Granada Television, now known on air as ITV Granada, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and the Isle of Man. Founded by Sidney Bernstein and broadcasting from its famous studios on Quay Street in Manchester from 3 May 1956, it is the only surviving franchisee of the original four Independent Television Authority franchisees from 1954. Celebrated for the distinctive northern character and "social realism" of its programming, Granada became the largest independent television producer in the United Kingdom, accounting at its peak for a quarter of the ITV network's total output. Its parent company, Granada plc, eventually bought up several other regional ITV stations and merged with Carlton Communications in 2004 to form ITV plc.
From cinemas to commercial television
Granada originated as Granada Theatres Ltd, a cinema chain founded in Dover in 1930 by Sidney Bernstein and his brother Cecil. The company was named after the Spanish city of Granada, which Sidney had visited on holiday, and was incorporated as Granada Ltd in 1934, floating on the London Stock Exchange the following year. In the 1950s, as the launch of commercial television in Britain threatened the cinema business, the Bernsteins decided to embrace the new medium. Sidney bid for the North of England ITV franchise, reasoning that it would not damage the company's largely southern-based cinema chain. Bernstein had a clear philosophy about where to base the operation: he chose Manchester over Leeds, believing the north offered a home-grown culture and a chance to start a new creative industry away from London. As he put it, the north was "an ideal place for television", and he declared, "I think that what Manchester sees today, London will see eventually."
Opening night and early struggles
The Independent Television Authority awarded Granada the North of England weekday contract in 1954, with ABC Weekend TV providing the weekend service in the same area. Rather than renting or converting existing premises, Bernstein commissioned purpose-built studios on a site on Quay Street in Manchester city centre, designed by the architect Ralph Tubbs and bought from Manchester City Council for £82,000. The opening night on 3 May 1956 featured Meet the People, hosted by Quentin Reynolds and comedian Arthur Askey; Reynolds had reportedly become inebriated before the broadcast and had to sober up. Granada transmitted from the Winter Hill transmitter on VHF channel 9, and from November 1956 also from Emley Moor on channel 10, covering Lancashire and Yorkshire including Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, York and Doncaster. The heavy investment in new studios left the company close to insolvency by late 1956, with losses of £175,000 — a very large sum in 1950s money. Granada accepted a rescue deal from Associated-Rediffusion, the London weekday station, which underwrote its debts in exchange for a share of future profits without the ITA's consent. The deal eventually proved worth more than £8 million to Rediffusion and soured relations between the two companies for years, but rising ITV popularity brought profitability. By the early 1960s Granada was established, its fortunes boosted by the soap opera Coronation Street and inexpensive game shows such as Criss Cross Quiz and University Challenge.
A defiantly northern identity
While most ITV franchisees treated their territories as stepping stones towards a coveted London franchise, Granada deliberately cultivated a strong northern identity: northern voices, northern programmes and idents carrying slogans such as "Granada from the north", "From the north — Granada" and "Granadaland". Bernstein refused to employ anyone who would not live in or travel to Manchester, a policy that led Jeremy Isaacs to describe him as a "genial tyrant". The station's logo, a stylised letter "G" forming an arrow pointing north, became one of the most recognisable symbols in British broadcasting, often shown with the tagline "Granada: from the North". This regional confidence set Granada apart from the metropolitan tone of the London companies and shaped a production culture that prized distinctive, often gritty programming.
Coronation Street
The foundation of Granada's success was Coronation Street, the soap opera created by Tony Warren and first broadcast on 9 December 1960. Initially commissioned for just thirteen episodes and doubted by many inside the company, the series about the residents of a cobbled street in the fictional town of Weatherfield became an immediate hit with viewers, and by May 1961 it was fully networked across the UK and topping the ratings. It became a significant part of British culture, was recognised by Guinness World Records in 2010 as the world's longest-running television soap opera, and underpinned the success of the Granada franchise for decades. Produced by ITV Studios today, it remains one of British television's most watched programmes.
