Granada

ITV Granada is the Channel 3 regional service for North West England, the licence for the region being held by ITV Broadcasting Limited since November 2008. Previously it was held by Granada Television which was founded by Sidney Bernstein and based at Granada Studios since its inception, and which was the only surviving company out of the original four Independent Television Authority franchisees from 1954 before it merged with Carlton Communications to form ITV plc in 2004.

Broadcasting by Granada Television began on 3 May 1956 under the North of England weekday franchise and was marked by a distinctive northern identity. The Granada Group merged with Carlton Communications to form ITV plc in 2004 after a duopoly had developed over the previous decade. The Granada name, as with those of the other former Channel 3 regional licence holders, has completely disappeared except for the regional news bulletins and weeknightly regional news magazine as ITV Broadcasting Limited operates the service with national ITV branding and continuity.

The North West region is regarded as ITV's most successful franchise, and The Financial Times and The Independent once described Granada Television, the former franchise holder, as 'the best commercial television company in the world'. Nine Granada programmes were listed in the BFI TV 100 in 2000 and some of its most notable programmes include Coronation Street, Seven Up!, The Royle Family, The Jewel in the Crown, Brideshead Revisited, World in Action, University Challenge and The Krypton Factor. ITV Productions currently operates from the former Granada studios on Quay Street in Manchester and will move to MediaCityUK in early 2013.

Origins
Granada Television, a subsidiary of Granada Ltd, originated in Granada Theatres Ltd, which owned cinemas in the south of England, founded in Dover in 1930 by Sidney Bernstein and his brother Cecil. The company was incorporated as Granada Ltd in 1934 and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1935; Granada Theatres Ltd became a subsidiary of the new company. It is named after the Spanish town, Granada.

The Bernsteins became involved in commercial television, a competitor to the cinema chains. Bernstein bid for the North of England franchise, which he believed would not affect the company's largely southern-based cinema chain. In 1954, the Independent Television Authority (ITA) awarded Granada the North of England contract for Monday to Friday, with ABC, serving the same area on weekends. The companies used the ITA's Winter Hill and Emley Moor transmitters covering Lancashire and the West and East Ridings of Yorkshire, including the major conurbations around Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield and Doncaster.

"The North and London were the two biggest regions. Granada preferred the North because of its tradition of home-grown culture, and because it offered a chance to start a new creative industry away from the metropolitan atmosphere of London... the North is a closely knit, indigenous, industrial society; a homogeneous cultural group with a good record for music, theatre, literature and newspapers, not found elsewhere in this island, except perhaps in Scotland. Compare this with London and its suburbs—full of displaced persons. And, of course, if you look at a map of the concentration of population in the North and a rainfall map, you will see that the North is an ideal place for television"."

Bernstein selected a base from Leeds and Manchester. Granada executive Victor Peers believed Manchester was the preferred choice even before executives toured the region to find a suitable base. Granada Studios, designed by architect Ralph Tubbs, was built on a site on Quay Street in Manchester city centre belonging to Manchester City Council bought for £82,000.

Transmissions began in Lancashire on 3 May 1956, and Yorkshire six months later. The opening night featured Meet The People hosted by Quentin Reynolds and comedian Arthur Askey. Reynolds became inebriated before the broadcast and had to sober up.

Early years
Granada determined to develop a strong northern identity — northern voices, northern programmes, northern idents with phrases such as Granada from the north, From the north—Granada and Granadaland. Bernstein refused to employ anyone not prepared to live in or travel to Manchester and Jeremy Isaacs called him a 'genial tyrant' as a result.

"I think that what Manchester sees today, London will see eventually."

Bernstein decided to build new studios rather than hiring space or converting old buildings, an approach favoured by the other ITV companies and by the BBC at its' original Manchester studios. The investment in new studios in 1954 contributed to Granada struggling financially and the company was close to insolvency by late 1956. All four ITA franchisees were expected to make losses in the first few years of operation but Granada's was a significant sum of £175,000 (nearly £3.5m in 2011) and when it became profitable it had the lowest profits of the quartet.

