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overview
holdings
landmarks
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overview
This
profile considers the Granada group, the UK commercial
broadcaster that merged with Carlton in 2003/4 to form
ITV plc.
It covers -
This
site features separate profiles of Carlton
and ITV plc.
introduction
UK-based Granada dated from the 1920s and like US counterparts
such as Viacom migrated from
cinema operation to film production and broadcasting,
punctuated by expansion into selling refrigerators, hotels
and hamburgers.
As of 2002 the group was the major UK commercial television
broadcaster (competing with Murdoch's
BSkyB), had multimedia and film/tv production interests
and stakes in Australian media groups.
In October 2003 the UK government approved Granada's merger
with Carlton, the new entity
being somewhat confusingly badged as ITV
plc.
the group
Sidney and Cecil Bernstein built a national cinema chain
in the UK during the 1920s and 30s, often in a mooresque
style. They dabbled in film finance - most notably through
the Transatlantic Films partnership with Alfred Hitcock
- and in the 1950s gained an Independent Television franchise
for English midlands. Sidney famously said "I will
earn more from the ice creams I sell in my cinemas than
I ever will from commercial TV" - shades of Roy Thomson
- but appears to have correctly forecast significant profits
if Granada's production costs were kept low.
In 1959 Granada launched a chain of television rental
shops, soon more profitable than the network, and moved
into the fast food business on a large scale. (A chronology
is here.) It acquired rental
competitors such as Rediffusion, started selling whitegoods
through its shopfronts and moved in and out of general
book publishing.
In 1967 changes to the ITV franchise meant that Granada
gained and lost some markets. (Bernstein had warned that
he would take his case to the United Nations, but the
government was undeterred.)
Granada progresively sold off its cinemas and continued
to expand in the food services market, gaining control
of the Forte hotel and catering group in a controversial
£3.6 billion takeover in 1996. In 1999 it bought the television
interests of UK publisher United News & Media for £1.75
billion (£20.2 million for Harry Ramsden's Fish &
Chip Shop chain in the same year was small change).
In 2000 it merged with caterer Compass Group in a £17.5
billion deal; a year later Compass was demerged, leaving
Granada as a pure media group. More drama, it seems, in
the boardroom and the merchant banks than on the small
screen. A merger with content producer Carlton Communications
was mooted but rejected by the government.
holdings
Prior to the Carlton merger the group encompassed -
- several
ITV franchises (accounting for over half the UK commercial
tv advertising revenue),
- a
digital television unit and stakes in traditional pay
tv,
- strategic
interests in two football clubs,
- a
large film library,
- film/tv
production units and
- stakes
in Australia's Seven Network
and Village Roadshow.
An indication of holdings towards the end of 2001 is here.
Bernstein
Sidney Lewis Bernstein (1899-1993) was the fourth child
of businessman Alexander Bernstein (c1860–1922),
who had migrated to the UK from Latvia in the early 1890s.
Alexander Bernstein survived a financial disaster during
the Boer War (he had exported boots to the Boers), going
on to build a cinema at Edmonton in 1908 as the centrepiece
of a real estate development.
By 1922 the Bernstein family owned a chain of twenty cinemas,
which Sidney expanded through sale of the Bernstein property
and carborundum manufacturing interests. In partnership
with author Arnold Bennett he put on a series of plays
at the Court Theatre, Sloane Square, and subsequently
developed the Phoenix Theatre in Charing Cross Road (the
venue for Noël Coward's Private Lives).
Returns from live theatre after the 1929 Crash were tenuous;
Bernstein accordingly concentrated on expansion of his
Granada cinemas (often designed by Theodore Komisarjevsky
(1882-1954)).
In 1940 Alfred Duff Cooper, then Minister of Information
in the new Churchill government, appointed Bernstein as
film adviser. That appointment was contrary to advice
from MI5, who regarded Bernstein as a security risk (apparently
on the basis of family contacts and service as a Labour
member on the Middlesex county council from 1929 to 1936).
In 1944 he became head of the film section of the psychological
warfare division attached to Supreme Headquarters Allied
Expeditionary Force. Bernstein's brother Cecil oversaw
the family's cinema operations for the duration of the
war.
In 1946 Sidney and Alfred Hitchcock established Transatlantic
Picture Corporation as a joint venture for independent
film production in Hollywood, with Bernstein accordingly
spending much of his time in the US. The partnership resulted
in Rope (1948), Under Capricorn (1949)
and I Confess (1953) but was not a major commercial
success and dissolve with the latter production.
Bernstein and Granada Theatres Ltd sought to enter television
in the UK from 1948, gaining the Independent Television
Authority licence for Manchester and Liverpool station
in 1955. Bernstein initially ran Granada Television as
the proprietor of a private company and attracted ITA
criticism over an unorthodox programme-sharing arrangement
with Associated Rediffusion that reduced heavy losses
facing both groups during the start-up phase of UK commercial
tv. During the 1960s the Bernstein interests were consolidated
as the Granada Group, with Granada Television as the main
subsidiary and diversification - noted above - into rentals,
food and petrol retailing, and publishing. Granada acquired
Rupert Hart-Davis, McGibbon & Kee, 50% of Jonathan
Cape and the Novello music publishing house. Ongoing weakness
in the UK cinema market was reflected in successful conversion
of several cinemas were turned into bingo halls. By 1979
television provided only 16% of the group's income.
Bernstein became a life peer, as Baron Bernstein of Leigh,
under Harold Wilson in 1969. He left £6,748,956
at his death.
studies
There is no major study of Granada's recent history.
Its early years, however, are illuminated by a number
of works. For the cinema business and film production
see Roy Armes' A Critical History of the British Cinema
(New York: Oxford Uni Press 1978) and the major biographies
of Alfred Hitchcock. The Granada Theatres (London:
British Film Institute 1999) by Allen Eyles deals with
the architecture - now mostly recycled as parking lots,
bingo halls or supermarkets.
For television see Persona: Granada Memories of Sidney
Bernstein and the Early Years of Independent Television
(London: Deutsch 1997) by Denis Forman, the less substantial
It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time (London:
Macmillan 1999) by Michael Grade and Michael Leapman's
Treachery: The Power Struggle at TV AM (London:
Unwin Hyman 1989).
The major official history is Asa Briggs' five volume
The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom
(London: Oxford Uni Press 1961-86); we recommend instead
the multivolume Independent Television in Britain
(London: Macmillan 1982- ) by Bernard Sendall, Jeremy
Potter & Paul Bonner. Stuart Hood's Behind the
Screens: The Structure of British Television in the Nineties
(London: Lawrence & Wishart 1994) will please fans
of Vince Mosco and Robert McChesney.
For the 'Forte Wars' see Charles Forte's Forte
(London: Pan 1988) and William Kay's Lord of The Dance:
The Story of Gerry Robinson (London: Texere 1999),
the latter dealing with Granada's chief executive.
Granada's on-again, off-again affair with publishing is
touched on in Rupert Hart-Davis's memoirs The Arms
of Time (Stroud: Sutton 1979) and Halfway To Heaven:
Concluding Memoirs of A Literary Life (Stroud: Sutton
1998).
ITN is explored in the valedictory And Finally ...
? The News From ITN (London: Politico's 2005) by
Richard Lindley.
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