5 January – EastEnders is sold to Australia and goes to air on Australian television on ABC along with In Sickness and In Health.
6 January –
The Guardian reports that Central Television has acquired the European division of the American production company Filmfair for £1.5million.[4] Filmfair goes on to produce several of the station's networked children's series before being sold onto the Storm Group (Caspian) in 1991.[5][6]
Inspector Morse, based on the books by Colin Dexter debuts on ITV with John Thaw in the title role.
12 January – The five-part Australian World War I drama Anzacs makes its British television debut on BBC1.[7]
16 January – The Zircon affair becomes public knowledge when The Guardian reports that the government ordered the BBC to shelve a documentary in the Secret Society series about the Zircon satellite. Two days later documentary maker Duncan Campbell is subject to an injunction preventing him from discussing or writing about the programme's content, but subsequently writes an article about the episode for the New Statesman.
29 January – Alasdair Milne is sacked by the newly appointed Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, Marmaduke Hussey. He is replaced by a senior BBC accountant, Michael Checkland.
30 January – Yorkshire becomes the second ITV region to launch a Jobfinder service. It broadcasts for an hour after closedown.[8]
February[]
5 February – Princess Anne appears on sports quiz A Question of Sport, a matter of weeks after team captain Emlyn Hughes famously mistook a picture of her on a horse for jockey John Reid. The episode gains a record audience of 19 million viewers.
21 February – An apparently inebriated Oliver Reed appears on the ITV chat show Aspel & Company, where he stumbles and lurches around the set.
24 February – The sitcom Hardwicke House, set in a dysfunctional comprehensive school, makes its debut on ITV. The series is badly received by critics and viewers and is abruptly cancelled after just two episodes are shown (the second broadcast the following evening). The remaining five episodes scheduled are never transmitted.
27 February – The BBC and independent television begins a week of programming aimed at educating people about the AIDS virus. Highlights include AIDS – The Facts on BBC1, a short programme of facts and figures covering frequently asked questions about the disease, and First AIDS, an ITV comedy-sketch programme produced by London Weekend Television and featuring Mike Smith, Jonathan Ross and Emma Freud.[9][10]
March[]
6 March – BBC1 airs The Elephant Man, David Lynch's acclaimed film about Joseph Merrick.[11]
9 March – Debut of Central Television's Intimate Contact, a drama dealing with the issue of AIDS.
21 March – Opportunity Knocks returns to British television after a decade-long break, now on BBC1. It is presented by Bob Monkhouse and airs under the title Bob Says Opportunity Knocks.[12]
April[]
6 April – The British series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends has its first broadcast in Australia on ABC.
9 April –
BBC1 premieres a new animated series called The Adventures of Spot based on the books by Eric Hill and narrated by Paul Nicholas.[13]
Children's animated series The Raggy Dolls goes to air in Australia for the very first time on ABC.
20 April – BBC1 airs the British television premiere of WarGames, starring Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy and Dabney Coleman.[14]
24 April – The Channel 4 music series The Tube is shown for the final time.
25 April –
The Australiansoap operaPrisoner: Cell Block H makes its debut on Central Television in the Midlands. This is believed by many viewers to be the series debut on British television, but in fact it had been running in the Yorkshire region since 1984. Central was the first region to conclude the series, however, in December 1991.
Central becomes the first station to keep its transmitters on air all night when it launches More Central. Programmes are shown into the early hours with the rest of the night filled by its Jobfinder service, which airs from closedown until the start of TV-am.[15]
US prime time sitcom ALF gets its first broadcasting on television screens in the UK on ITV.
26 April – Channel 4's The Tube airs for the last time after five series.
28 April – BBC television programming in Hindi and Urdu finishes after more than 20 years following the transmission of the final editions of Asian Magazine[16] and Gharbar.[17] A new programme for the Asian community will be launched later in the year and it will be broadcast in English.
April – Channel 4 starts broadcasting into the early hours on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays when it launches Nighttime. One of the programmes is discussion programme After Dark, which was broadcast live and with no scheduled end time.
