Another ITV Granada rant

Does the name Granada have any relation to the north west.
The reason I ask is that it is the only region within the ITV plc network (not including SMG etc) to retain its news name.
For example, we lost HTV news, it renamed itself ITV1 wales and ITV1 WEST, ok, with me so far?
Tyne tees news many years ago was renamed North East tonight.
Border news is still Border news as Border does relate to Border anyway, as does Anglia.
But Granada News? Why wasn't this renamed to North West News or somthing like everyone else.

Any thoughts?

The name Granada has no relation to the North West.

When Sidney Bernstein set up the group to apply for the ITA North West franchise, he chose the name of 'Granada' because it was an area in Spain that he liked to go to when he took a walking holiday.

It's a simple (or as dull) explanation as that.

I guess the news programme was named after the station because of a similar reason that the name was removed from screens in the North West a couple of years ago. Branding.
Calling the local news programme the same as the station re-inforced the value of the name to the new viewers they were picking up as independent television grew more popular.

Here is ITV Wales we also seem to have a lot less regional programmes since the loss of HTV.

________________________
BBC Breakfast
Someone please make it stop

.
Although you are correct that Granada is called Granada after the place of the same name in Spain, it was not set up to apply for an ITV contract; Granada was formed as a cinema chain in the SOUTH of England. They applied for the northern franchise so as not to face competing with themselves.


Westcountry has retained it's name, even though it doesn't describe the area that they broadcast to (which is South West England, 'The West Country' is a term which applies to the patch on which HTV West broadcasts!).

What Meridan News to do with the South????

Because it broadcasts in the part of the country next to the Greenwich Meridian perhaps?

Correct the GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) runs through the Greenwich Meridian & continues (obviously) to the South Coast

Last time it checked, Meridian broadcast to the whole of South and South East England, not just Greenwich. It's a hardly as geographical as Southern or TVS.

Did I say it did? I said the area around the line of the meridian ie the south and south east not just Greenwich itself.

The 'North East Tonight' name was brought in when YTV decided to brand TTTV as 'Channel 3 North East'. I suppose the name just stuck. Most people seem to call it Tyne Tees News though.

And, it has to be said that at no time during TTTV's independent days did they call their news programme "Tyne Tees" anything. It was, somewhat ironically, remote meddling that brought the name to the fore on the news in the first place.

Quite honestly I have always found naming regional news programmes "xxx Today/Tonight" or similar to be very bland and unimaginative. Give me "Northn Life" over "Tyne Tees Today" any day of the week. The North East Tonight name, with C3NE nothing more than a distant memory now, is far better IMHO than Tyne Tees Tonight would have been.

ITV, to give them their due, have not, apart from HTV, changed any of the regional news names. HTV was a special case.

The problem with Granada is because it's a brand name that has been left untouched for so long, why get rid of it? It has been the key of ITV's success over 50 years, especially with it being one of the Big 5 aswell. Now people can whinge at me saying the same thing about ATV, but ATV had to be put under review due to a poor local output, also considering that ATV also had an International arm didn't help them either.

You again could say the same thing about HTV, but HTV had an odd unusual death in that sense, considering it covered both Wales and West, it had cater for several needs, especially in Wales. Now when 2002 came along, you clearly couldn't have ITV1 HTV Wales as a constant brand and ITV1 HTV West as something that would be used from time to time, so as simple as this HTV had to go. Hence forth ITV Wales and ITV West. I would also assume a plan has been hatching at ITV for sometime now to seperate Wales & West, to give Wales a tad more individuality. Also to almagamate Westcountry and HTV/ITV West.

Also having a company called ITV HTV wouldn't sound right on the ears either? Frankly if TVS was still around then I would bet you it would be called ITV South rather than ITV TVS.

Now as for News on Granada it's had several names such as Scene at 6.30, Six-O-One, Granada Reports, Granada Tonight and Granada Reports , but the current name of Granada Reports does what it says on the title, same as Granada News , thus same can also apply for ITV Wales News and ITV West News .

Well that's what I think anyway, though I seem to remember they got rid of HTV in order to kill any confusion, so at one point it was as simple as 'HTV News is a Carlton Production for ITV1 Wales'