STV was founded by Canadian newspaper magnate Roy Thomson in 1957 and as a base he bought the Theatre Royal in Glasgow. In 1966, the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange for the first time. But like many franchises within the ITV network, STV struggled through the late 1960s and early 1970s with the recession. Due to this the company made a loss of £39,000 in 1970. But in 1978, company profits had risen by 21.8% in the first six months of the year, allowing for an increase in local programming. In the following twenty years, the company gained greater access to the national network, primarily through the soap opera, ‘Take the High Road’ and the long-running detective series ‘Taggart’. In January 2007, the station launched separate news services for the East and West of the STV Central region. Moreover, STV were awarded local TV licences in January 2013 to operate two digital television channels in Glasgow and Edinburgh respectively, for up to 12 years.