Grampian Television

Applications for the new North East Scotland contract area were sought by the Independent Television Authority (ITA) in the spring of 1960. From the original seven applicants, three serious contenders emerged and the contract was awarded in August 1960 to North of Scotland Television Limited on the provision that board positions were offered to the other two final applicants, Caledonian Television and North Caledonian Television. The company's first managing director was G.E. Ward Thomas who later established Yorkshire Television in 1968.

The name North of Scotland TV was considered too cumbersome for use and to reflect the input of the other applicants, a new name was chosen on 11 January 1961 - "Grampian Television" after one of the key Scottish mountain ranges, the Grampian Mountains. Grampian planned to launch on 1 October 1961 and had already bought and converted their studios for the start date. However, four months prior to launch, the Post Office announced that the links which would connect Grampian to the network would not be ready until February 1962. This would have left the new station only able to broadcast output from its neighboring colleagues at Scottish Television (STV). Pressure at the highest level of Government ensured that the links were in place in time for the station's planned launch.

The first (pre-launch) test transmissions from the Durris transmitting station began on 1 September 1961. A week later, Grampian announced the names of their initial announcers-June Imray, Douglas Kynoch and Elizabeth Mackenzie -all of them were teachers.[1][2] However, Mackenzie handed in her resignation the day before the station launched "for health reasons"; Her position was initially filled by 23 year-old Jimmy Sleigh,[3] before James Spankie came into Grampian as the permanent replacement.[3]

Grampian Television went on air on Saturday 30 September 1961 at 2.45 pm (the 15th ITA franchise to launch) with the opening authority announcement from continuity announcer Douglas Kynoch and a brief welcome from the chairman of the Independent Television Authority, Sir Ivonne Kirkpatrick:

Douglas Kynoch:

Good afternoon. This is the first transmission of Grampian Television Limited, over the Durris and Monteagle transmitters of the Independent Television Authority. Today, we're about to join all the millions of viewers of the Independent Television network and we're very glad to have in our studios, to switch us into the network, the chairman of the Independent Television Authority, Sir Ivonne Kirkpatrick.

Sir Ivonne Kirkpatrick:

Good afternoon. I am glad to be in Aberdeen today to welcome you into the great family of Independent Television viewers. You now have your own television company in the North East and I hope that you'll very soon come to regard Grampian Television as an essential part of your everyday life. I wish you and Grampian the best of luck and now, let us join the network.

Following the brief opening, the station handed over to ABC's networked coverage of Racing from Catterick Bridge. Later in the opening day at 7pm, Grampian's first chairman, Sir Alexander B. King, presented a half-hour introductory programme about the station. At the time of launch, Grampian served a potential audience of 332,000 people in 98,000 homes.[4]

In its first year, Grampian produced nine regular regional programmes - namely News and Views (a thrice-weekly magazine programme), Country Focus, Women's World, Serenade, Scotland for Me, Points North (a long-running current affairs programme), Grampian Golf, local news bulletins and monthly church services.[5]

In the early days, Grampian struggled as viewers in a key part of its transmission area, the city of Dundee, were still tuning into coverage from STV via the strong signal of the Black Hill transmitter. Three months after its first transmission, the station was only attracting 13% of the available audience in Dundee while viewing audiences across the region turned out to be less than had been hoped for. Viewer correspondence was said to amount to little more than half a dozen letters per week.

The problems in Dundee along with the effects of Television Advertising Duty and the Equity Strike led to heavy financial losses and a subsequent reduction in transmitter rental for Grampian. But by the end of 1962, the station had succeeded in increasing audience in both Dundee and the region as a whole. The success in viewing figures were attributed to an increase in regional programming.

Whereas Grampian had previously restricted its output to news and current affairs beforehand, production controller James Buchan decided to go for broke and branch out to produce light entertainment and music shows (originally, at the rate of four programmes a week) - such programming would remain a staple of the station's local output for the next forty years or so. By 1963, no less than fifty Grampian shows had featured in the local Top Ten audience ratings.

Towards the end of the decade, the station's potential audience reached a million viewers and Grampian was employing just over 200 staff at their studios in Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh. Prior to the 1968 contract round, smaller regional stations sought an affiliation with one of the four major ITV companies, who would provide the bulk of their programming. Grampian chose to link up with ABC Weekend Television.[6]

On 5 September 1974, a visiting company executive caught staff in the studio control room, who should have been rehearsing for a local programme, watching the banned pornographic film Deep Throat instead. The staff director in charge, was dismissed the next day. However, Tony Bacon was also a local shop steward for the ACTT union and following a meeting, all 65 members walked out at 5PM, which brought transmissions to a halt and claiming that the management hadn’t followed nationally agreed procedures for dismissals. As negotiations continued over the next week viewers in the region were left without an ITV service and, as some areas could not pick up any BBC transmissions, they were without a television service entirely. A solution was eventually reached when it was agreed that the record could show that Mr Bacon had resigned voluntarily and the service resumed on 18 September 1974 (10:30AM).

