Granada Tonight in Liverpool

Hi,

just a couple of things I want to check in regards to Granada's regional news operations in Liverpool.

Granada moved its regional news operations to Liverpool in 1986. This was in the old traffic office in Albert Dock. In 1988, This Morning started but despite being in Albert Dock, this was not in the Traffic Office but rather in a section of the Collonades. I've always thought they were separate operations but in this clip below...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZtnZESRpTU

... it shows a woman called Angela handing back to Bob Greaves. Now, it looks like Bob's in the This Morning studio in the Collonades, as is the woman called Becky whom he hands over too. So, I assume Angela is in the Traffic Office and Bob and Becky are in the Collonades. Can someone confirm this for sure? I'm not really old enough to remember Granada Tonight from this period. I know they had a revamp in 1993 when, I believe, the main Granada Tonight programme moved back to Manchester, whilst the news remained in Liverpool. So, I'm assuming Quay Street replaced the Collonades, whilst the Traffic Office, for general news, remained unaffected, as they still crossed over to Liverpool during the main Granada Tonight programme.

Then, I think, Granada Tonight and the news revamped one more time in early 1998 or late 1997 but this was shortlived as it was revamped again in October 1998, when all news operations returned to Manchester. I would appreciate it if anyone who remembers vividly could affirm or correct me on this.

Post edited.

In April 1992 Granda has an onscreen revamp which included the main ident; programme schedules and Granada News and Granada Tonight. As part of this on Friday evening we had an hour long programme called Granada Tonight Weekend presented by Bob Greaves and Becky Want. This Friday programme was presented from the This Morning studio and they handed back to the Liverpool news studio for news updates and yes Angela Ewart very often presented those updates and the main Granada Tonight programme as well.

Granada Tonight Weekend only lasted for a few months until around late August or early September 1992 and the Friday programme returned to the usual 6.30PM slot.

In October 1992 Granada Tonight moved back to Manchester and Granada News stayed in Liverpool.

Granada Tonight was relaunched in January 1998 in a 65 minute slot from 5.55Pm until 7PM and in October 1998 the entire news operation moved to Manchester with a new purple look.

It remained like this until October 2001 when Granada Reports returned instead of Granada Tonight and had a makeover again.

This should be in the Newsroom but hey, it's a great thread (in my opinion!), so let's let him off...

I remember Granada Tonight Weekend. It had a more chilled out, "summer" version of its regular theme. (The broader revamp of Granada's early evening schedule at this time also saw the soap Families move to Mondays and Tuesday at 6pm and a really good docusoap about a school at 6 on Wednesday or Thursday.)

Before the 1993 Granada Tonight revamp (they use to revamp pretty much on a yearly basis back then. As if that'd happen now!), I seem to recall they actually took the show off air for a fortnight and replaced it with Richard Madeley's quiz show Runway. There was only a 5 minute news update for those 2 weeks at just before 6:30pm. I don't remember any other instances of regional news being taken off like this.

I don't think that YouTube link's the right one, by the way. It links to Granada continuity from 1998.

Sorry. I've fixed the link now.

Thanks for that. Most comprehensive. A couple of things though: you say Granada Tonight was revamped in April 1992, I take it that you mean the look that had the pink titles with the big arrow. However, this video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YCqnpOMFps

...shows that the 1990 look is still in use as late as Thrusday 23/04/92. Unless you suggest that the change happened on the following Monday of 27/04/92. Also, you say that the main Granada Tonight programme moved to Manchester in October 1998. I always thought this occurred with the revamp from the pink 'big arrow' look to the 'map & compass' look. However, it appears that the old look lasted into early 1993. Unless, they moved in October 1992 without it involving any revamp of the show.

This letter to The Independent from David Liddiment in early 1993 makes interesting reading given all what happened later in the decade:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letter-granadas-strength-in-liverpool-1496892.html

That's dated March 1993 and so will have been not long after Granada Tonight moved to Manchester. It seems this is what's spurred the war of words between between Liddiment and three MPs who, interestingly, were not local to the area. Perhaps it was some sort of parliamentary broadcasting 'watchdog' arrangement.

Liddiment was technically right that the Granada News operation had been unaffected. Technically, Granada Tonight was a magazine programme with a Granada News bulletin built into it and the loss of Granada Tonight could not be constituted as a loss of news, as the evening news was still from Liverpool. However, I'm sure the MPs were more thinking about what Granada was going to do further down the line. Liverpool was not purely a news operation. This Morning, for a start, but I think other programmes such as Granada Goals Extra came from there. So, they probably saw it as the beginning of the end and they would have been right about that.

Of course, the whole point of the Liverpool operation was to placate discontent in Liverpool and the surrounding area over Manchester-based television, knowing that a franchise round like no other was coming up in a few years time. Of course, once they'd secured the renewal, they more or less immediately began moving things back to Manchester, with news gone by the end of 1998.

Speaking of Granda Goals Extra, here's an edition from 02/11/96, still at Albert Dock at this point...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3BPjyL3Ijk

Yeah, that did that every summer for ages. I remember on a couple of occasions they opted out of the 7pm programme as well and ran Father Dowling Investigates for an hour from 6.35. In some of the old IBA Yearbooks they talk about some of the smaller regions like Grampian taking off their regional magazines for the summer but that was in the days before ENG when there genuinely wasn't much news around. I certainly don't recall any other region going off in the summer like Granada did right through the end of the nineties.

Wow - very early example of a credit squeeze there!

Yeah, I notice that, though I think it was purely because of Home & Away moving times and wasn't typical Granada fare of the time.