This is a timeline of the history of Granada Television (now known as ITV Granada), and of the television interests of its former owner Granada plc.

Granada Television has provided the ITV service for North West England since 1968, and previously provided the service for the North of England on weekdays from 1956 to 1968.

Granada plc took over the services for London at weekends, Yorkshire, the North East, the South, the East, Cumbria and southern Scotland before merging with Carlton Communications to form ITV plc.

1950s 1951 12 October – The Holme Moss transmitter is opened in Northern England, making the BBC Television Service available to the region for the first time.

1954 The Independent Television Authority (ITA) awards Granada the North of England contract for Monday to Friday - ABC gets the weekend licence.

1955 No events.

1956 3 May – Granada Television launches, originally just broadcasting in the North West. 3 November – Granada and weekend contractor ABC, begin transmitting across most of Yorkshire from the newly built Emley Moor transmitting station.

1957 No events.

1958 13 February – Granada becomes the first British broadcaster to fully cover a by-election. Granada's groundbreaking coverage of the 1958 Rochdale by-election includes two candidate debates.

1959 No events.

1960s 1960 9 December – The first episode of the soap opera Coronation Street, is aired on ITV. Intended as a 13-week pilot, it continues to this day as the world's longest-running television soap opera.

1961 No events.

1962 21 September – The first episode of the quiz show University Challenge airs and is one of the very few non-news/current affairs programmes on ITV to be transmitted without a commercial break.

1963 7 January – The first edition of Granada's flagship current affairs programme World in Action airs and would run until 1998.

1964 24 February – Granada broadcasts after midnight for the first time when it shows coverage of Henry Cooper's title fight at Manchester's Belle Vue Zoological Gardens. 5 May – World in Action airs a film called Seven Up which followed the lives of fourteen children aged seven. It continued to track their lives at seven-year intervals and its latest instalment, 63 Up, aired in 2019. Granada is given a three-year extension to its licence. This is later extended by a further year.

1965 A new relay station in Scarborough extends Granada's North of England service to the Yorkshire coast.

1966 No events.

1967 The Independent Television Authority announces that the forthcoming ITV licensing round will see the North of England franchise split between North West England and the three Ridings of Yorkshire with each licence being seven days a week operations.

1968 29 July – From this day, Granada only broadcasts to the North West although it now operates seven days a week. August – A technicians strike forces ITV off the air for several weeks although management manage to launch a temporary ITV Emergency National Service with no regional variations. Granada launches its famous pointed ‘G’ logo, replacing the “From the North” tagline. The new ident is not animated and consists purely of a static caption.TV Live: Granada

1969 15 November – Granada starts broadcasting in colour.

1970s 1970 No events.

1971 2 August – The Pendle Forest transmitter is switched on and becomes the first UHF relay service to be operated by the Independent Television Authority. The transmitter covers east Lancashire.

1972 28 January – The Saddleworth transmitter begins broadcasting and brings improved reception to people living in the eastern areas of Greater Manchester including Saddleworth, Mossley and Stalybridge. 26 June – The Lancaster transmitter is switched on. 16 October – Following the lifting of restrictions on broadcasting hours, Granada launches an afternoon service.

1973 Granada's nightly news programme is relaunched as Granada Reports. It had previously went under various titles, including Northern Newscast, Scene at Six Thirty, Newsview and People and Places.

1974 The 1974 franchise round sees no changes in ITV's contractors as it is felt that the huge cost in switching to colour television would have made the companies unable to compete against rivals in a franchise battle.

1975 No events.

1976 No events.

1977 No events.

1978 10 April – Granada opens a news base in Liverpool.

1979 10 August – The ten week ITV strike forces Granada Television off the air. The strike ends on 24 October.

1980s 1980 28 December – The Independent Broadcasting Authority announces the new contractors to commence on 1 January 1982 and Granada is reawarded its licence although its coverage area is to be slightly reduced with several transmitters along its border being transferred to other companies.

1981 No events.

1982 1 January – Granada loses the right to broadcast to the Todmorden and Walsden area of West Yorkshire and to the Kendal area of south Cumbria when the transmitters covering these areas are transferred to Yorkshire Television and Border Television respectively.ITV's framework for survival in the eighties: Expectations of a harsh ... The Guardian (1959–2003); 25 January 1980;£5m for staff who seek TV franchise. By Kenneth Gosling. The Times, Monday, 12 May 1980;

1983 1 February – ITV's breakfast television service TV-am launches. Consequently, Granada's broadcast day now begins at 9:25am. 14 February – Granada does not broadcast on that day because of an industrial dispute staged by electricians at their Manchester studios that is sparked by discord when a foreman receives a pay rise without union knowledge. Members of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU) hold a meeting to discuss the situation, scheduling it to coincide with the evening's broadcast of Coronation Street. As a result, the Monday evening schedule is heavily disrupted while Coronation Street is scheduled as a one-off omnibus edition along with the week's Wednesday episode later in the week and is also aired on Channel 4 the following Sunday.

