Grampian Television

Grampian Television is the ITV franchisee for the North of Scotland, based in Aberdeen. Its coverage area includes the Scottish Highlands, Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee and parts of north Fife. It has been in operation since 30 September1961.

Related Topics:
ITV - Scotland - Aberdeen - Scottish Highlands - Inverness - Dundee - Fife - 30 September - 1961

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It is now owned by SMG plc, which also owns the other ITV franchise in Scotland, Scottish Television, based in Glasgow. Grampian's local news bulletin for the Highlands and Islands is called North Tonight. Since the takeover by SMG, however, most programmes of a general Scottish interest come only from Scottish Television.

Related Topics:
SMG plc - Scottish Television - Glasgow

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Grampian also produces TV programmes in Gaelic from its studios in Stornoway. This included Telefios, a five-minute evening news bulletin shown at six o'clock before North Tonight, but this was dropped at the end of 2000.

Related Topics:
Gaelic - Stornoway - 2000

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More recent Grampian programmes include Where's Your Head At?, a low-budget production which interviewed a selection of people about seemingly irrelevent issues. The programme did not gain high ratings.

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The national ITV network controls programming, but not local branding, and until recently this was the nationwide norm. However, to catch up with the unifromly-branded BBC, ITV has decided to redicalise local branding by basically getting rid of it. This has already taken almost complete effect in England, where local stations which have a suprising amount of local support have often been grouped and given uninspiring names like ITV North East. Grampian, however, has resisted most of these changes, and because of its private instead of network ownership it has managed to continue broadcasting its own distinctive branding. This is the same for its sitster station Scottish Television. However, there is occasionally an ITV1 break-bumper that flashes up...

Related Topics:
ITV - BBC - England - ITV North East - Scottish Television - ITV1 - Break-bumper

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