Granada plc another since 1935. It was awarded the North of England ITV franchise in 1954, broadcasting as Granada Television. The company also established a chain of television rental shops from 1959 onwards. Granada entered the publishing business in the 1960s: it combined its operations into the publisher Hart-Davis, MacGibbon in 1972. William Collins, Sons acquired Granada Publishing in 1983. During the 1980s, Granada became involved in the British Satellite Broadcasting satellite television company. This went on air in March 1990, but merged with Sky Television plc in November 1990, to form British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), in which Granada had a minority
British Satellite Broadcasting satellite, to provide a commercial service on three of the five DBS channels on 2 April 1986. One of the conditions imposed on applicants by the IBA was that they use a new, untried transmission standard, D-MAC. This standard was part of the European Community's attempt to promote a high-definition television (HDTV) standard being developed by Philips and other European companies, HD-MAC. The technology was still at the laboratory stage and was incompatible with previous standards: HD-MAC transmissions could not be received by existing television sets which were based on PAL or SECAM standards. The condition to use a high-power