May[]
1 May – Launch of the late night discussion programme After Dark, airing on Channel 4.
3 May – The first of two series of groundbreaking youth television show Network 7 starts airing on Channel 4. The programme is shown live at Sunday lunchtime.
10 May – ITV airs Escape from Sobibor, a made-for-television film telling the story of the mass escape from the Sobibór extermination camp during World War II, the most successful uprising by Jewish prisoners of German extermination camps.[18]
22 May–20 June – BBC TV broadcasts coverage of the first Rugby World Cup from Australia and New Zealand. This is the only time that the BBC has screened the tournament.
June[]
9 June – Debut of the Tyne Tees produced chart show The Roxy, presented by David Jensen and Kevin Sharkey. The programme is intended as a stablemate for the Independent radio hit parade The Network Chart Show, following a similar format to the BBC's Top of the Pops, but its Newcastle-upon-Tyne location impinges on its ability to secure live performances. The show also suffers from poor ratings because it does not have a regular slot on the ITV network, and is cancelled in April 1988.
11–12 June – Coverage of the results of the 1987 General Election is broadcast both on BBC1 and ITV.
19 June – Debut of The Grand Knockout Tournament, an It's a Knockout special featuring members of the British Royal Family alongside sporting and other celebrities. Also known as It's a Royal Knockout, the event attracts much media derision and is deemed to have been a failure, although it raised £1 million for charity.
22 June – The BBC's lunchtime children's programme moves from BBC1 to BBC2. It is shown slightly earlier, at 1:20pm.
29 June – Schools programmes are broadcast on ITV for the last time.
7 July – Jeremy Isaacs, Chief Executive of Channel 4, announces that advertising revenue for the channel for 1986–87 has exceeded costs for the first time since its launch, providing a £20m profit.[19]
17 July - ITN's News at One airs for the last time, it also marks Leonard Parkin's retirement from newsreading.
20 July – ITV's lunchtime news programme moves to a 12:30pm slot. Consequently, News at One ends after eleven years on air.
25 July – The first edition of a new weekly programme for the Asian community, , is shown. Broadcast in English, the programme replaces Asian Magazine and Gharbar, which had ended three months earlier.[20]
July – TV-am reintroduces a weekday news programme, GMB Newshour, airing initially from the start of programmes until 7 am. Good Morning Britain now airs between 7 am and 9 am.
August[]
17 August – Thames/LWT begin 24-hour broadcasting. Anglia also begins 24-hour transmissions at around the same time.
20 August – In the wake of the previous day's Hungerford massacre in which 16 people were shot dead by gun enthusiast Michael Ryan, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 pull several forthcoming films and programmes containing violence from their schedules. Among them are the 1966 western Nevada Smith, an episode of The Professionals and the 1982 post-apocalyptic film Battletruck. A showing of First Blood is also cancelled.[21]
25 August – BBC1 airs the first public showing of Dennis Potter's television play Brimstone and Treacle which was originally scheduled to air in 1976 but withdrawn shortly before broadcast.[22]
September[]
September – TV-am recommences broadcasting each day from 6 am. This is the first time since 1983 that TV-am has transmitted throughout its allocated broadcast hours.
7 September –
ITV launches a full morning programme schedule, with advertising, for the first time. The new service includes regular five-minute national and regional news bulletins.
Sylvester McCoy becomes the seventh actor to play the Doctor in BBC One's long-running Doctor Who, making his first full appearance in the role in the serial "Time and the Rani". McCoy also makes his sole cameo debut as the Sixth Doctor following Colin Baker's refusal to reprise the role for the serial (in part due to his abrupt removal from the show).
The Disney animated series DuckTales makes its premiere in the UK on ITV before being broadcast in the USA on Broadcast syndication several days later.
8 September – Anglia Television announces that its Anglia knight ident will be replaced by a computer-generated logo from early 1988. However, the knight will continue to have a presence in the Anglia headquarters reception.[23]
14 September – After 30 years on ITV, ITV Schools moves to Channel 4. Consequently, Channel 4's weekday programming begins at 9:30am (noon when schools programmes are not being shown).
21 September – As part of Channel 4's expanded weekday broadcast hours, the first edition of a weekday business and financial news programme Business Daily is broadcast.
