1 January – New Year's Day highlights on BBC1 include a Paul Young concert simulcast with BBC Radio 1, and the British television premieres of Clash of the Titans and Rocky II.[1]
2 January – A special edition of Tomorrow's World travels back a century to discover the latest developments in science and technology from 1886.[2]
4 January – Televised football returns to British television after the contractual dispute from the previous year is resolved.
6 January – First showing of children's animated series Jimbo and the Jet-Set on BBC1.
12 January – ITV airs the game show Catchphrase for the first time.
17 January – BBC1 airs a feature-length episode of US soap Dynasty that sets up the storyline ready for the spin-off series Dynasty II: The Colbys, which begins on 24 January.[3]
19 January – Debut of the Screen Two film The Silent Twins, a drama based on the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, identical twin sisters known as the "Silent Twins" because they refuse to speak to anyone but each other.[4]
24 January – British television debut of Dynasty II: The Colbys on BBC1.[5]
28 January – NASA's Space Shuttle Challenger spacecraft disintegrates. Pictures from CNN in the United States (owned by Turner Broadcasting System, then owners of American superstation WTBS), are aired in countries around the world.
February[]
4 February – Thorn EMI sells its stake in Swindon Cable to British Telecom and the new owners axe Focus on Swindon and other local programming and replaces it with bought-in content.
19 February –
BBC1 airs Round Britain Whizz, an edition of the science series Q.E.D..[6] The 30 minute programme consists of a sped up flight around the coastline of Great Britain with guest appearances from geologists and TV personalities including Patrick Moore, David Bellamy and Terry Wogan telling the viewer about the geology and natural history of certain areas.
The first regular episode of The ChuckleHounds "Music Mayhem" gets screened on BBC1.
February – For the first time in the UK, animated graphics are seen during teletext transmissions. They are broadcast on Channel 4. This is made possible by transmitting 4-Tel On View from a disc rather than live.
March[]
5 March – BBC1 airs season 9 of the US drama series Dallas beginning with a feature-length episode.
10 March – The first advert for a sanitary towel is broadcast on British television, on Channel 4.[7]
23 March – The television play "Shergar"—telling the story of the theft of the racehorse Shergar—is aired as part of BBC2's Screen Two anthology series. The film stars Stephen Rea and Gary Waldhorn.[8]
26 March –
The series one finale of The ChuckleHounds airs on BBC1 with "Birthday Bother".
First screening of the SuperTed public information film designed to teach children road safety.
27 March – Following the launch the previous autumn of in-vision continuity for children's programmes, for the first time in-vision presentation is introduced to holiday weekday morning children's programmes. The easter period's ten programmes are presented by Roland Rat and are called Roland Rat's Easter Extravaganza.[9]
30 March – BBC2 airs the TWO ident, which is used until 1991.
31 March – British television premiere of An Officer and a Gentleman on ITV.
April[]
1 April –
All commercial activities of the BBC are now handled by BBC Enterprises Ltd.
As part of the BBC's Drugwatch campaign, BBC1 airs It's Not Just Zammo, a Newsround special presented by John Craven and Nick Ross that seeks to warn younger viewers about the dangers of using drugs. The programme follows a recent drug abuse storyline in Grange Hill involving the character Zammo McGuire (played by Lee MacDonald), and features the launch of a version of the anti-drugs song "Just Say No" recorded by members of the Grange Hill cast. The song goes on to reach the top ten of the UK Singles Chart, while members of the cast are invited to the White House to meet First LadyNancy Reagan, who founded the Just Say No campaign.[10][11][12]
2 April – The first in-vision teletext service is seen on ITV when Central launches its Jobfinder service. It broadcasts for one hour after the end of the day's programming. Many other regions launch their own Jobfinder service later in the 1980s.
3 April –
A brand new children's animated series The Raggy Dolls begins on ITV, as told by Neil Innes.
BBC1's Top of the Pops introduces its new theme tune The Wizard by Paul Hardcastle.
11 April – The Chart Show is broadcast for the first time on Channel 4.
12 April – ITV airs the network television premiere of John Carpenter's 1982 science-fiction horror classic The Thing, starring Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, T. K. Carter and Richard Dysart.
