A question about Granada before 1968

I've just been reading this article from Transdiffusion about Granada's studio in London which was primarily used for the variety programme "Chelsea At Nine"

https://www.transdiffusion.org/2015/08/03/granada-tv-chelsea

There was a small studio in Leeds which was used as I understand it for inserts into "Scene At 6.30"

Why did Granada not put as much effort and resources into Leeds as they did into London? I know that Chelsea At Nine was a major programme but surely the pan-Northern nature of Granada at the time would have necessitated more input from Yorkshire or am I wrong?

There was indeed a studio in Leeds, on the Headrow, often manned by one Michael Parkinson

Was that all?

I think I've seen some pics of a basic interview set up there but little more. It was just a contribution facility for interviews into the regional news programme.

Many of the other companies had London facilities, often in former theatres. In that period of the infancy of TV I guess TV companies were competing with the West End for access to talent, so being able to make a show in London rather than get people to travel to Manchester had its benefits.

I always thought it was a shame that Granada didn't invest more in Yorkshire.

Arguably that's why the franchise was split later on.

Remember that Granada only had the weekday contract, ABC provided programmes at the weekend. I'm not aware that they had any particular presence in Yorkshire.

This is from Transdiffusion:

What this meant in effect was that for the weekend only, these two Independent Television regions became one, and a tall map on the wall behind the ‘newsreader’ showed the ABC ‘region’ as white within a shaded England, the north and midlands ‘as one’. This gave the surreal impression that the part of the country that mattered was that part north of Watford, and south of that point was some rather parochial place called ‘London’ that “need not concern us at ABC”.

Seems wrong to me that Yorkshire was treated almost as a leper.

The same way Liverpool felt about Granada... which is why Phil Redmond went against them in 1991.

Hmm true enough.

I hadn’t realised that. TM and local news bulletins were presented from Liverpool (not sure when the news moved there, was it around the late 80s?). Was there a lack of news/current affairs that represented Liverpool, or what?

I'm guessing the news moving to Liverpool was in response to the suggestion that coverage was too Manchester-centric. More than likely with one eye on franchise renewal in the same way TVS upped its regional game in the years leading up to the end.