25 September – A US version of Top of the Pops makes its debut on CBS in the United States, with Nia Peeples as presenter. The launch of a US TOTP allows American acts to more easily make live appearances on the show without the need to travel to London, while also giving British acts a chance to appear on US television as each edition includes footage from the UK series, and details of the current UK Top Ten.
26 September – Debut of Going Live!, a new live magazine show, broadcast on BBC1, and presented by Phillip Schofield and Sarah Greene.
30 September – BBC2 debuts Malcolm McKay's ScreenPlayThe Interrogation of John, a film concerning the police questioning of a potential murder suspect.[25] Starring Denis Quilley, Bill Paterson and , it later forms the first of a three-part series titled A Wanted Man, which further develops the story and airs in 1989.[26]
October[]
11 October – A new children's strand Now on Two is launched on Sunday mornings on BBC2. It broadcasts during the Open University off-season.[27] Consequently, Sunday Ceefax transmissions all-but end although on Saturdays, Ceefax continues to air throughout the morning, generally until around midday.
12 October – BBC1 debuts Going for Gold, a general knowledge quiz presented by Henry Kelly in which contestants from fourteen different European countries compete to become series champion. The winner of the first series, Daphne Hudson (later Daphne Fowler), receives ringside tickets at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, and goes on to become a familiar face on television after appearing in a number of other quizzes, including Fifteen to One and Eggheads.[28][29]
15 October – During a weather forecast, BBCmeteorologistMichael Fish reports "Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way; well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't, but having said that, actually, the weather will become very windy, but most of the strong winds, incidentally, will be down over Spain and across into France.".[30] Hours later, Britain is hit by the worst storm for 284 years.[31] Fish later drew criticism for the comments, but has since claimed that they referred to Florida, USA, and were linked to a news story immediately preceding the weather bulletin, but had been so widely repeated out of context that the British public remains convinced that he was referring to the approaching storm.
16 October – As a result of the Great Storm of 1987, electrical power to TV-am's studios is lost and an emergency programme has to be transmitted from facilities at Thames Television's Euston Road centre using reports from TV-am's own crews and those of ITN, TSW and TVS. The BBC's Breakfast Time, which would usually come from Lime Grove and was unable to broadcast as the studios were without power, as was most of BBC Television Centre at Wood Lane. The early part of the programme was broadcast from the continuity suite at TV Centre usually used for Children's BBC presentation as this area had generator support, before a larger studio was able to be brought into use.
17 October – First showing on British television of Stephen King's The Dead Zone on BBC1. This is the first of three films based on Stephen King works to receive their British television debut over three consecutive Saturdays.[32]
18–19 October – Channel 4 screens the landmark Holocaust film Shoah over two nights. It is shown from 8:15pm to 12:45am on 18 October and 8:30pm to 1:20am on 19 October, and without commercial breaks.[19]
29 October – British television premiere of the popular Spanish animated television series Around the World with Willy Fog.[34] The 26-part series concludes on 28 April 1988.[35]
30 October – The first edition of Channel 4's flagship current affairs documentary series Dispatches is broadcast.
2 November – Channel 4's fifth anniversary includes a screening of Tony Harrison's controversial televisual poem V, which attracts complaints due to its frequent use of extreme language.[19]
4–18 November – Damon and Debbie becomes the first 'soap bubble'. It was a miniseries which took two characters from Brookside into new locations and their own story.
5 November – Veteran Irish-born television and radio presenter Eamonn Andrews best known for hosting programmes such as World of Sport, What's My Line? and This Is Your Life dies in London following heart failure.
11 November – BBC1 airs Paul Hamann's documentary Fourteen Days in May, a film that recounts the final days before the execution of Edward Earl Johnson, an American prisoner convicted of rape and murder and imprisoned in the Mississippi State Penitentiary.[37]
17 November –
Fireman Sam, a children's television series about a fireman voiced and narrated by John Alderton, debuts on BBC1.
