Granada Tonight in Liverpool

They did Granada Reports Weekly back in about 2002 on a Sunday afternoon.

When Granada News moved to Liverpool in 1986, it was still under the "Granada Reports" name, which it retained till 1990 when John Huntley took over.
In 1986, Tom McGurk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_McGurk was brought in as one of the anchors. The title sequence included a computer simulation of the building from which it was broadcast.

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

They made a massive fuss of the change on Granada at the time. Indeed, TV-am News even did a piece about the changed Granada operation that morning on its national news, I seem to remember.
Of course, 1986 was still the days of schools television in the morning.
They'd slot in a quick bulletin while other regions were running the clock between school programmes.
If memory hasn't failed me, I seem to remember them once having a bulletin at 10.35am and another at 10.55am.
Overkill, but it was emblematic of Granada's commitment to the region and Liverpool.
It soon quietened down.

The original titles and music are iconic. I'm too young to remember them first hand, sadly. The earliest I remember difinitively was the compass titles.

There's a piece on Granads's revamp in the 1987 IBA Yearbook, which says, "Short news reports - sometimes as many as ten a day - are slotted into programme junctions in Granada's daily schedule, and longer bulletins of 15 to 30 minutes go out at lunchtime and early evenings."

That said, they were one of the last regions to do a 10.30 bulletin, I've got an old Betamax tape from 1988 when after News at Ten Granada simply have a quick trailer for tomorrow's Granada Reports. Tom McGurk I don't think was very good and left pretty quick. Tony Wilson took over, I think, and said the kids of Liverpool spent more time driving his car than he did.

Well yeah, Tony Wilson would say that. He was just peeved that he had further to drive to work than he would've done a couple of years or so earlier. It's also why regional television with two large cities in it is far from ideal, especially for the city it's not HQ'd in.

This has got me thinking now, what programmes were made at Albert Dock before they shut it down?

We have...

Granada Reports/News (1986-1998)
Granada Reports/Tonight (1986-1992/3)
The Week In View (1988?)
This Morning (1988-1996)
Granada Goals Extra (1991-1996)
Shop! (1998-2002)

I assume Granada Soccer Night came from Albert Dock too. If so, when did it move to Manchester? I'm guessing the same time the news moved?

Are there any other notable programmes that came from Liverpool during this era? Surely the last Granada show to come from Liverpool was a regional show called Made In The North West. It was on Friday nights around 2003 and only had a short run of a few weeks. It was quite nostalgic because it came from a bar in the Collonades, where This Morning was based, although I'm not sure whether it was the same unit or not.

There's a show in this called Rock Around the Dock. Don't know if it was networked?

I forgot about Rock Around The Dock. I think it only ran in 1986. Whether it was networked or not, I don't know, as there's not much about it on the internet. I'm thinking it was probably Granada Only though.

It was networked, Gary Davies presented it. It was a big concert in the Dock, it might even have been held to mark Granada's arrival. I remember when This Morning moved to London, Granada said they were still making stuff in Liverpool, specifically Something For The Weekend - ie, the ten minute what's on guide at the end of Friday's Granada Tonight.

I was under the assumption Mr Wilson left Granada Reports not that long after they moved to Liverpool, it was around this time Bob Greaves had left for a bit, another poster posted that John Huntley started in 1990, but there's a clip on TV Ark from October 1988 with him presenting the main Granada Reports bulletin, assuming not long after Richard Madeley had left.

Its worth noting that Fred's weather map was left floating in the water for many years, although it had gone by about 2005 or so. The old Granada building has had it's sign removed and a little bit altered to the front and it appears to be an office now. The studio This Morning came from I'm sure is just now an overpriced bar or café. Worth noting that the building was originally signed as Granada TV News, but it was changed to Granada Television at some point.

Although it's a missed opportunity now but all the talk about Granada moving out of Quay St for years, one plan was for them to keep the bonded warehouse and move the News operation into there, I think they could have easily moved the News to Liverpool and just kept Corrie in Manchester, but things change programmes come and go sadly.

Hands up who remembers the extra down the line studios Granada had? I remember walking past the one in Chester when I was a child thinking I can't believe Granada are in that building, which was only the size of a small shop, they had one in Blackburn and Lancaster too didn't they?

I don't thinking moving the news back to Liverpool was ever a serious prospect. If anything, the fact Corrie meant that they had to have some presence in Manchester anyway would've made such a thing academic, as I'm sure the region-loathing ITVplc would not want a significance in two cities in the one region if they clearly don't have to.

I seem to remember Fred carrying on with his weather reports from the Albert Dock into This Morning after they left Liverpool for a while as some sort of a sop to viewers who said they'd miss them, which would explain why the map stuck around. Can't have been for long though.