Granada sought the help of Associated-Rediffusion, the London weekday station, which agreed to underwrite Granada's debts in exchange for a percentage of its profits, without the consent of the ITA, who would have blocked it. Granada accepted the deal, but the popularity of ITV increased and profitability followed. Analysts questioned how Associated-Rediffusion, ABC and ATV were making annual profits of up to £2.7m by 1959 and yet Granada's profits were under £1m. With the increase in income, Granada attempted to renegotiate the contract; Associated-Rediffusion refused, souring relations for many years. The deal was worth over £8m (2008: £129m ) to Rediffusion. By the early 1960s Granada was established and its soap opera Coronation Street quickly became popular alongside inexpensive game shows Criss Cross Quiz and University Challenge.

Franchise changes
In the 1968 franchise round, Granada's contract was changed from weekdays across the northern England region to the whole week in the north west from Winter Hill transmitting station. Yorkshire became a separate region and the contract awarded to Yorkshire Television, broadcasting from Emley Moor transmitting station whose transmissions could be received in parts of North Lincolnshire. Bernstein was angered by the decision to split "Granadaland", and claimed he would appeal to the United Nations. Granada Television was now received in Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and Cheshire, the south of Cumbria around Barrow-in-Furness, the High Peak district of Derbyshire (Glossop, Buxton) and parts of the Isle of Man. Parts of North Wales can receive only the Winter Hill transmissions (i.e. Granada) rather than HTV.

Granada retained its franchise in the 1980 franchise review, and invested in multi-million pound productions such as The Jewel in the Crown and Brideshead Revisited. By the late 1980s the UK commercial broadcasters were considered too small to compete in the world market and the ITV franchises began to consolidate with the aim of creating a single company with a larger budget.

The Broadcasting Act of 1990 instigated the 1991 franchise auction round, in which companies had to bid for the regions. Mersey Television, a company producing the Channel Four soap opera Brookside, bid of £35m compared to Granada's £9m but Granada won as Mersey's package did not meet the 'quality threshold' applied by the Independent Television Commission. The quality threshold disadvantaged companies with no previous franchise experience. Granada owned popular television series such as Coronation Street which it threatened to sell to satellite TV if the franchise was lost. The government responded by relaxing the regulatory regime, so that ITV contractors could take over other companies, and Granada bought several companies. Some at the company considered ITV could only survive as a single merged entity in order to have sufficient resources to produce big-budget programmes, a concern that increased when BSkyB began to take ITV's viewing share, leading to less advertising revenue, the source of ITV's income.

David Plowright, who had worked at Granada since 1957, resigned in 1992 citing the arrival of Gerry Robinson who tightened the departmental budget with an uncompromising business approach. Plowright was the company's driving force producing programmes such as World in Action, Coronation Street and promoted the Granada Studios Tour. His departure angered well-known media-industry figures; John Cleese faxed Robinson using 'vitriolic language' and called him an 'upstart caterer', a reference to his past employment. John Birt, Harold Pinter and Alan Bennett all supported Plowright.

Takeover bids
The 'Big 5' ITV franchises, Thames, LWT, Central, Granada, and Yorkshire Television were expected to take over the ten smaller franchises. Granada wanted to consolidate with Yorkshire and Tyne Tees Television to 'counter the potential dominance of the south east', and the prospect of being taken over by Thames Television. Granada made a hostile bid for LWT in 1994 but LWT believed Granada had little to offer despite having three times the market capitalisation; Granada, however, completed the take-over in 1994. Granada continued to expand by acquiring Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television for £652m in 1997 and bought UNM for £1.75billion in 2000 – by which it acquired Anglia Television and Meridian Broadcasting and some divisions of HTV – the remaining divisions passing to rival company Carlton due to competition laws.

By 2002, Granada had established an effective duopoly of ITV with Carlton Television, owning all the ITV companies in England and Wales. The franchises in Scotland, (Scottish Television and Grampian Television), UTV in Northern Ireland, and Channel Television in the Channel Islands, remained independent.

