30th September 1961

Grampian Television goes on air

Grampian Television formerly covered the north of Scotland, Northern Isles, Western Isles, Grampian, and parts of the Highlands, Tayside, and north Fife. It launched at 2.45pm on 30 September 1961 from studios in Aberdeen.

Early disappointment

On 2 August 1961, looking back over the first couple of days on air, the Aberdeen Evening Express sounded nonplussed, saying of Grampian, “[it’s] bright, it’s breezy, it’s blasé – thanks to the importation of programmes from other ITV networks… over the first two days of its existence it looks not only like being the baby [of the ITV family] but also the poor relation… more was expected from the local station on opening night… we hope we won’t be disappointed.”

It experienced its first real mishap a little less than two weeks later, with the same paper reporting on 11 October that it “suffered its first break in transmission when a fault developed in the land line linkage bringing programmes from the national Independent Television network. The break lasted about half-an-hour.”

Grampian’s successes

Grampian broadcast in black and white for its first decade, introducing colour in 1971.

Grampian Television became a permanent fixture of British independent TV broadcasting, successfully retaining its licence to broadcast each time it came up for renewal, and it extended its broadcasting activities to encompass radio as well as television. It was eventually acquired by Scottish Television’s parent company and its individual identity was retired in 2006.