David Highet – Granadaland

David Highet on how he came to be employed at Granada

It was 1979 and I was 38 and I was Assistant Editor of the Liverpool Echo which was at that time probably the biggest regional evening newspaper and I was getting a little restive. I’d spent 20 years in local newspapers, local journalism, and I felt it was time for a move but I wasn’t…

David Highet on Granada’s rationale for opening a Liverpool office

At the time the long-standing antipathy between Liverpool and Manchester focussed – even more greatly than usual – on the lack of a television station in Liverpool while Manchester had the TV centre in Quay Street in all its glory and different organisations began to form. One of them was led by a Professor of…

David Highet on Granada’s first premises in Liverpool at Exchange Flags

The premises had been found in what turned out to be the most unsuitable location. The studio centre was in Exchange Flags, which is a set of very fine office buildings set on a piazza, the other side of which is completed by Liverpool Town Hall and the centre of which is dominated by what…

David Highet remembers Granada’s first broadcast from Exchange Flags

June 1980, it took few months to get all the bits and pieces put together and have a few dry runs. I remember Roger Blyth presenting the first news programme from Liverpool which was very exciting and it was made rather, even more interesting because the shot of the presenter looked out across the studio…

David Highet on the special atmosphere at Granada’s Liverpool base

I felt I had no especial need to foster a family feeling because the good people we had there were already doing it themselves. The way in which people got on with each other was a great pleasure to see. It may have been something to do, unwittingly, with our recruitment process because as…

David Highet recalls how the programme ‘Exchange Flags’ came about

We were doing news inputs. Granada Reports was edited by Rod Caird in Manchester and anchored by, I think, Bob Smithies, and Tony (Anthony) H. Wilson and Greavsey, Bob Greaves and various other very experienced folk. Roger Blyth who worked as a journalist, a freelance journalist on Merseyside for many years, fell naturally into the…

A donkey, Derek Hatton and Custer’s Last Stand!

Several things happened which would never have happened at the TV centre in Quay Street in Manchester. One I remember was when Shorty (Mike Short, GTV Producer) brought a flock of sheep (or a number of sheep) in. I can’t remember the nature of the story he was running but it caused no end of…

David Highet remembers Mike Short’s innovative programme ‘Under Fives’ – and the challenges it presented!

Mike Short had an idea, which became the bane of my life and I think it was to do with under-11s football. Granada was to sponsor this and I was to be the Administrator of it. Why on earth I agreed I have no idea! Anyway this went ahead and was, it turned out, a…

David Highet on how Granada’s coverage of the Toxteth riots was never screened

Several things happened around that story. One was that because we were a studio set-up, we had no cameras to take out so a news team was sent from Manchester for the riots but John Toker and Mike Short went out into the streets with the crew and they were short-crewed but it was what…

David Highet describes how the programme ‘Flying Start’ came about

Flying Start was the notion of David Plowright. What happened after the riots is that Michael Heseltine came to Liverpool. He’d been appointed by Margaret Thatcher as Minister for Merseyside and I have to say he did an extraordinarily good job and that was a view shared by politicians of all complexions. Heseltine came and…

David Highet on the origins of Granada’s office in the Albert Dock

Yes, well one thing that you might want to think about discussing – or for me to remark on – is what Granada’s lasting legacy was in Liverpool and later in Manchester which brings me to the decision to open a News Centre at the Albert Dock in Liverpool. The Albert Dock had been derelict…

David Highet remembers the importance of Barnum!

I became Head of Public Affairs for the company in Manchester. I’d say that Sidney Bernstein, Denis Forman and David Plowright were three of the most charismatic, impressive, creative, commanding, engaging people I’ve ever met and ever worked for. They became mentors and heroes for me, particularly David with whom I worked very closely when…

David Highet on working as Head of Public Affairs

I moved from that (General Manager at Granada, Liverpool) when David Plowright became Chairman, I think it was 1986. I’d become very ill in the middle of 1986, which is unlike me because I don’t do illness and I managed to get back in time for the Christmas party – we always had a huge…

David Highet describes how he thinks Granada changed in the late 1980s

Things began to change towards the end of the 1980s. It’s a question of ethos and I think I would just like to quote from Ray Fitzwalter’s book – The Dream that Died, the Rise and Fall of ITV – and there’s a quote here quoting Bob Phillis, who was the Chief Executive of Carlton…