Granada was in a poor financial state and closed the Granada Studios Tour in 2001 citing decreasing visitor figures and closed Granada Film. The emergence of digital television cut ITV's viewing share, decreasing advertising revenue which was suffering from competition with the internet. The failure of ITV Digital affected Granada and Carlton with losses estimated at over £1 billion reducing the company's value from 2001 to 2003.

ITV Granada and the unification of ITV


On 28 October 2002, in a network-wide relaunch, Granada was rebranded as ITV1 Granada. The Granada name was shown before regional programmes, but this has ceased and it has vanished from screens as have all other ITV regional identities. Since rebranding, all continuity announcements are made from London. The Granada logo appeared at the end of its own programmes until 31 October 2004.

Granada was permitted by the government to merge with Carlton on 2 February 2004 to form ITV plc. The move was a takeover by Granada whose market capitalisation was double that of Carlton at nearly £2 billion. Granada owned 68% of the shares and Carlton 32%; chairman designate Michael Green was ousted by shareholders and the majority of new board members originated from Granada. Carlton employees were subsumed in Granada operations or made redundant with three out of four new departments led by Granada staff.

From 1 November 2004, Granada productions were credited "Granada Manchester", the brand of the unified in-house production arm but on 21 September 2005 it was announced that Granada's name would no longer appear at the end of programmes and the in-house production arm was renamed 'ITV Productions'. The change on 16 January 2006 coincided with a relaunch of ITV's on-screen graphics. Granada's name and logo were used at the end of programmes made for other networks, such as University Challenge for BBC Two and old programmes shown on Sky1, 2 and 3, until 2009.

In November 2006, Granada lost its on-air identity when regional programming voiced ITV1 or ITV1 Granada over a generic ident. Local news coverage was branded Granada News except for the 18.00 Granada Reports bulletin. Granada Reports's main rival is BBC North West Tonight, broadcast to roughly the same region. In 2009, ITV removed the Granada brand from all departments including its international production arm, Granada America which became ITV Studios America. End credits on programmes made at The Manchester Studios were accredited to ITV Studios.

Present
ITV made cutbacks with the loss of 600 jobs in 2009 which effectively closed the Leeds Studios and more redundancies made in London left Granada relatively unscathed. In the 2009 ITV regional news cutbacks, Granada was one of three regions unaffected by changes except for the addition of the Isle of Man.

ITV is obliged by Ofcom to produce 50% of programmes outside London something it failed to achieve in 2007 and 2008. With this obligation, Manchester as the northern hub and an £80m move to MediaCityUK in 2013, it would appear that ITV is committed to the Granada region for the foreseeable future.

Studios


In the 18 months between the award of the franchise and the start of transmission, Granada built a studio complex on Quay Street. It has been claimed that the site was previously a cemetery containing a pauper's grave, where 22,000 people were buried. But an article in The Sun newspaper and an episode of the TV series "Most Haunted" seem to be the only sources for this so far. Twelve maps from between 1772 and 1960 show no evidence of a cemetery and buildings are shown on the site from 1807. The studios pre-date BBC Television Centre by four years and were the first purpose-built television studios in the United Kingdom.

Bernstein wanted to make Granada Television appear a close rival to the BBC and exaggerated the scale of the studios giving them even numbers so that it appeared there were 12 despite only being six. The studios are operated by 3SixtyMedia, ITV's joint-venture company with BBC Resources at BBC Manchester. The studios produce shows displaced by the closure of the Yorkshire Television studios in Leeds in 2009, including Channel 4's Countdown.

In September 2010, the 1950s red Granada TV sign on the roof of Granada Studios was removed for safety reasons after maintenance found it was badly corroded. Some have claimed the sign will return to its 'rightful place'. The Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) has registered an interest in inheriting the sign, deeming it important to Manchester's cultural heritage.

