Granada Reports

Rachel has relatives in Liverpool, so no surprise considering where she's based that she's able to cover shifts in Salford.

A special episode tonight marking 60 years on from the Munich disaster, hosted from the studio but with a large CSO screen forming the backdrop. I think we've seen a green curtain in the studio in behind the scenes pics but first time I've seen it used.

Nice to see Granada leading with the Airbus news as the top story tonight - despite the factory actually being just over the border in North Wales. Obviously many workers commute from Cheshire/the Wirral, but there had been a period where this would have been reduced to a minor mention in brief. Of course years ago North Wales stories were much more frequent.

Was it covering up the real windows?

Didn't they even place weather symbols in north Wales on their weather map for many years?

And didn't Granada even make some Welsh language stuff in its very early years? I'm sure I've seen images of something akin to the early "From The North" frontcap (arrow & letter tiles), but written in Cymraeg.

I believe that an extra relay transmitter was erected in NE Wales when DSO was happening, to minimise/eliminate the traditional Granada overspill.

Welsh placenames on the weather map went about a decade or so ago, when a decision was made to avoid covering north Wales stories in the way they used to do fairly regularly (till the mid-00s). The symbols stayed till fairly recently though when the maps changed and the temperatures were aligned with the placenames only.

The extra transmitter was installed for DSO at Storeton on the Wirral, forcing some Flintshire/Deeside viewers to pick up the Welsh services as well as the North West ones, despite having their aerials pointing to England.

People will always watch Granada up here though because very little hard news happens in North Wales, and stories about Cardiff City and the M4 relief road are of zero interest if you support Liverpool and commute to work in Greater Manchester.

There is also the legacy of people pointing their aerials towards an English transmitter to get C4 rather than S4C in those areas of the North Wales coastline - the Welsh language is something of a minority there.

The Welsh muxes from Storeton do not force any viewers away from Winter Hill and English programmes, during a receiver tune both regions should appear as choices ( as is the case for any overlap area)

Granada did indeed carry afternoon Welsh programmes in the late 50s and early 60s, on Winter Hill only, Emley Moor ( that carried Granada back then) had other programmes. It ceased when the ITA built the Moel-y-Parc transmitter, that was assigned to Teledu Cymru, ( subsequently TWW/HTV) I suspect Granada lobbied to have MyP allocated to them perhaps ?

Hence my use of the words "as well as". The difference with this specific case is that the introduction of the Storeton muxes wasn't really about providing choice (which in most parts of that area already existed) - it was a way of quietly pushing people onto the Welsh services. And quite a few receivers at the time weren't sophisticated enough to offer the choice of regions, many just shoved the weaker service into the 800s.
I must sound like I have a real bee in my bonnet about this issue, I don't, I was merely remarking on Granada making a sensible editorial decision to run with Airbus as the top story rather than sidelining it, as similar stories have been for the last decade.

I don’t disagree, just clarifying that Storeton doesn’t ‘blank out’ reception of Winter Hill. I agree, good that Granada did cover the Airbus story, presumably BBC NWT ignored it ?

Granada have had gallery issues this morning meaning that the 6:10 and 7:10 bulletins could not air. Meaning that we had Calendar instead.

On the 6pm yesterday, the colour of the studio shots looked weird with a distinct blue tinge.