Tim Roth stars in a new four part drama miniseries King of the Ghetto on BBC2.
3 May – A new Saturday morning TV series for children Get Fresh hosted by Gareth Jones begins on ITV.
9 May – BBC1 airs "Video Jukebox", a special extended edition of its Omnibus arts programme telling the story of the rock video. The programme is presented by John Peel and John Walters.[13]
11 May – Spitting Image's "The Chicken Song" reaches No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, holding the position for three weeks.[14]
14 May – ITV airs the British television premiere of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley and Ricardo Montalban.
23 May – The final edition of BBC1's lunchtime magazine programme Pebble Mill at One is broadcast. The programme ends ahead of the launch in the autumn of a full daytime service on BBC1, which will see the programme replaced by a new lunchtime news bulletin, the One O'Clock News. The programme ends after 14 years in air.
31 May–29 June – BBC and ITV provide coverage of the 1986 FIFA World Cup.
June[]
3 June – BBC1 begins airing a three-part dramatisation of the Jeffrey Archer novel Kane and Abel.[16] Part Two is shown on 5 June,[17] and Part Three on 6 June.[18]
8 June – Brian Walden presents his final edition of London Weekend Television's political programme, Weekend World after nine years in the role.
9 June – The first Parliamentary review programme is broadcast on BBC Television when the first edition of The Lords This Week is broadcast at 9.20 am on BBC2.
15 June – Singer Helen Shapiro joins Granada's Albion Market as hairdresser Viv Harker.
18 June – In Coronation Street the Rovers Return pub is gutted by fire with landlady Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear) trapped inside.
26 June – Britain's most popular long running science fiction series Doctor Who begins its very first screening in the Bahamas on ZNS-TV.
July[]
18 July – The Crystal Palace transmitter becomes the first in the world to transmit stereophonic sound using the NICAM digital sound system when it broadcasts the First Night of the Proms in stereo.
23 July –
In London, Prince Andrew, Duke of York marries Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.[19] The event receives significant television coverage both in the UK and around the world.
BBC1 airs a live edition of Top of the Pops, presented by Gary Davies and Peter Powell.[20]
24 July – BBC1 airs the opening ceremony from the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, which includes a 45-minute display produced by the BBC that celebrates the Spirit of Youth.[21]
24 July–2 August – BBC Television broadcasts the 1986 Commonwealth Games and for the first time the Games are shown live and in full with around ten hours of live coverage each day.
August[]
August – "Anyone Can Fall in Love", a song performed by EastEnders actress Anita Dobson which gives words to the soap's theme tune, is released as a single, and peaks at #4 on the UK Singles Chart.
1 August – US sitcom The Golden Girls makes its British television debut on Channel 4.
5 August –
Michael Cashman makes his EastEnders debut as Colin Russell, the soap's first gay character.
British police procedural television series The Bill makes its Australian television debut on ABC.
9 August – The Yorkshire TelevisionITV region becomes the first UK terrestrial channel to broadcast 24 hours a day, initially simulcasting the cable and satellite music video channel Music Box throughout the night. The other ITV regions gradually switch to 24-hour television over the next two years.
21 August – Channel 4 announces the introduction of its red triangle to "indicate certain late-night feature films for which special discretion may be required".[7]
24 August – Granada's ill-fated Albion Market airs for the last time.
26 August – In Emmerdale Farm, original character Pat Sugden dies after rolling her car down a hillside to avoid a flock of sheep.
29 August – After 16 years London Weekend Television drops its river-based logo and launches a new ident.[22]
30 August – BBC1 begins a run of films making their debut on British television, and under the banner of Saturday Night at the Movies. The first in the season is Harold Becker's 1981 drama Taps.[23]
31 August –
Debut of Alan Bleasdale's four-part World War I drama The Monocled Mutineer on BBC1.[24] The series causes some controversy when some right-wing newspapers cite it as an example of what they believe to be a left-wing bias of the BBC.[25]
British television premiere of the James Bond filmFor Your Eyes Only on ITV.[26]
September[]
1 September – The very first episode of long running sitcom Brush Strokes goes on the air on BBC1.
2 September – Ahead of the launch of all-day television on BBC1, the weekly magazine programme for Asian women, Gharbar, transfers back to BBC2. The programme moves to a new day and new slot – 9am on Tuesdays.