Relocation
After the ITV merger in 2004, the possibility of selling the Quay Street complex was considered and staff, studios and offices moved into the adjacent bonded warehouse building. ITV anticipated the BBC would buy the land but the BBC opted to move to the Peel Group's MediaCityUK development in Salford Quays. ITV considered relocating to Trafford Wharf across the Manchester Ship Canal from the BBC and discussions continued for several years and an agreement in principle was reached in 2008. In March 2009, in the recession, Granada announced it would remain at Quay Street but after a change of management, talks resumed in January 2010. On 16 December 2010, Granada announced it would move to the Orange Building in MediaCityUK alongside the University of Salford and a studio to produce the ITV flagship soap opera Coronation Street, would be built on the opposite bank of the ship canal on Trafford Wharf. Planning permission was granted and building work started on 6 September 2011 with the aim of completion in 2012.

Identity
Throughout its history, Granada used the logo of an arrow pointing northwards in idents often accompanied by the tagline 'from the North'. Sidney Bernstein wanted to present a northern identity. Granada Television was considered bolder than other franchisees and the BBC, and placed great emphasis displaying the northern style which distinguished it from them. Bernstein believed the north had untapped creative energy that needed cultivation.

In 1958, two years after its launch, Granada's northern style was apparent. Kenneth Clark, of the Independent Television Authority (ITA) which let the franchise, remarked: "We did not quite foresee how much Granada would develop a character which distinguishes it most markedly from the other programmes companies and from the BBC." Peter Salmon, of the BBC said: "Granada made TV programmes in the north; for northerners, reflecting northern culture and attitudes."

From the its launch in 1956 until 1968, when the pointed 'G' logo was introduced, the channel used captions and animations featuring a thin arrow pointing upwards and Granada, in a stylised font, in boxes. The arrow pointed at the "n" in Granada, pointing north and sometimes animated revealing the slogan 'From the North', before the Granada name. The pointed 'G' was originally white on a grey background but after the introduction of colour, grey was substituted for blue, with the name in yellow.

A colour emblem was used from the 1970s until it was replaced by a series of idents to celebrate Granada's 30th anniversary in 1986, when it was an animated, 3D pointed "G" against a graded background and a cake covered in candles in the pointed G shape. In 1987 Granada reverted to using a caption featuring a gold or chrome 3D pointed 'G' on a graded blue background.

Granada used in-vision continuity featuring northern personalities giving messages. It was common for the logo to be seen for a few seconds after the continuity before the programme, and continuity was rarely given over the symbol.

In 1989, Granada launched a look featuring a translucent pointed G which rotated into place in time to the music against a natural scene. When the first ITV generic look was launched, Granada refused to adopt it, because the Granada logo was incorrectly inserted into the 'V' segment of the logo. The company used a version where its translucent logo was used at the beginning, before continuing with the generic ident and ending with the generic ITV logo. In 1990, Granada in the run up to the 1990 franchise round, relaunched its on screen branding to a blue stripe descending from the top of the screen, containing the pointed 'G', against a plain white background accompanied by the same music as previously. Variations were seen from which the stripe formed from a falling feather or was backlit. In 1992 the stripe descended, revealing a rainbow of colours before becoming the usual blue. In 1994 Granada introduced a series of films featuring flags with its logo against various scenes in the region, accompanied by the slogan 'Setting the Standard'. These introduced local programming, Granada Reports, or promotions.

In 1995 the stripe theme was modified; the pointed 'G' was larger on the blue stripe against a computer generated multicoloured background and the 'G' was created by filming a large perspex 'G' with motion control photography. This ident was used, from a variety of angles, until 1999, when additional idents based on surreal surroundings such as a fish blowing a bubble with a G inside, which floated to the surface, or a camera zoom into the eye of a housewife to reveal the G in her eye were introduced.

