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 BSB's shareholders and Murdoch's News International made huge profits on their investments, the 50:50 merged venture having an effective quasi-monopoly on UK satellite pay-TV. From a UK perspective, British Satellite Broadcasting's existence prevented 100% of these profits being made by News International, reducing Murdoch's ability to influence government policy. At one stage of the saga, News International was facing dismemberment at the hands of its bankers. Following the takeover of Sky by Comcast in October 2018, Murdoch was no longer involved in British television but retained his newspaper assets through News Corp. British Satellite Broadcasting British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) was