Grampian was slower than most other ITV stations to begin colour broadcasting which, after the company invested £180,000 (equivalent to £2,700,000 in 2021)[7] in new equipment, promptly started in September 1971—an occasion timed to mark their 10th anniversary on air.[8]

The launch of the colour service led to a strike over Christmas 1971. A new film editor had signed a mutuality-binding three-month contract, and Grampian's decision to offer him permanent employment was not exercised.[9] For the Christmas period, Grampian had hired colour studio cameras especially for the Hogmanay programmes and the filming of a networked documentary.[9] The station resumed broadcasting at 10 pm on Boxing Day, which allowed the station to broadcast its first networked colour documentary Two Of A Kind.[10][11]

Despite this, the station did come up with a number of technical firsts. The most notable of these came in 1978 when Grampian became the first British television station to replace 16mm film cameras with Electronic News Gathering [ENG] video cameras for news coverage - a move which finally allowed its regional news programme Grampian Today to extend from three to five nights a week. Grampian also developed its own outside broadcast unit, initially using studio equipment. Later developments would allow Grampian to further enhance its regional news service and on air presentation, which relied heavily on in-vision continuity.

Following the station's earlier troubles, Grampian Television, along with all other ITV companies at the time, won a three-year extension to their license (later extended by a further year) in 1964. In 1967, they went unopposed by any other consortiums to win a further six-year contract from July 1968 - a contract expanded by a further eight years in 1974.

Six years later, Grampian won another eight-year franchise (later extended to ten years), effective of January 1982. The only change made to the license was the classification of the franchise as North and North East Scotland, as opposed to North East Scotland - a change which the station had already capitalized upon in January 1980 when Grampian Today was relaunched as North Tonight as part of a major expansion for Grampian's news operation.

The Broadcasting Act of 1990 led to a significant change in the way ITV franchises were awarded - as opposed to the straightforward review process utilized by the outgoing Independent Broadcasting Authority, the new light-touch regulator, the Independent Television Commission, required that the successful applicant pass a quality threshold and business plan.

In the event, Grampian was outbid by two challengers; Channel 3 Caledonia and North of Scotland Television (the latter of which was ironically the name of the original Grampian Television consortium). Both competitors failed to pass the quality threshold, and Grampian won back the franchise by default with a bid of £720,000 per year.

After retaining its franchise, Grampian sought to expand its media business interests. In May 1994, the company won the new Central Scotland FM radio licence in partnership with Border Television - the new station, Scot FM (now Heart Scotland), had an uneasy start as it struggled with ratings and programming. Border pulled out of Scot FM a year later, before Grampian sold it off in July 1996 to the Independent Radio Group for £5.25 million.[12][13]

At the same time, Grampian also owned shares in Moray Firth Radio,[14] until they were sold off to Scottish Radio Holdings.

With encouragement from the IBA, Grampian and other small ITV companies were encouraged to produce more network output following the 1980 franchise round. The station had previously produced a small number of networked or part-networked productions including the daytime adult education series Katie Stewart Cooks and the light entertainment show Melody Inn. Prior to this, Grampian had expectations of becoming one of the major players in networking new programming for ITV2 (this was before Channel 4 was created, and the inception for ITV2 was discussed at that time which never came to fruition. This is not to be confused with the ITV2 which is now known on the digital platform).

In the franchise period following, the station was commissioned to produce networked series of the local film magazine programme The Electric Theatre Show (following a successful run on London Weekend Television) alongside new series including occasional variety show Magic of the Musicals, lifestyle series Pennywise & Hot Property, networked one-off documentaries such as A Prince Among Islands and children's cartoon series James the Cat.

The station also produced various editions of several series co-produced by most ITV regions - namely the religious programme Highway, current affairs debate The Time, The Place, documentary strand About Britain and the Saturday morning children's shows Get Fresh and Ghost Train.

Grampian also contributed to Channel 4 in the form of various documentary series including Oil (co-produced with NRK), The Blood is Strong, Alternative Energy and Scotland the Grave. The long-running schools programme Living & Growing transferred from ITV to Channel 4 in September 1987.

