Granada Plus Granada Plus was a satellite television channel owned and run by Granada Television and British Sky Broadcasting to showcase the archive holdings of Granada and its recently purchased subsidiary of London Weekend Television . The channel launched on Tuesday 1st October 1996 and was advertised in the weeks before on ITV with a special trailer in which Jean Alexander reprised the role of Hilda Ogden as , from its first day of broadcasting , repeats of " Coronation Street " featured strongly in its line - up under the generic title of " Classic Coronation Street " ( although no attempt was made to alter the title sequence s of the episodes to display this title ) . Although there was some advance publicity that the series would be repeated in its entirety , Granada chose to begin the repeats from near the start of the critically - acclaimed Bill Podmore era with the headline - grabbing return to the programme of Patricia Phoenix as Elsie Tanner with Episode 1588 originally shown on 5th April 1976 . Episodes were shown four times a day however on the launch day most of the programme ' s slots were taken up with a special programme which was advertised as containing , " a review of some previous storylines , introductions to various characters , contributions from the stars and a look to some forthcoming dramatic moments " to familiarise viewers with the programme as it was in April 1976 . This programme was shown at 8 . 00am , 12 . 30pm , 6 . 30pm and 9 . 00pm before Episode 1588 was transmitted at 9 . 25pm ( the special programme was also repeated on Saturday 5th October at 12 . 15pm and Sunday 6th October at 4 . 45pm ) . From 2nd October episode repeats were shown at 8 . 00pm , 12 . 30pm , 6 . 30pm and 9 . 25pm before the pattern changed in November 1996 . An omnibus of the previous week ' s repeats was transmitted on Sunday ' s . The channel also had special " theme " runs of episodes where a run of , usually , six episodes would be shown about the history of one particular character . The first of these was " The Life and Loves of Ken Barlow " , transmitted on Saturday 12th October 1996 and this type of programming reached its peak on Christmas Day 1996 when the channel repeated the programme ' s first sixteen episodes in a continuous run from 10 . 00am to 6 . 00pm as well as various other Christmas - themed episodes . Most of the episodes shown on the channel were edited down by a couple of minutes to accommodate extra adverts , the running times of all ITV programmes having been noticeably decreased as government restrictions on advertising durations were relaxed . The channel changed its name to G Plus in 1999 and to Plus in 2002 . Two years later , on 1st November 2004 , ITV bought out Sky ' s 49 . 5 % in Granada Sky Broadcasting , allowing them to take control of Granada Plus . ITV almost immediately decided to close the channel down in order to make way for ITV3 which was due to launch later that evening ( due to its high place on the EPG at 119 ) . An hour - and - a - half later , the channel was abruptly ended at 4 . 30pm with no prior notice given to viewers and very little given to staff ( the channel ending in the middle of an episode of " Pie in the Sky " ) . Although ITV3 also carried archive programmes , " Coronation Street " was one of many older show ' s that did not transfer to the new channel . Episode 3657 ( 9th February 1994 ) was the last episode to be aired on the defunct channel .