The whole of the Granada TV archives are to return to Manchester, and become part of the new British Pop Archive. The archive, which traces back Granada’s history, has spent the last 30 years in a warehouse in Yorkshire.
The huge resource is said to be made up of somewhere between 750 and 1000 boxes, containing all manner of materials from the iconic Manchester broadcaster. Some of the archive comprises papers belonging to Sidney Lewis Bernstein, latterly Baron Bernstein, who founded Granada Television in 1954, launching it to huge success two years later.
The papers, which date back to the 1950s and 60s, are said to give a rare insight into how the broadcasting company was set up and operated. The conservation team from the British Pop Archive, which opened to the public at the John Rylands library yesterday, will first catalogue the whole archive, and begin to work out how it can be accessed by the public.
