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A question about Granada before 1968

London and Leeds? (October 2019)

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GO
gottago
james-2001 posted:
Mr Kite posted:

In October 1993, the main evening Granada Tonight programme moved back to Manchester. Never heard an official reason for this, but it seems the move coincided with making the programme more magazine style, like Granada Tonight Weekend.


May also be that now the franchise renewal was done and Phil Redmond's company had lost, they felt safe to cut back as they didn't have to look good with Liverpool coverage to the ITC any more.

Pretty sure one of the many dusty old TV books I've read said the scaling back was exactly because of this. The whole Liverpool operation was largely set up to satisfy the IBA/ITC at the next franchise round and scaled back not too long after they were safely within their next license period.
Stuart and james-2001 gave kudos
WH
Whataday Founding member
Mr Kite posted:
This Morning started on October 1988 in a unit of the Colonades, at the opposite end of the dock. I'm assuming the programme was routed via the news building back to master control at Quay Street but I've never read anything about the networking arrangements of This Morning (anyone know much about this?).


I imagine it was routed via the news building as there were minimal facilities at the This Morning studio. Most of This Morning's production facilities such as offices and dressing rooms were based at the news building,
JA
james-2001
Was at the Albert Dock earlier this year, very little trace of This Morning left now, but the pillars outside what used to be the studio are still a different colour and texture to the rest of the dock. Stayed in the Premier Inn there, it's quite fascinating, the way they've built it into the dock, still with the original walls, arches and roofs, makes it feel very different to a typical hotel.
WH
Whataday Founding member
james-2001 posted:
Was at the Albert Dock earlier this year, very little trace of This Morning left now, but the pillars outside what used to be the studio are still a different colour and texture to the rest of the dock. Stayed in the Premier Inn there, it's quite fascinating, the way they've built it into the dock, still with the original walls, arches and roofs, makes it feel very different to a typical hotel.


There's a fairly large part of what we know as the Albert Dock that was built when it was redeveloped in the 80s rather than being original buildings. The Granada TV News building for one.
NW
nwtv2003
james-2001 posted:
Mr Kite posted:

In October 1993, the main evening Granada Tonight programme moved back to Manchester. Never heard an official reason for this, but it seems the move coincided with making the programme more magazine style, like Granada Tonight Weekend.


May also be that now the franchise renewal was done and Phil Redmond's company had lost, they felt safe to cut back as they didn't have to look good with Liverpool coverage to the ITC any more.


There was a clip on TV Ark many moons ago which would suggest that Granada Tonight was brought back to Manchester in autumn 1992, but the programme didn’t get the (awful) purple map titles until autumn 1993. I’m fairly certain as pointed out all of the shorter bulletins were swapped to Liverpool by this point. I believe the GMTV bulletins were also broadcast from Liverpool from day one.

It probably would have been a logistical nightmare trying to use the This Morning studio of an autumn or winter evening if that was the plan. (See Daybreak v1.0 studio)

Whilst Granada’s News coverage was always well liked in our house, the look of the service during the 1990’s always felt tacky, but North West Tonight pre-Gordon Burns felt so cold by comparison.
JA
james-2001
Autumn 1992 of course was after franchise renewal, even if the new licence period hadn't begun.
BU
buster
This is an interesting letter to the Independent from David Liddiment in March 1993 reacting to accusations Liverpool was being downgraded (which implies the move of the evening bulletin happened before this point).

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letter-granadas-strength-in-liverpool-1496892.html
:-(
A former member
nwtv2003 posted:
james-2001 posted:
Mr Kite posted:

In October 1993, the main evening Granada Tonight programme moved back to Manchester. Never heard an official reason for this, but it seems the move coincided with making the programme more magazine style, like Granada Tonight Weekend.


May also be that now the franchise renewal was done and Phil Redmond's company had lost, they felt safe to cut back as they didn't have to look good with Liverpool coverage to the ITC any more.


There was a clip on TV Ark many moons ago which would suggest that Granada Tonight was brought back to Manchester in autumn 1992, but the programme didn’t get the (awful) purple map titles until autumn 1993. I’m fairly certain as pointed out all of the shorter bulletins were swapped to Liverpool by this point. I believe the GMTV bulletins were also broadcast from Liverpool from day one.


That info is gone now, however were still unclear where the news come from or when the rebrand took place in 92 or 93 Wink
RO
robertclark125
Incidentally, the old Granada news studio at the Albert Dock is now part of the Liverpool Maritime Museum. The This Morning Studio was at the diagonally opposite corner of the dock.

THis is from Granada Tonight weekend, being broadcast in the TM studio, and during this part, they throw over to Andy Gill, now of the BBC, for the news.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP6EmAviAoQ
JA
james-2001
Some horrifically colourised Laurel & Hardy clips in that show!
JA
JAS84
623058 posted:
nwtv2003 posted:
james-2001 posted:

May also be that now the franchise renewal was done and Phil Redmond's company had lost, they felt safe to cut back as they didn't have to look good with Liverpool coverage to the ITC any more.


There was a clip on TV Ark many moons ago which would suggest that Granada Tonight was brought back to Manchester in autumn 1992, but the programme didn’t get the (awful) purple map titles until autumn 1993. I’m fairly certain as pointed out all of the shorter bulletins were swapped to Liverpool by this point. I believe the GMTV bulletins were also broadcast from Liverpool from day one.


That info is gone now, however were still unclear where the news come from or when the rebrand took place in 92 or 93 Wink

Wayback Machine should be usable for this.

http://web.archive.org/web/20161115051345/http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/itvnorthwest/granadatv/news.html

They actually rebranded Granada Tonight in both 1992 and 1993. The purple one was indeed 1993.
SC
Si-Co
nwtv2003 posted:
james-2001 posted:
Mr Kite posted:

In October 1993, the main evening Granada Tonight programme moved back to Manchester. Never heard an official reason for this, but it seems the move coincided with making the programme more magazine style, like Granada Tonight Weekend.


May also be that now the franchise renewal was done and Phil Redmond's company had lost, they felt safe to cut back as they didn't have to look good with Liverpool coverage to the ITC any more.


There was a clip on TV Ark many moons ago which would suggest that Granada Tonight was brought back to Manchester in autumn 1992, but the programme didn’t get the (awful) purple map titles until autumn 1993. I’m fairly certain as pointed out all of the shorter bulletins were swapped to Liverpool by this point. I believe the GMTV bulletins were also broadcast from Liverpool from day one.


That sounds correct. The short bulletins were definitely presented from the Albert Dock during 1992-1993, and when I visited the Granada Studio tour in June 1993 they showed us the Granada Tonight studio and told us it was the real thing. The reason there was no activity going on in there would be because it was only used in the evenings.

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