All the idents were replaced in 1999 when Granada took the generic hearts idents. Granada kept the pointed G logo, made slightly thinner and placed in a box at the top of the screen. The dual branding of Granada and ITV lasted until 28 October 2002, when regional identities were dropped in favour of the ITV1 brand. The celebrities ident package featured plain ITV1 idents for all national programmes, and Granada placed under the ITV1 logo for regional programme. This practice continued until 2006, when no name was used, and Granada Productions was replaced with ITV Productions on programme end boards. The Granada logo continued on end boards until this date. The Granada name was used on announcements before local programming over a generic ITV1 ident until all non news regional programming was scrapped.

Programmes
In 1958, Granada Television broadcast coverage of the Rochdale by-election, 1958 – the first election to be covered on television in Britain. Granada's coverage was broad in scope and it also broadcast two candidate debates. Over 50 years later, Granada Studios hosted the first General Election debate between the leaders of the three main political parties.

Granada's boldness was seen in ambitious documentaries such as Seven Up! which premièred in 1964. The programme was a social experiment which followed the lives of 14 British children aged seven. It tracked their lives at seven-year intervals to discover whether their hopes and aspirations had been achieved. The documentary was voted the greatest ever by esteemed film-makers and its next installment, 56 Up, is due for premiere in May 2012. Seven Up was part of the World in Action documentary series between 1963 and 1998 which won awards but was controversial. It garnered a reputation for hard-hitting investigative journalism and its producer Gus Macdonald commented that the programme was 'born brash' and Paul Greengrass stated that David Plowright told him, "don't forget, your job's to make trouble." World in Action demonstrated hard-hitting investigative journalism and explored issues such as police corruption at the Metropolitan Police in 1985 and revealed the Royal Family's tax loophole in 1991. The programme led a campaign to prove the innocence of the Birmingham Six in 1985 when researcher Chris Mullin questioned the convictions and by 1991 the men had been released.

The classic northern working-class soap opera Coronation Street started a 13-week, two-episodes-a-week regional run on 9 December 1960. It is still produced at the rate of five peak-viewing episodes a week after 50 years, and is the longest-running soap opera in the world. The company produced gritty dramas such as A Family at War (1970–72).

Granada produced The Stars Look Down (1975), Laurence Olivier Presents (1976–78), Brideshead Revisited (1981), the multi-award-winning Disappearing World series (between 1969 and 1993) and, from 1984, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Jewel in the Crown for an international audience. These shows were sold overseas by Granada Television International.

Another flagship programme, the long-running quiz show, University Challenge was originally aired between 1962 and 1987 and revived by the BBC in 1994 (produced by Granada). The company produced the Krypton Factor, between 1977 and 1995 (revived by ITV in 2009). One of Granada's longest-running programmes, What The Papers Say, was broadcast by Granada in 1956, was taken over by the BBC in the early 1990s, and was shown by Channel Four. The programme introduced the idea of discussing what the newspapers were reporting, continued by Sunday Supplement and The Wright Stuff. In the 1970s, Granada produced situation comedies, often based around life in the north west including Nearest and Dearest, The Lovers and The Cuckoo Waltz followed by Brothers McGregor and Watching in the 1980s.

Granada drew on 1970s pop music with shows such as Lift Off with Ayshea and the Bay City Rollers show, Shang-a-lang. The station produced Marc, presented by glam rock star Marc Bolan. The show was in production when Bolan was killed in a car accident in 1977. Granada produced Allsorts from 1989 to 1995 for CITV, featuring Wayne Jackman, Andrew Wightman (who later produced Granada's talent show Stars In Their Eyes), Virginia Radcliffe, Jane Cox and Julie Westwood.

Personalities
Granada Television has introduced many broadcasters and television personalities to British television and had a number of directors, producers and writers who have formed their own production companies. Some have been recognised for their achievements to British television with honours such as knighthoods, while others achieved senior posts such as Director-General of the BBC. Jeremy Isaacs developed a significant portion of Granada's factual programming, and the company produced a generation of major British TV 'players' including Lord John Birt, later Director-General of the BBC, and Lord Gus Macdonald, his fellow World in Action producer. Many began work as researchers on the World in Action.