6 September –
Part One of The Trial of a Time Lord is broadcast on BBC1,[27] marking the return to air of Doctor Who after a 17-month hiatus.
The first episode of medical drama Casualty airs on BBC1.[28] Although an immediate success with viewers, the show attracts controversy because of its portrayal of an under-funded National Health Service, which is seen as a criticism of Margaret Thatcher's government.[29]
British television premiere of Stanley Donen's science-fiction thriller Saturn 3 on BBC1.[30]
9 September – The last ever non-stop all-day BBC2Ceefax transmission takes place.
14 September – Matthew Parris succeeds Brian Walden as presenter of Weekend World.
19 September –
Central TV revives New Faces, a 1970s talent show produced by its predecessor, ATV. Styled as New Faces of '86, it is presented by Marti Caine, a winner from the previous version.
From today, Channel 4 shows a red triangle at the start of, and during, films with adult themes. The first use of the warning is for the film Themroc, aired at 11:30pm. After lobbying from newspapers and pressure groups this method of identifying such material was phased out within a year.
20 September – British television premiere of Gordon Carroll's action thriller Blue Thunder on BBC1.[31]
20–21 September – For the third and final time, BBC2 goes Rock Around the Clock.[32]
24 September – Children's television series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends returns for a brand new series on ITV with Ringo Starr returning as narrator once again. The upcoming episodes will also introduce new characters including Trevor, Bill and Ben, Donald and Douglas, Daisy, Diesel, Duck, Boco and Harold.
27 September – BBC1 airs the British television premiere of Jay Sandrich's adventure Seems Like Old Times.[33]
October[]
4 October – BBC1 airs the British television premiere of Dick Lowry's adventure film Wet Gold.[34]
12 October – "Every Loser Wins" performed by the actor Nick Berry begins a three-week run at the top of the UK Singles Chart after featuring in recent episodes of EastEnders. The song was an instant hit on release and went on to win its writers an Ivor Novello Award.
14 October – BBC2 begins regular late afternoon programming by showing a film during the second half of the gap between the end of Daytime on Two and the start of the evening's programmes.
16 October – The first two-hander episode of EastEnders, featuring Den and Angie Watts (Leslie Grantham and Anita Dobson), is aired by BBC1. The episode, in which Angie tells Den she has six months to live after he tells her he wants a divorce, was an experiment as the two-hander format had not been tried in a British soap before, but received well by viewers and critics.
17 October – BBC2 broadcasts a teatime news summary with subtitles for the last time. For the past three years this bulletin, which had been broadcast at around 5:25pm, had been the first programme of the day (apart from educational programmes and sports coverage).
18 October –
Channel 4 starts weekend morning broadcasting with weekend transmissions now beginning at around 9:25am. Programming had previously started at 1:00pm.[7]
20 October – Following considerable criticism, including from the Independent Broadcasting Authority, Scottish Television reverses its 1984 changes to Scotland Today, and the programme once again becomes a news broadcast with the feature elements transferred to a new lunchtime programme called Live at One Thirty.
22 October – BBC1 airs season 10 of the US drama series Dallas beginning with a feature-length episode.
24 October –
Ahead of the launch of the BBC's daytime television service, Pages from Ceefax is shown during the day on BBC1 for the final time.[37]
News After Noon is broadcast for the final time. The bulletin is replaced by a revamped lunchtime news programme One O'Clock News.
The weekday mid-afternoon regional news summary is broadcast on BBC1 for the final time. From Monday 27 October it is broadcast on BBC2.
27 October –
BBC One starts a full daytime television service. Before today, excluding special events coverage, BBC One had closed down at times during weekday mornings and afternoons, broadcasting trade test transmissions and, from May 1983, Pages From Ceefax. BBC Two also expands its programming hours, providing a full afternoon service for the first time but it wasn't until the end of the decade that BBC Two was on air all day every day.
