada also produced the long-running quiz programme The Krypton Factor.
In the 1970s, Granada produced a number of successful situation-comedies, often based around its North West England transmission area. These included Nearest and Dearest, The Lovers and The Cuckoo Waltz. This theme ran into the following decade with shows such as the Brothers McGregor and Watching.
For children, Granada drew on the success of 1970s pop music with shows such as Lift Off with Ayshea and giving The Bay City Rollers their own show, Shang-a-lang. The station also produced Marc, presented by glam rock star Marc Bolan. The show was still in production when Bolan was killed in a car accident in 1977. Granada also produced Allsorts from 1989 to 1995 for CITV featuring Wayne Jackman, Andrew Wightman, Virginia Radcliffe, Jane Cox and Julie Westwood.
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 the North West (served by the Winter Hill transmitter). This led Sidney Bernstein to declare that if the ITA (Independent Television Authority) interfered in the territory of Granadaland, he would go to the United Nations. The Yorkshire contract (now to be served by the Emley Moor transmitter) was awarded to Yorkshire Television.
Granada had little difficulty in retaining its franchise in the 1980 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 which was exacerbated by the 1990 Broadcasting Act which instigated quotas on independent programming, removed the ITV advertising monopoly and instigated the expensive auction process of the 1991 franchise round. Granada won the 1991 franchise round on quality grounds.
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, by 2002, in Granada establishing an effective duopoly of ITV with Carlton, excepting only the franchises in Central and Northern Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Channel Islands.
Accusations of bias
One charge that has been levelled against Granada 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, Granada has again returned to earlier ways, with investment in the Liverpool area comparatively tiny when compared with the facilities that exist in Manchester.
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 Granada themselves termed "high-quality content", by giving away sign-up CD-ROMs in high street stores. Several of Granada's programmes (and ITV franchisees owned by the company) also administrated 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, at the time, largely still 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. It combined the remainder of its online presence with fellow ITV company Carlton to launch itv.com
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 lifestyle channel (an amalgamation of several earlier channels, including Granada Talk Television, Granada Food and Wine, Granada Health and Beauty, Granada Television High Street and Granada Home and Garden), was broadcast from a custom-built conservatory studio in the grounds of the existing studios, but closed 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 plc, remains from the now ceased relationship.
Channels
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 last-minute deal to buy out BSkyB's stake in GSB, in order to close down the channel and replace it with ITV's new channel, ITV3, taking Plus' low EPG position on Sky Digital.
Granada Breeze
Originally "Granada Good Life", and formed out of a series of earlier themed efforts, Granada Breeze was another GSB owned venture. The channel 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 (later used for daytime ITV Play programming). 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.
Another channel, Wellbeing (a joint venture with Boots), was modelled on parts of Granada Breeze. It was predominantly broadcast from The Leeds Studios, although Granada made programmes in Manchester for the channel as well. It closed in 2003.
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.
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 SMG plc, UTV, 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.
ITV1 Granada
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 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 were credited as "Granada Manchester" productions (reflecting the brand of the new unified in-house production arm). 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 for re-development, with the remaining staff, studios and offices moving into the large Bonded Warehouse on one side of the site, which, from 1988 to 1999, housed part of the Granada Studios Tour. A full and permanent move to the forthcoming MediaCity:uk in Salford is one of the options still under consideration by ITV, although there is reportedly some reluctance to the idea, as it would mean the (costly) re-location of the permanent outdoor Coronation Street set and Granada apparently originally hoped to develop a media cluster on the Quay Street site. A precedent for a move to a new modern headquarters, however, was set in 2004, when ITV plc moved Meridian out of its studio complex in Northam, Southampton to a new office location near Whiteley, Hampshire, and in 2005, Tyne Tees Television's studios on City Road in Newcastle upon Tyne were sold, as it moved to a new site in Gateshead. Any move away from Quay Street would also spell the end for 3sixtymedia, the Granada Productions/BBC Resources joint venture company, established in 2000 and based at The Manchester Studios.
In 2002, a decision was made to relocate Granada's reception area to the rear of the building. The original reception is now unused and still remains, but due to the downsizing of the organisation, a smaller reception area was created. It also introduced a further level of security - visitors now have to be authorised to pass within the secure compound before reaching the reception. Notably, the Granada studio complex at Quay Street still, as of 2009, 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 Sky1, 2 and 3. The credits for Granada Manchester productions (such as Stars In Their Eyes) still carried the copyright line: Copyright (year) Granada Television in their end credits until these were dropped in 2007 and renamed Copyright (year) ITV Productions Limited.
Since November 2006, Granada has lost its visual on-air identity. Ahead of regional programming on Granada, announcers verbally refer to the channel as ITV1 over a generic ident. Local news coverage is branded as Granada News except for the 1800 Granada Reports bulletin on weeknights, all local news programmes (except for bulletins during GMTV) carry the ITV logo in the credits and in the bottom left hand corner. Granada Reportss main rival, BBC North West Tonight is broadcast to a similar region as that of Granada. Channel M News is also broadcast from 1700-1900, covering the Greater Manchester area.
See also
External links
- at itvlocal.com
- at itv.com
- History of the company, by the British Film Institute.
- from Ident by Transdiffusion
- , 1956, from 625.uk.com (requires Macromedia Flash).
- , early 1960s, from 625.uk.com
- London Frontline Club, May 2008.
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