1984 No events.

1985 3 January – Granada's last day of transmission using the 405-lines system.

1986 April – Most of Granada's regional news operations is relocated from Manchester to a computerised news centre at the former Traffic Office building in Liverpool's Albert Dock.

1987 7 September – Following the transfer of ITV Schools to Channel 4, ITV provides a full morning programme schedule, with advertising, for the first time. The new service includes regular five-minute national and regional news bulletins. 31 December – University Challenge is broadcast on ITV for the final time, after being on the air for 25 years. Recent years had seen it aired in off-peak slots and the two London companies (Thames and LWT) had dropped the show in 1983. However, in 1992, a new one-off episode aired on BBC2 as part of a Granada-themed evening which led to a revival in 1994 which is still running to this day.

1988 13 February – Granada begins 24-hour broadcasting. 2 September – Granada launches an overnight service called Night Time to make it easier for the smaller companies to introduce 24-hour broadcasting. The service is networked to Tyne Tees, TSW, Grampian and Border with Ulster taking the service from 3 October.Ident Central” Night Time Granada 1988–1995 3 October – Having been awarded the contract to produce ITV's new flagship daytime programme, This Morning makes its debut, broadcast live from its studios at Albert Dock in Liverpool. Granada had fought off bids from four other ITV companies to produce the show.

1989 1 September Granada launches a look featuring a translucent pointed G which rotated into place in time to the music against a natural scene. ITV introduces its first official logo as part of an attempt to unify the network under one image whilst retaining regional identity. However, Granada refused to adopt it, because the Granada Television logo was incorrectly inserted into the 'V' segment of the logo. The company used a version with its translucent logo shown at the beginning, before continuing with the generic ident and ending with the generic ITV logo.

1990s 1990 2 January – Granada Television's nightly news programme Granada Reports is rebranded as Granada Tonight and the shorter bulletins are rebranded as Granada News. also regional programmes go out under the Granada In The North West branding in preparation for the 1991 Franchise Auction. May – What the Papers Say which has been broadcast on ITV and Channel 4 since 1956, becomes the first Granada commission for the BBC when the show transfers over to them. 25 May – Granada starts broadcasting in NICAM digital stereo.IBA Engineering Announcements 20 March 1990 4 June – Granada Television in the run-up to the 1991 franchise round, relaunches its on-screen branding to a blue stripe descending from the top of the screen, containing the pointed 'G' against a plain white background accompanied by the same music as before. Variations are seen from which the stripe formed from a falling feather or was backlit.

1991 16 October – The Independent Television Commission announces the results of the franchise round. Granada Television is reawarded its licence. A rival bid came from Mersey Television, a company producing the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside. They bid £35 million compared to Granada's £9m, but Granada won as Mersey TV did not meet the 'quality threshold' applied by the Independent Television Commission.

1992 Granada Tonight returns to Manchester, although bulletins continue to be broadcast from the Albert Dock newsroom until 1998.

1993 No events.

1994 21 September – University Challenge is revived with the BBC commissioning Granada to produce this version. It is presented by Jeremy Paxman until 2023 and is still running to this day.

1995 4 June – Granada closes its Night Time service and instead carries the new national overnight service from London.

1996 The daytime show This Morning is moved from Liverpool's Albert Dock to the London Studios on the grounds that it was difficult to get celebrity guests to travel from London to Liverpool. 1 October – Granada Sky Broadcasting launches. It is a joint venture between Granada and BSkyB. The four-channel service consists of Granada Plus, showing entertainment programmes from the archives of Granada and its subsidiaries including classic episodes of Coronation Street, 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 and broadcasts for three hours each night after Granada Plus and Granada Talk TV, a daytime-only debate channel.

1997 31 January – Granada Television, Carlton Television and British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), create British Digital Broadcasting (BDB) as a joint venture to operate three digital terrestrial television (DTT) licences. 26 June – Granada Group plc (now ITV plc) acquires Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television plc .MAM unlikely to back Granada's YTTV offer.Eric Reguly. The Times (London, England), Thursday, 26 June 1997; p. 27 31 August – Granada Talk TV closes. 20 December – The ITC awards the sole DTT broadcast licence to British Digital Broadcasting. However, BSkyB had by now been forced by the ITC to pull out of the joint venture on competition grounds, effectively placed Sky's forthcoming digital satellite service in direct competition with the new service, although Sky was still required to provide key channels such as Sky Movies and Sky Sports to ONdigital.Itv Big Two lead digital revolution. Eric Reguly and Carol Midgley. The Times, Wednesday, 25 June 1997

1998 1 May – Granada Good Life is relaunched as a single channel called Granada Breeze in order to improve ratings. 28 July – BDB announces that the DTT service will be called ONdigital.