As part of the new service, Australian soap Neighbours makes its British television debut on BBC1, a year after it was first aired in its homeland.
29 October – The Equalizer, a US crime drama series starring Edward Woodward makes its British television debut on ITV.
November[]
2 November – To mark the 50th anniversary of the start of television broadcasting, broadcasts TV50 in which BBC2's entire evening output for the next week is used to show programmes from the BBC's archives.
10 November – Breakfast Time is relaunched with a more formal news and current affairs format.
13 November – Self-employed hod carrier Michael Lush is killed during his first rehearsal for a live stunt planned for BBC1's The Late, Late Breakfast Show. The stunt, called "Hang 'em High", involved bungee jumping from an exploding box suspended from a 120 ft-high crane. The carabiner clip attaching his bungee rope to the crane sprang loose from its eyebolt during the jump, and he died instantly of multiple injuries. The 15 November edition of Breakfast Show is cancelled after presenter Noel Edmonds resigns, saying he does not "have the heart to carry on".[38]
15 November – British television premiere of Michael Crichton's science fiction crime drama Looker on BBC1.[39]
16 November – Dennis Potter's critically acclaimed television serial The Singing Detective makes its debut on BBC1.[40]
23 November – Channel 4 airs the speculative film The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald.[7]
December[]
6 December –
Doctor Who concludes its The Trial of a Time Lord story arc with part 2 of "The Ultimate Foe".[41] This would mark the final televised appearance of Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor before he was abruptly fired from the role.
British television premiere of Jack Smight's romantic comedy Loving Couples on BBC1.[42]
7 December – Jack Rosenthal's original two-hour TV movie of London's Burning, directed by Les Blair is broadcast on ITV. It returns for a full series in February 1988.
8 December – Six weeks after launching its daytime service, BBC TV starts broadcasting hourly news summaries. Morning bulletins are shown on BBC1 and early afternoon bulletins (at 2pm, 3pm and 3:50pm) are shown on BBC2. Each bulletin is followed by a weather forecast.
11 December – The IBA announces that BSB has been awarded a fifteen-year franchise to operate a satellite television service in the UK.[43]
13 December –
Comedian Duggie Small wins New Faces of '86.
British television premiere of Don Coscarelli's fantasy adventure The Beastmaster on BBC1.[44]
15 December – Channel 4 airs Soap Aid in which cast members of Coronation Street and Brookside raise funds to help those affected by the famine in Ethiopia.[7]
17 December – Ringo Starr narrates his last ever Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends episode, the second series finale, "Thomas & the Missing Christmas Tree".
25 December –
A record 30 million viewers watch the two episodes of EastEnders in which Den Watts served his wife Angie divorce papers.
ITV screens the British terrestrial television premiere of Never Say Never Again.[45]
26 December – The Rainbow 30 minute Christmas special, Rainbow Christmas Show (aka The Colours of the Rainbow) is the highest ever rating episode of the show. It was thought that Rainbow would end following this episode, but Thames Television renewed the contract after good ratings.
27 December – ITV airs the British television premieres of the 1984 romantic fantasy Splash and the 1983 dance drama Flashdance.
28 December – BBC1 begins a season of films starring Dustin Hoffman, starting with the British television premiere of Tootsie.[46]
31 December – New Year's Eve highlights on BBC1 include the British television premiere of the 1984 Australian animated film The Camel Boy, and , a screenplay starring Hannah Gordon, Kenneth Haigh, Anna Massey and Martyn Stanbridge. Terry Wogan welcomes in the New Year from the BBC Television Theatre.[47]
Unknown[]
The recommends that Channel 4 should be given the option to sell its own airtime.[48]
Viewers' campaigner Mary Whitehouse lobbies advertisers to boycott Channel 4, with some success.[48]
Channel Television switches its feed of the ITV network from TSW to TVS.
For 6 months at Friday midnight, pirate television station NeTWork 21 broadcasts to the London area.[49]