 * Writers, directors and producers
 * John Birt, Baron Birt started his career at Granada in 1966 as a researcher for World in Action before leaving in 1971. He became Director-General of the BBC from 1992 to 2000.
 * Gus Macdonald was a researcher in 1967 and worked with John Birt before leaving nearly 20 years later in 1986.
 * Andy Harries was researcher before starting his television career on World in Action and worked in various roles until the 2000s.
 * Nicola Schindler was a script-writer on Cracker in 1993 before forming the Red Production Company.
 * Jeremy Isaacs joined Granada in 1968 where he supervised production of World in Action and What the Papers Say.
 * Paul Abbott is a former screenwriter who created State of Play and Shameless.
 * Russell T Davies collaborated with Paul Abbott as a writer in the 1990s.
 * Paul Greengrass was a director of current affairs program World in Action in the 1980s before becoming a film director.
 * Kay Mellor worked with Paul Abbott on Children's Ward and wrote other drama serials such as Strictly Confidential and Between the Sheets.
 * Tom Hooper directed two episodes of Cold Feet and directed Prime Suspect before becoming a film director.
 * Michael Apted begun his television career and stayed for over twenty years. He devised the Up series documentary.
 * Jack Rosenthal was a prolific playwright producing The Dustbinmen and The Lovers.


 * Presenters
 * Sir Michael Parkinson began his television career at Granada Television.
 * Tony Wilson presented Granada Reports and music programmes which promoted Manchester music which gave him the nickname Mr Manchester.
 * Gordon Burns joined in 1972 and presented Granada Reports, World in Action and the Krypton Factor.
 * Richard Madeley joined Granada in 1982 where he met Judy Finnigan who joined as a researcher in 1972.
 * Sacha Baron Cohen had a chatshow, F2F on Granada Talk TV in 1996.
 * Lucy Meacock is Granada news presenter since 1988 and occasional presenter for the ITV national news.

Other ventures
The Granada Studios Tour opened in 1988 as an entertainment park at the Granada Studios themed around television productions. The park featured a replica set of No. 10 Downing Street, and visitors were shown how television is produced. The main feature was the set of Coronation Street

Several of Granada's programmes administered their websites using G-Wizz, including This Morning, Coronation Street and Emmerdale. Its Flash-heavy pages were mostly unusable by subscribers, who were largely modem-based, and take-up was low. Less than a year after it opened, Granada closed G-Wizz in March 2001, after it had cost the company £9 million. It combined the remainder of its online presence with fellow ITV company Carlton to launch itv.com.

From 1997 until 2002 Granada and Carlton invested and lost over £1 billion with a joint venture into ONdigital, a pay-TV, digital terrestrial broadcaster. ONdigital was rebranded ITV Digital in summer 2001, but opposed by SMG plc, UTV, and Channel Television, who felt it would damage the ITV brand. ONdigital was expected to create a new revenue stream and be floated as a separate company but by March 1999 the service only had 110,000 subscribers, well below the 2 million Granada aimed for. Granada and Carlton persevered by rebranding the service ITV Digital but this too was not successful. Competition from Sky Digital launched in 1998 was too great and ITV Digital ceased broadcasting on 1 May 2002. This led to sweeping cuts in the organisation, including cutting budgets for flagship drama serials and productions and loss of jobs at the Manchester headquarters.

In 1996 Granada joined BSkyB to form a joint venture, Granada Sky Broadcasting (GSB) providing content and new channels to the satellite platform. Granada launched a range of television channels broadcasting the Granada archive on the Sky satellite television platform and other digital platforms such as ITV Digital which closed in 2002 due to administration, NTL and Telewest (which merged to form Virgin Media). GSB operated as a joint venture until 2004 when ITV was formed. Consequently ITV purchased BSkyB's 10% stake in the venture and launched ITV3 which replaced Granada Plus. GSB was renamed the  ITV digital channels Ltd to reflect ITV PLC control.