Grampian's later networked contributions were minimal, with the few exceptions including co-production of The National Television Awards from 1995 to 1997 and a daytime repeat run of local documentary series Medics of the Glen in 2004.

Grampian remained independent until June 1997 when Scottish Media Group, owner of Scottish Television, bought the station for £105 million.[15]

The buyout led to various cutbacks in Grampian's staffing and programme production - notable changes included the transfer of on-air presentation from Aberdeen to Scottish Television's playout center in Glasgow. More Grampian-produced programmes were also broadcast on Scottish, and vice versa.

The station was also criticized by the Independent Television Commission (ITC) concerning the amount and relevance of its non-news regional output with more and more programming being produced from outside the region, chiefly in Glasgow - local production was gradually phased out with the station's final non-news programme broadcast in 2008.

In June 2003, the company moved to new premises at Craigshaw Business Park in West Tullos, Aberdeen, and the original headquarters at Queen's Cross were subsequently demolished, becoming home to a development of luxury flats.

In March 2006, the owners of Grampian Television, then known as SMG plc (now STV Group plc) announced that the Grampian TV brand would be retired and renamed, along with Scottish Television, as simply 'STV', with a new logo comprising a large, stylized letter 'S'.[16][17] Anne Scott made the final announcement for Grampian.[16][17]

The two regional news programmes in the Northern and Central Scotland regions (previously known as North Tonight and Scotland Today respectively) were still broadcast in their respective regions after the "STV" rebranding, which occurred at 9:25 am on Tuesday 30 May 2006.[17] Both North Tonight and Scotland Today were rebranded as STV News at Six on Monday, 23 March 2009 but continue to air as separate programmes.

The decision to rebrand Grampian was met with much criticism from across the former Grampian region - the move was viewed by many as similar to the ITV plc-owned licenses in England, Wales and Southern Scotland where all of the regions are branded as ITV1.[17] The objections are largely due to the fact that the largely rural Scottish culture in the North is very different from the more industrial Central Scotland area.[17]

The news service and advertising remains regionalized as before with the Tayside and North East Fife area receiving its own opt-out service, featuring a dedicated news bulletin within STV News at Six on weekdays and separate local advertising. Up until September 2011, both areas also received their own version of the overnight strand, The Nightshift.

Grampian's first studios and headquarters were located at Queens Cross, Aberdeen, where the company purchased a former tram depot belonging to Aberdeen Corporation Tramways in 1960. The depot was converted for use as television studios with completion planned prior to October 1961. The complex housed two main studios and a third smaller studio for continuity, which was updated in the early 1980s when £4 million worth (2009: £10.5m) was spent on a new Central Technical Area and presentation facilities.

These studios continued to be of importance to Grampian well into the new millennium, despite the transfer of the presentation and continuity to Scottish's Glasgow base and job losses when SMG took over the company. In June 2003, Grampian moved to new, smaller, state-of-the-art all digital studios at Craigshaw Business Park in West Tullos, Aberdeen, some of the most advanced in the world at the time of opening. Their previous headquarters at Queens Cross were subsequently demolished and redeveloped as housing.

In addition to their Aberdeen headquarters, Grampian ran a newsroom and sales office in Dundee at the entrance of the Angus Hotel in Marketgait, which also contained a film studio for interviews.

In 1978,[18] the Dundee operation moved to a new remote-controlled studio at Albany House, before moving again to Harbor Chambers in the City Quay area in 1998.

As of April 2008, STV's Tayside operation is based at Seabraes in the Greenmarket area of Dundee.

In 1983, a further district newsroom and remote-controlled studio was opened at Huntly Street, Inverness, aimed at improving coverage of the Highlands and Islands. The Inverness operation relocated to Stoneyfield Business Park during the summer of 2020.

Grampian also had a studio in Edinburgh, despite it being in Scottish's franchise area, which had closed by 1969, and a new £4 million studio complex in Stornoway, opened in the September 1990 to facilitate an expansion in Scottish Gaelic language output,[19] including the daily news bulletin Telefios. The studios were closed in 2000 following the end of the Gaelic news service and the transfer of other programmes to Glasgow.

Outside broadcast coverage of various sports including league football, cross country, lawn bowls, shinty, professional wrestling (for the ITV network's World of Sport), marathons, cycling, exhibition tennis, international amateur boxing, curling, triathlon and mountain bike racing.

An expanded archive of selected factual and entertainment output from Grampian Television continues to be uploaded to the STV Player's YouTube channel.