Tim Sullivan joined Granada TV in 1981 as a researcher initially working on local programmes before move to light entertainment. He became a director in 1984, later specialising in drama and left the company ten years later to direct the film Jack and Sarah.
Read MoreTim Sullivan describes how he joined Granada
The first person that I met from Granada was a chap called Gerry Hagan, who was head of Scripts. He was one of Plowright’s performance appointments. He was head of Scripts in London. I directed a play at university, which we took to Edinburgh in my second year, and I was asked to go for…
Read MoreTim Sullivan describes his early days at Granada
So I came up to Manchester. I knew a couple of people up here already, which didn’t make it any easier. But anyway, so we then went through the induction, then we were put onto Granada Reports, which I just found the most terrifying thing that had ever happened to me. I just couldn’t understand…
Read MoreTim Sullivan on Granada’s regional identity
I thought I had it great identity. Of course, it had two of the worst football clubs in the world. But aside from that, it took a while to get used to because it’s like going to a new school, isn’t it? Before I made friends, I didn’t really understand it. So I would pootle…
Read MoreTim Sullivan on his role as a researcher on Alfresco
I know what happened at the end of entertainment. Some chums of mine from university came up to do a show called Alfresco. And I was the researcher on it, which was very odd because they were a year or so junior to me at Cambridge, but I’d worked with some of them and I…
Read MoreTim Sullivan on his training as a director
I became a director. Did the director’s course, which was fabulous. And then Granada were brilliant because you went through everything. You did live TV with Granada Reports, or a chat show, and then we started in children’s TV, both with Spencer Campbell and myself. He was the other director, trainee director. And then we…
Read MoreTim Sullivan on rejecting the opportunity to produce Coronation Street
I was very sorry to leave it. In fact, when I left – again, this is a classic example of Granada, the paternalism of Granada – after my last week on the Street, I was called up to Morrison’s office, who by now was the director of programmes. And sat down, and he said, “Look,…
Read MoreTim Sullivan on the male-dominated world at Granada
The one thing it wasn’t any good at was women, I think. I’ve written about this actually in this week’s In The Can thing I do, but I think you’ve read it. The great thing about being a trainee director was you got different crews who would come in. You had a real problem and…
Read MoreTim Sullivan remembers directing Coronation Street
Do you want to talk a bit about directing Coronation Street? Oh, wonderful. In the old days there used to be a thing called weekly rep in the theatres where they would do a different play every week, with the same cast. They’d learn, before the advent of great television and stuff. And Corrie are…
Read MoreTim Sullivan’s thoughts on Granada as a company
It was a really good company. It was an innovative company, but it made its mind up about you in a way. It categorised you. Yes, it did. And as I say, rightly or wrongly, I would’ve left Granada after that directors’ board, because what it meant was, it wasn’t that they weren’t giving it…
Read MoreTim Sullivan describes his relationship with Mike Scott
Mike didn’t like me. I never knew why. Probably the pink hair. I think it was also the relationship with Granada. I hear at some point he’d said to someone, “What’s going on? Is he sleeping with him or what?” Because it was quite a homophobic place in those times, I think. Yes, Scott didn’t…
Read MoreTim Sullivan on leaving Granada in 1994
And then really my Granada career came to an end. I was very upset because I left sort of unofficially. When you left, there was this great tradition at Granada. Someone in graphics would do a fantastic picture for you and then someone would go around with a tatty brown, internal envelope and collect about…
Read MoreAlastair Mutch biography
Alastair Mutch joined Granada in 1965 as an accountant but then moved to the legal side of the company’s operation becoming a member of the Board and Company Secretary before leaving in 1993.