The first episode of EastEnders to feature a gay kiss is aired on BBC1. The scenes see Colin Russell (played by Michael Cashman) kiss partner Barry Clark () on the forehead. The episode attracts a record number of complaints from angry viewers. In addition, some sections of the British media reacts with fury, dubbing the show EastBenders.[38] Questions are also asked in parliament about whether it is appropriate to have gay men in a family show when AIDS is sweeping the country.[39]
22 November – Final edition of the 1987 run of Play Your Cards Right. The series disappeared from ITV after this date, not returning until March 1994.[40]
23 November – The TV-am strike begins after members of the technicians' union the ACTT walk out in a dispute over the station's ‘Caring Christmas Campaign’. What is meant to be a 24-hour stoppage continues for several months when staff are locked out by Managing Director Bruce Gyngell. TV-am is unable to broadcast Good Morning Britain, the regular format is replaced with shows such as Flipper, Batman and Happy Days. By December a skeleton service that sees non-technical staff operating cameras and Gyngell himself directing proceedings, begin to allow Good Morning Britain to start broadcasting again. The strikers are eventually sacked and replaced with non union staff. Viewing figures remain high throughout the disruption, which continues well into 1988, although normal programming gradually resumes. Other ITV stations later follow Gyngell's example.
25 November – BBC1 airs the first part of Desmond Wilcox's two-part documentary The Visit – Coma, a film about 11-year-old Connie, who was left in a coma after being hit by a taxi while on her way home from Christmas shopping in Glasgow. The film follows Connie's journey as she begins the slow process of recovery. The second part of the documentary airs on 2 December.[41][42]
28 November – Ventriloquist Jimmy Tamley wins New Faces of '87, coming just ahead of comedian Joe Pasquale, who is second.
November –
Tyne Tees begins 24-hour broadcasting by launching a Jobfinder service which broadcasts each night from its usual close-down time until the start of TV-am at 6am.
Michael Grade is appointed Chief Executive of Channel 4, and will succeed Jeremy Isaacs on 1 January 1988.[19]
December[]
December –
The switching on of Channel 4 from all of the UK's television transmitters is completed when the relays at Cerne Abbas and Gunnislake have Channel 4 added.[43]
Thamesside TV, an unlicensed TV station set up by Thameside Radio, goes on air in London. There are only two known broadcasts.[44][45]
7 December – TV-am is able to switch from airing 100% pre-recorded material with the introduction of a 30-minute live segment each morning presented by Anne Diamond.[46]
14 December – TV-am extends its live broadcasting to an hour a day.[46]
16 December – Yorkshire Television announce that 3-2-1 is to be cancelled as a television series but will continue to be shown in a series of 'special' shows. An Olympics special and Christmas special are shown in 1988; after that it is cancelled altogether.[47]
18 December – Frank Bough, who launched breakfast television on 17 January 1983, presents Breakfast Time for the final time.[48]
25 December –
Christmas Day highlights on BBC1 include Julie Andrews.... The Sound of Christmas, a show featuring music and presented by Julie Andrews from Salzburg, Austria, and the British television premieres of both Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Terms of Endearment.[49]
ITV enjoys a record-breaking audience when more than 26 million viewers tune in for the Christmas Day episode of Coronation Street, in which Hilda Ogden (Jean Alexander) makes her last appearance in the show after 23 years.[50]
30 December – Channel 4 airs "Salute to ATV", an evening of programmes celebrating ATV and including episodes of Sunday Night at the London Palladium, The Saint and .[19]
31 December –
In an unusual move for a pre-recorded television series, the Chimes of Big Ben are integrated into an episode of EastEnders on BBC1. Character Den Watts (Leslie Grantham) brought a television into the bar of the Queen Vic, 'watched' the chimes in their entirety, and the episode resumed.[51]
BBC2 airs a five-hour Whistle Test special to welcome in 1988. The special, aired from 9:35pm on New Year's Eve to 2:55am on New Year's Day, takes a look back through the archives in what is the programme's final outing.[52] It will be three decades later in 2018 before a new edition of the programme is broadcast.[53]
ITV frontcaps are shown before programmes on ITV for the last time after 32 years.
Two separate government studies identify spare frequency space on the UHF band, prompting political debate about the viability of a fifth UK terrestrial TV channel.[54]
Sir Richard Attenborough replaces Edmund Dell as Chairman of Channel 4.[55]