Granada's TV Rental Stuff

[nwtv2003]

Granada merged their TV rental business into Boxclever, which went bust shortly after, but was bought out, and is still being run by someone today. Most of the others ended up there as well, the ones that come to mind as national chains:

Radio Rentals
DER
Visionhire
Rediffusion
Multi Broadcast

In addition the standard electrical chains, such as Currys and Rumblelows offered rental at least at one point, as did many local and department stores.

We used to rent from Martin Dawes which had several stores throughout the north west at one time. However unlike the other rental chains they very much still exist and have a store opposite IKEA in Warrington. Renting is still an option according to their website. 

Going back to Granada they did have a huge hospitality and leisure business at one time. In terms of leisure they had Granada Studios Tour and Camelot in addition to the American Adventure. There’s an excellent documentary on YouTube about the Studio Tour and why it eventually closed at the end of 1999. 

https://youtu.be/fqICtsXnLZI

By this time Granada’s focus was mostly on ITV and other digital ventures. Leisure dwindled and hospitality was eventually spun off not too long after they acquired the Compass Group. 

Rentals as a medium started to die off when technology became more reliable and more affordable. The rise of the likes of Currys probably didn’t help rental either.