Read MoreAlastair Mutch’s memories of Sidney Bernstein
I had my first meeting with Sidney Bernstein at that point. I was working in, in the outer office, two secretaries and me. Must have been the end of the long hot afternoon. I lent back and stretched. Sidney walked in right on cue. “Did I wake you up?” He was God, really. And he…
Read MoreAlastair Mutch remembers ‘drifting’ along at Granada
And then at some point I became office manager, which is not the most exciting job in the world. But you know, I drift along. So I did this for a few years. Trouble with that job, you’ve got a huge number of departments under you, and every time the phone goes, it’s somebody wanting…
Read MoreAlastair Mutch recalls working on Granada’s legal issues
Gradually, I moved on to the legal side if you like, which was fascinating. And I think my first case, as it were, was quite interesting. It concerned a local chap who lived in Chorlton, and there was a stream running through his garden, and quite a bit of land and he wanted to develop…
Read MoreAlastair Mutch remembers the British Steel Papers case and other legal battles
I suppose another very big one was British Steel. But you’ve spoken to David Boltoun about that? I have to say, David made a slight mistake. He said that Lord Denning was for Granada. Now Denning was not for Granada. He was in the Court of Appeal and they unanimously found against us. The situation…
Read MoreAlastair Mutch and Granada’s franchise bid
Being Company Secretary at that point I was at all the board meetings, all the discussions, all the drafts of the documents that went into the submission. And, of course, the secrecy around it was enormous. We knew we were under threat from Liverpool. Phil Redmond was pitching. I don’t know if you know about…
Read MoreAlastair Mutch remembers Granada board meetings
Well, it was up in room 600, on the sixth floor conference room. They were fairly relaxed affairs. I started going to the meetings when Denis Forman was Chairman. In fact, I well remember my first stab at doing the minutes. I was very conscientious and the system was that he always read the minutes…
Read MoreAlastair Mutch on Granada Studio Tours
John (Williams) was an intake of management trainees the same time as Tony Brill, Bill Tomlinson, one or two others. He was very ambitious, John. He ran Tours very well, but I think he could talk about Charles Allen because he said… Allen said to John, because they had retail outlets for the tourists, “You…
Read MoreAndrew Quinn biography
Andrew Quinn joined Granada TV’s personnel department from General Motors in 1964. He took on a variety of roles within the company including head of production services and general manager before being appointed the managing director of Granada Cable and Satellite in 1983. He became managing director in 1987 and chief executive five years later. …
Read MoreHow Andrew Quinn joined Granada
After Durham University, I went looking for a job. And the first job I ever had was with a division of General Motors, which was based in Dunstable, which is near Luton, which is where Vauxhall cars got made. The division that I worked for made car parts and accessories. Fuel pumps and thermostats, and…
Read MoreAndrew Quinn remembers meeting Sidney Bernstein for the first time
I did eventually meet Sidney, three months in. By which time, I’d encountered the Sidney Bernstein myths and legends. Didn’t like suede shoes, didn’t like cord trousers, didn’t like men with beards, and all this stuff that… anyway, I didn’t own any suede shoes or didn’t have any cord trousers, and I didn’t have a…
Read MoreAndrew Quinn’s impressions of the personnel department
Anyway, so I joined the personnel department. One of the biggest changes was that Derek Roberts said to me, “We have to trade union in here, and you’ll be looking after NATKE. National Association of Theatrical, Television and Kine Employees. And I’ll be doing the ACTT and the ETU he said, because they’re a slippery…
Read MoreAndrew Quinn’s role as head of Production Services
Forman said to me, “I want you set up a new thing called head of production services,” and that means everything behind the camera. The creative guys and the director… they’re in front of the camera and the whole point is to service them, and we’ve got to find a new way of forecasting costs,…
Read MoreHow Andrew Quinn became general manager and recruited other managers
In 1977, the guy who was the general manager, Leslie Diamond, died suddenly from a heart attack, and so Denis said to me, “You’re general manager” and I joined the group, the board at that stage, and being general manager just meant I went on doing what I was doing, but got the rest of…
Read MoreAndrew Quinn on Granada’s move into satellite
Let me just say, the satellite thing came along next. And it was pretty much the same thing. Putting a consortium together. The famous club of 21. BBC were given the job to do. Said they couldn’t do it. Government came back and said, “You’ve got to do it. You have 50%. And we’ll get…
Read MoreAndrew Quinns’s thoughts on the 1990 Broadcasting Act
The 1990 Broadcasting Act brought in this ridiculous idea that you had to bid away a proportion of your profits on a ten-year horizon. Ridiculous. At the same time, Channel 4, which had up to then, been funded by the ITV system, in return for the ITV system selling the air time, that came to…
Read MoreAndrew Quinn on the arrival of Gerry Robinson and Charles Allen.
The Granada Group were in trouble. Remember there’d been a takeover bid from Rank, which successfully we escaped from simply because the IBA said they wouldn’t let Rank have the television franchise. It wasn’t a transferable asset. They’d give them to Granada and in the bidding for it they’d have to do it without. So…
Read MoreAndrew Quinn describes how he became managing director of Granada
After the satellite thing, I’d been on the group board for just over a year, with a division called Services to Business, which was a group of companies, one was Computer Field Maintenance, mending people’s computers, and frankly, I wasn’t very thrilled with it. And then I was approached by head-hunters, on behalf of Central…
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