Granada Plus was a general entertainment channel, a 50–50 joint venture between Granada Television and British Sky Broadcasting, aimed at older audiences using archived material. The channel, launched as Granada Plus, was later known as G Plus and finally Plus. It broadcast until 1 November 2004, when ITV bought BSkyB's stake in GSB, and closed the channel, replacing it with ITV3, and taking Plus' low EPG position on Sky Digital.

Originally Granada Good Life, Granada Breeze was another GSB venture. It was a lifestyle channel aimed at women viewers and showed programmes on, cookery, health and US daytime television such as Judge Joe Brown. It provided programmes split into themed sections called Granada Talk Television, Granada Food and Wine, Granada Health and Beauty, Granada Television High Street and Granada Home and Garden. Most shows were presented from a large conservatory studio outside the Coronation Street studio which was later used for daytime ITV Play programming. Granada Breeze was scaled down in July 2001 before ceasing operation in March 2002 due to poor viewing figures.

Another channel, Wellbeing, a joint venture with Boots, modelled on Granada Breeze was broadcast from The Leeds Studios, although Granada made some programmes, closed in 2003. A male oriented channel, Men and Motors, lasted longest of all the channels, and ran until 2010, when it was closed to make way for ITV1 HD. Most of its programmes were transferred to ITV4. Granada Talk TV focused on chat shows and closed after less than a year on air.

Awards and accolades
Granada Television had a reputation for strong production values. In 1999, Granada Television made eight of ITV's top-rated programmes and 30% of the UK's top-rated programmes came from its studios and in 2005 supplied 63% of ITV original production. It was the only ITA broadcaster created in 1954 that survived into the 21st century, and flourished it emerged the dominant player in the ITV network by 2000.

In the 19 BAFTA Awards for the Best Drama series awarded since 1992, Granada Television has won five in total, Cracker twice in 1994 and 1995, Cold Feet in 2002 and The Street in 2007 and 2008 – more than any other production company.

Coronation Street became the longest running serial soap in 2010 when it celebrated its 50th anniversary and the ongoing Seven Up documentary series was voted the greatest documentary in a Channel 4 program by film makers.

Criticism and controversy
Granada has attracted controversy since its inception, the most serious were libel cases in the 1990s resulting in the cancellation of World in Action.

In the 1991 auction round, Mersey Television made an audacious bid to rid Granada of its franchise, unlikely, as Granada had never lost a franchise and was well respected. Mersey Television claimed that Granada was too Manchester-centred at the expense of the Liverpool area and need to cater for the whole of North West England. Granada Television was referred to as Granada Manchester, as most productions were made in Manchester and in 2005 Granada and Manchester City Council held a celebration recognising Granada's 50th anniversary cementing this perception further. In 1993, Brian Sedgemore MP, complained that promises Granada made during the 1991 franchise round to open offices in Chester, Lancaster and Blackburn were not made but David Liddiment at Granada did not believe this assertion to be true.

Granada had increased investment in Liverpool moving its regional news service to the Albert Dock complex in 1986 before moving back to the Quay Street sometime in the early 2000s. The ITV network based its daytime show This Morning at Liverpool Docks for several years before it moved to the London Studios in 1996, as it was difficult to get guests to travel from London to Liverpool.

Granada's bold, hard-hitting television and documentaries have resulted in legal cases. David Plowright told junior researcher, Paul Greengrass, that Granada's role was to make trouble. World in Action was hard-hitting but resulted in expensive, libel trials when wrong accusations were made in the 1990s.

In 1998 Granada paid £2 million in two cases, to three Metropolitan Police officers who were wrongly accused of covering up a murder and Marks and Spencer for alleging M&S knew one of its suppliers was using child labour. World in Action was replaced by the Tonight programme in 1998 but it was criticised as dumbing down as the Tonight programme is markedly less hard-hitting.

In 2003, the documentary Living with Michael Jackson resulted in the threat of legal action by Michael Jackson. The documentary gained a large audience, 15 million in the United Kingdom, and newspapers depicted Jackson in a negative light following the documentary.