Granada Plus

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Granada Plus was a satellite channel run by Granada Sky Broadcasting. It was launched on 1 October 1996 - 1 November 2004 and was later rebranded as G Plus or G+ and then simply Plus. However it was generally still referred to by the public at large by its former name.

Launch and early years

Granada Plus was launched on October 1, 1996 at 7pm. From launch, the channel initially showed only programmes made originally by Granada Television and London Weekend Television (itself recently acquired by Granada Television), such as On The Buses, Crown Court, The Comedians and The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club. One of the channel's biggest selling points was a thrice-daily repeat of classic Coronation Street episodes from 1976. Broadcasting hours were shared with Granada Men & Motors.

Many of these programmes would have been un-shown since their original transmissions, and hence were of value to those interested in classic television, but these early schedules lacked the commercial appeal of rival channel UK Gold, which had long since moved from showing little-seen gems to showing TV's 'greatest hits'. Many of the programmes had originally been recorded on relatively low-quality VT stock, which was common practice in television at the time, as it was never really envisaged that repeated programmes would have any commercially-exploitable value. This gave the programmes a badly-dated appearance, which wasn't helped by the abundance of 1970s and 1980s fashions sported by the characters on screen.

It wasn't long before Granada Plus revamped their on-screen identity, and in order to look more contemporary, they started showing more recent programmes made by the ITV network (at the time, Granada were busy buying up old rivals such as Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television, in preparation for a unified ITV plc), as well as programme stock which had been originally shown on the BBC. Many of the channel's programmes were cut by up to 5 minutes for commercial timing purposes, which was not a popular choice with viewers. It continued to broadcast until 1 November 2004, when ITV took full control of GSB. Staff at Plus were given 15 minutes notice before ITV took it off air.

Closure and ITV3

The story of Plus's closure is of note. Come 1 November 2004 — ITV3's launch date — it was looking increasingly likely that ITV3 would not be launched on Sky Digital. However, frantic discussions were going on behind the scenes: ITV wanted the 7 million or so Sky viewers available; Sky didn't want to give Freeview any advantage; and to further complicate matters, ITV wanted the new channel to be as high up on the EPG as possible. ITV looked into Plus and found out that it was in a high EPG slot, channel 118.

At 3pm, just 6 hours before launch, ITV and Sky finally reached a deal: ITV would buy out Sky's 49.5% stake in GSB for £10 million. The deal went as follows. This meant ITV plc completely took full control of the two GSB channels, Plus & Men & Motors. At about 3.30pm,ITV decided to close Granada Plus and pull the plug on it, meaning ITV2 would move to channel 118. ITV3 would then be put on channel 119.

The first sign which had happened at 4.30pm, when in the middle of an ad break, Plus suddenly cut to a GSkyB slide and then disappeared. ITV finally had the plug on Plus pulled, with Plus being closed down shortly after 4.29pm. The final programme on Plus was Pie in the Sky, but half of it was shown before ITV ceased transmission of Plus. Thus, ITV2 was to broadcast at channel number 118 in the EPG and ITV3 at 119.

Plus were caught unaware; they had sent out their regular highlights email at 3:50 pm. Viewers would have seen Granada Sky Broadcasting disappear mid-programme at 4:30 pm, and ITV2 & ITV3 slides appearing at 5:15 pm. The countdown to launch appeared at 8pm, with the launch taking place 1 hour later.

The channel's closure annoyed many viewers, as most programmes were not moved over to the new channel. Many programmes to this day have since not been repeated and viewing figures of ITV3 are extremely weak.

Past Programmes

• A Bit of a Do
• A Bit of Fry and Laurie
• A Family at War
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
• Alas Smith and Jones
• Alfresco
• An Audience With...
• The Avengers
• Batman
• Beadle's About
• The Benny Hill Show
• Bewitched
• Bless This House
• Blind Date
• The Brian Conley Show
• Brian Conley: This Way Up
• The Brittas Empire
• Brush Strokes
• Bullseye
• Cagney & Lacey
• Canned Carrott
• Carrott's Commercial Breakdown
• The Comedians
• Coronation Street
• Crown Court
• The Dame Edna Experience
• The Dick Van Dyke Show
• Dempsey & Makepeace
• Dick Emery
• Doctor in the House
• Duty Free
• Elvis Presley
• Emmerdale
• Faith in the Future
• Families
• French Fields
• George and Mildred
• Gladiators
• The Grumbleweeds Radio Show
• Happy Days
• Hart to Hart
• Heartbeat
• Home to Roost
• Hornblower
• I Dream of Jeannie
• In Sickness and in Health
• Inspector Morse
• Jeeves & Wooster
• The Kenny Everett Video Show
• The Krypton Factor
• London's Burning
• Love Thy Neighbour
• Man About the House
• Me and My Girl
• Miami Vice
• Mind Your Language
• Murder, She Wrote
• My Favorite Martian
• The New Statesman
• No Place Like Home
• Not on Your Nellie
• Old Boy Network
• On The Buses
• Only When I Laugh
• Peak Practice
• The Piglet Files
• The Professionals
• Rich Tea and Sympathy
• Rising Damp
• Robin's Nest
• The Rockford Files
• Rory McGrath's Commercial Breakdown
• Second Thoughts
• Spitting Image
• Starsky and Hutch
• Surprise, Surprise
• The Sweeney
• Taggart
• Terry and June
• That's My Boy
• There's Nothing To Worry About
• Thomas & Sarah
• Till Death Us Do Part
• Up Pompeii
• Up the Garden Path
• The Upper Hand
• Upstairs, Downstairs
• Van der Valk
• Watching
• The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club
• You Bet!