Jon Savage – Granadaland

Jon Savage biography

Jon Savage joined Granada in 1979 as a researcher, initially working on local programmes including This is Your Right. Other credits included Fun Factory and Granada Reports and also worked on pilot for a planned series on music and teenagers. The series was never made by Granada but Jon went on to write the script…

Jon Savage on his researcher’s board to join Granada

Jon Savage far right with Phil Griffin and Sue Woodward I actually joined Granada in April 1979. But I went for the researcher’s board in November ‘78 and my position was that I was living at home with my parents still, I’m an only child, I was completing a Law Society’s solicitor’s qualification course…

Jon Savage recalls working on the consumer programme This is Your Right

It took me quite a while to really find an niche, and actually at the time I started, and I didn’t find a niche for very long, because actually what I wanted to do wasn’t on the agenda, and I’m also very stubborn and if I don’t want to do something I don’t want to…

Jon Savage on his impressions of Manchester in 1979

I just remember it… London was derelict, but only in parts. I just remember… what I liked about Manchester was the space. I always liked urban spaces, one of my problems with London, one of the reasons I left London, was because all the space was filled in. And one of the things that I…

Jon Savage on his relationship with Tony Wilson

Well, Tony and I worked on another… we were always working on things… in retrospect now, and I piece it together, actually I was always working on things that never worked. I did three pilots for possible programmes and none of them got made, so that in itself is indicative. The first pilot was in…

Jon Savage remembers the Granada canteen

I seem to remember not minding the canteen. I mean, I’ve always been into practical food. I didn’t like the canteen. I just remember… I remember being in there once and we had a group called Dead or Alive in, Pete Burns, and he was not the total outrageous Pete Burns as we know,…

Jon Savage on Tony Wilson, music and Granada

I saw Tony is a very complex person. I thought he was a genius presenter and have an enormous respect for that. I thought he was… I thought with Janet Street Porter, he was by far… those two were the best presenters in the UK because they did something beyond just parroting, reading off autocue.…

Jon Savage on Granada, politics and the north west

Somebody has described Granada as being ‘unashamedly left-wing’. Yes. I thought it was left-wing in conventional political terms. I perceived it as being very, very conservative in social terms. So would you like to… Yes, I would have to explain that. Obviously – and I’m very glad it was left wing because that was a…

Jon Savage on Granada’s Liverpool office

So when you worked in Liverpool, tell me about your impressions of the Liverpool office. Well, I must have worked on Exchange Flags twice, I can’t remember how long I was there for, I must have been there for at least six months, and of course Liverpool was really the poor relation and it was…

Jon Savage on changes in the TV industry

I think Granada was going to go through a downscaling period pretty much after I left, which is December ‘82. So could you see the signs of the changes? Not yet, no. But I did very quickly afterwards, because I went to work at TV-AM, which was another television disaster. I just regard my time…