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
Now (British TV channel) Now (British TV channel) Now was a British television channel transmitted as part of the British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) service during 1990. The Now channel was originally designed to be a live 24 hours news channel similar to CNN and Sky News, with most of the content provided by ITN. Between the award of the franchise and the launch the channel, ITN quitted its involvement with BSB after failing to agree with the latter on how to provide its news service, and the Now channel's remit was changed to have lifestyle programmes in the day and current affairs shows in