Landmark drama and documentary
Beyond Coronation Street, Granada produced an extraordinary catalogue of programmes, nine of which were listed in the British Film Institute's TV 100 in 2000. Its drama output included Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, Cracker, Crown Court, The Royle Family and Cold Feet, alongside the celebrated Sherlock Holmes adaptations. In documentary and current affairs, World in Action was one of the most influential investigative series in British television history, while Seven Up! — the longitudinal documentary that revisited the same group of people every seven years — began a landmark project in social documentary. Light entertainment and quiz staples included University Challenge, Stars in Their Eyes and The Krypton Factor. Notable employees across the decades included Paul Greengrass, Michael Apted, Mike Newell, Jeremy Isaacs, Andy Harries, Russell T Davies, Leslie Woodhead, Tony Wilson, Roland Joffé, Brian Cosgrove, Mark Hall, Brian Trueman, Michael Parkinson, Derek Granger and Gordon McDougall.
The 1968 franchise changes
In the 1968 franchise round, Granada's contract was changed from weekdays across the whole north of England to a full seven-day service in the North West, broadcasting from Winter Hill. Yorkshire was defined as a separate region, with the new contract awarded to Yorkshire Television broadcasting from Emley Moor. Bernstein was furious at the splitting of "Granadaland" and claimed he would appeal to the United Nations. The new Granada region covered Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, Cheshire and parts of Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Cumbria and North Yorkshire, with the Isle of Man added in 2009 after being transferred from ITV Border. Granada retained its franchise in the 1980 review and invested in multimillion-pound prestige drama serials such as The Jewel in the Crown and Brideshead Revisited.
The 1991 auction and Granada plc's expansion
The Broadcasting Act of 1990 forced the 1991 franchise auction, in which Granada faced a rival bid of £35 million from Mersey Television, the company behind Channel 4's Brookside, compared with Granada's own bid of £9 million. Granada nevertheless kept the franchise because Mersey's package failed to meet the Independent Television Commission's quality threshold, a requirement that disadvantaged bidders without previous franchise experience. Granada had warned it would sell Coronation Street to satellite television if it lost the licence. In the deregulated environment that followed, Granada began consolidating the network: it completed a hostile takeover of London Weekend Television in 1994, acquired Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television for £652 million in 1997, bought United News & Media's television assets — including Anglia and Meridian — for £1.75 billion in 2000, and a year later acquired Border from Capital Radio Group. By 2002 Granada had established an effective duopoly of ITV with Carlton, owning all the ITV companies in England and Wales.
The merger that created ITV plc
By the early 2000s, ITV's audience share and advertising revenue were being eroded by digital television, competition from the internet and the disastrous failure of ITV Digital, which cost Granada and Carlton losses estimated at over £1 billion. Granada closed the Granada Studios Tour in 2001 — officially due to falling visitor numbers, though the real reason was the increase of Coronation Street production to five episodes a week, which required the famous set — and also closed Granada Film. In 2004 Granada plc merged with Carlton Communications to form ITV plc, and the Granada name disappeared from on-screen presentation in 2002, when the network adopted unified national branding. The Granada name is now referenced on air only during regional news bulletins and the weeknight regional news magazine, with ITV Broadcasting Limited operating the service under national ITV branding.
Studios, tour and MediaCity
The Quay Street studios in Manchester were Granada's home for more than half a century and became a broadcasting landmark in their own right. The Granada Studios Tour, opened to the public, let visitors walk the cobbles of the Coronation Street set until its closure in 2001. In the early 2010s ITV consolidated its northern operations at MediaCityUK in Salford, and the historic Quay Street site was sold and redeveloped. Production of Coronation Street and ITV's northern regional news moved to MediaCityUK, where Granada — as ITV Granada — continues as the ITV franchisee for the North West, the most successful and most enduring of all the ITV franchises, and the only one still operating of the original four licensed by the ITA in 1954.
