A Lot of Wind

Nowadays, so efficient are the media, one can participate daily and vicariously in the horrific misfortunes which befall others. As one sits comfortably sipping a drink, pictures of death, agony and catastrophe, bounced off satellites between commercials, are skillfully presented on the tragic lantern. The results of the latest famine, earthquake, war or bomb outrage blend into weather forecasts, football scores and advertisements for cat food and breakfast cereals. The newspapers flourish on the offal of other people’s disasters. It has become easy to satisfy a fundamental, human, ghoulish instinct and appetite.

Cooke, LezThe Granada Group was based in London, with offices in Golden Square, but when the company was awarded a Northern television licence the Bernsteins committed themselves to establishing a new television company in the North by building new studios in Manchester - the first purpose built television centre in Britain.

The region allocated to Granada was based on Lancashire and Yorkshire but also included North Wales and most of Cumbria, while in the south the region embraced Cheshire, the northern parts of Shropshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, and most of Lincolnshire. Lancashire and and the western part of the region was to be served by a transmitter on Winter Hill in Lancashire, while Yorkshire and the eastern part of the region was to be covered by a transmitter on Emley Moor in the West Riding of Yorkshire. When Granada TV launched on 3 May 1956, however, only the Winter Hill transmitter was operational. It was not until 3 November 1956 that the Emley Moor transmitter came into operation, which meant that for six months nearly five million people in the east of the region could not receive Granada's programmes. When fully operational the region which Sidney Bernstein dubbed 'Granadaland' embraced a potential audience of over twelve million people, equivalent in size to that of London and the South and considerably larger than the Midland region.

Cooke, LezThe Granada Group was based in London, with offices in Golden Square, but when the company was awarded a Northern television licence the Bernsteins committed themselves to establishing a new television company in the North by building new studios in Manchester - the first purpose built television centre in Britain.

The region allocated to Granada was based on Lancashire and Yorkshire but also included North Wales and most of Cumbria, while in the south the region embraced Cheshire, the northern parts of Shropshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, and most of Lincolnshire. Lancashire and and the western part of the region was to be served by a transmitter on Winter Hill in Lancashire, while Yorkshire and the eastern part of the region was to be covered by a transmitter on Emley Moor in the West Riding of Yorkshire. When Granada TV launched on 3 May 1956, however, only the Winter Hill transmitter was operational. It was not until 3 November 1956 that the Emley Moor transmitter came into operation, which meant that for six months nearly five million people in the east of the region could not receive Granada's programmes. When fully operational the region which Sidney Bernstein dubbed 'Granadaland' embraced a potential audience of over twelve million people, equivalent in size to that of London and the South and considerably larger than the Midland region.

Contrary to Sidney Bernstein's original equation of Granadaland with "the North", after the loss of Yorkshire and the eastern part of Granada's region in 1968 'Granadaland' was quickly redefined as the North West, with Lancashire at its heart, in a sleight of hand which acknowledged the distinct regional and cultural differences east and west of the Pennines but which also handily described the region embraced by the signal from the Winter Hill transmitter.