A NEW research project from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) is to explore and chart the history of North West broadcaster Granada television.
Granada’s high standard of broadcasting and influence spread far beyond the borders of the North West and even the country, with The New York Times describing Granada as “the finest television company in the world” during the 80s.
The Manchester Centre for Regional History, based in the MMU’s Department of History, Politics and Philosophy, has been awarded a grant by the Granada Foundation to explore memories of the broadcaster.
The project will collect these memories through a series of interviews with presenters, producers, researchers, camera operators, stagehands, production assistants and others that worked for the company, focusing particularly on those that worked in the Manchester and Liverpool offices between the 60s and 80s.
Conscious of the age of some of the station’s earliest employees, the project hopes to collect together these memories before they are lost forever.
Founded in 1954 by Lord Bernstein, Granada began transmitting on 3 May 1956. It has continued to broadcast ever since.
Its heyday was probably in the period between 1960 until 1990 when the Broadcasting Act led to significant changes to the shape of British broadcasting. During this period Granada produced some of the finest television of its day including Brideshead Revisted, World In Action, What the Papers Say, Seven Up, Coronation Street and The Jewel In The Crown.
Granada’s high standard of broadcasting and influence spread far beyond the borders of the North West and even the country, with The New York Times describing Granada as “the finest television company in the world” during the 80s.
The first showing of this material will be through a presentation to the Manchester Histories Festival in Spring 2014 about the role of Granada and its cultural and economic importance to the North West region.
For more information about the project, please contact Fiona Cosson, Research Associate at the Manchester Centre for Regional History, email f.cosson@mmu.ac.uk
