Granada Plus

Granada Plus was a satellite television channel owned and run by Granada Television and British Sky Broadcasting to showcase the archive holdings of Granada and its recently purchased subsidiary of London Weekend Television.

The channel launched on Tuesday 1st October 1996. Most of the episodes shown on the channel were edited down by a couple of minutes to accommodate extra adverts, the running times of all ITV programmes having been noticeably decreased as government restrictions on advertising durations were relaxed.

The channel changed its name to G Plus in 1999 and to Plus in 2002. Two years later, on 1st November 2004, ITV bought out Sky's 49.5% in Granada Sky Broadcasting, allowing them to take control of Granada Plus. ITV almost immediately decided to close the channel down in order to make way for ITV3 which was due to launch later that evening (due to its high place on the EPG at 119). An hour-and-a-half later, the channel was abruptly ended at 4.30pm with no prior notice given to viewers and very little given to staff (the channel ending in the middle of an episode of Pie in the Sky). Although ITV3 also carried archive programmes, Emmerdale was one of many older shows that did not transfer to the new channel.