Granada Sky Broadcasting

Granada Sky Broadcasting is a United Kingdom television company. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ITV plc and currently broadcasts just one television channel, Men & Motors (originally known as Granada Men & Motors).

GSB was set up in 1996 as a joint venture between Granada Television and British Sky Broadcasting to launch a range of television channels broadcasting the Granada archive on the Sky satellite television platform. Its initial four channels started broadcasting on October 1, 1996:

Granada Plus — entertainment programmes from the archives of Granada and its subsidiaries

Granada Good Life — a lifestyle channel split into four segments: Granada Food & Wine, Granada Health & Beauty, Granada TV High Street and Granada Home & Garden

Granada Men & Motors — a channel aimed at men

Granada Talk TV — a debate channel

Granada Talk TV was shut down in August 1997. Granada Good Life became Granada Breeze in May 1998 in an attempt to improve ratings but it too was closed in May 2002.

On February 2, 2004, Granada merger with Carlton Communications to form ITV plc.

On November 1, 2004, ITV plc agreed to purchase BSkyB s stake in GSB for £10 million and shut down Granada Plus. This gave ITV a free slot on the Sky Digital platform in which to broadcast its new ITV3 channel, which launched later on the same day. The negotiations that led to ITV plc taking sole control of GSB, closing Granada Plus and launching ITV3 on digital satellite were apparently completed just hours before the new channel started broadcasting.

Men & Motors continues but will be subject to a review. As part of the deal, Sky will receive 49.5% of any proceeds (net of liabilities) from any sale of Men & Motors. On May 2, 2005, Men & Motors launched on Freeview, the UK s main digital terrestrial television platform, after ITV plc purchased a slot from Crown Castle UK (now National Grid Wireless) on Multiplex D. It is rumoured than ITV plc plans to replace Men & Motors with ITV4, another men s channel, when it launches on 1 November 2005.

=External links=

*[http://www.gsb.co.uk/ GSB website] *[http://www.menandmotors.co.uk/ Men & Motors website] *[http://www.itvplc.com/itv/news/releases/pr2004/2004-11-01/ ITV plc press release: ITV3 to launch on satellite today] — includes details of ITV plc s purchase of Sky s stake in GSB *[http://www.transdiffusion.org/bitstream/satellite/itv3/ EMC Bitstream: ITV3: reaching for the Sky] — discusses the negotiations that led to the sale of Sky s stake and closure of Granada Plus