Neighbours actors and pop singers Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan reach number one in the UK Singles Chart with their duet "Especially for You". The song released in November 1988, remains at the top of the charts for three weeks.
BBC1 airs the network television premiere of Amadeus, Miloš Forman's film based on the play of the same name that is a fictionalised biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.[1]
2 January – British television premieres of Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird on BBC1 and Desperately Seeking Susan on BBC2.[2]
5 January – The first episode of Channel 4's comedy series Desmonds is shown.
7 January – The Chart Show moves from Channel 4 to ITV.
8 January – Original airdate of the Only Fools and Horses episode "Yuppy Love" during which Del Boy falls through a bar. A 2006 poll named the scene the most popular of the entire programme, while it was also named 7th Greatest Television Moment of all time in a 1999 Channel 4 poll.
9 January – Launch of Central News South, a separate local news service for the South Midlands, covering Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and parts of Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire. The programme is broadcast from a new computerised news centre in Abingdon.
16 January –
The Late Show, Britain's first daily television arts programme, which is presented by Sarah Dunant debuts on BBC2 directly after Newsnight.[3][4]
Debut of the critically acclaimed children's television series Press Gang on ITV.
20 January – BBC2 airs live coverage of the inauguration of George Bush as the 41st President of the United States.[5]
22 January – ITV launches an omnibus edition of Coronation Street, which airs on Sunday afternoons. But the repeat is not stranded across the network, with different regions airing it at different times. Some regions, including Central Television, later move the episode to a Saturday afternoon slot, and the omnibus is dropped in some areas from September 1990.
24 January – BBC1 airs an episode of EastEnders featuring a mouth-to-mouth gay kiss between the characters Colin Russell (Michael Cashman) and Guido Smith (), the first time a mouth-to-mouth kiss between two men is shown on British television. The scene causes uproar among viewers and in the press.[6]
26 January – The first episode of the sitcom Joint Account is broadcast on BBC1.
28 January – American drama series Midnight Caller makes its debut on BBC1, and it was one of the first television show to address the dramatic possibilities of the then-growing phenomenon of talk radio.
February[]
February – Channel 4 begins broadcasting in Nicam digital stereo, initially from the Crystal Palace, prior to a national transmitter-by-transmitter roll-out during 1990.
February – Anglia and Central Television reschedule Emmerdale Farm to 7.00pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
5 February – At 6.00pm, the world's first commercial DBS system, Sky Television goes on air. Three new services – Sky News, Sky Movies and Eurosport – with the fourth being Sky Channel.
6 February – Launch of the Sky News flagship breakfast programme, Sunrise.
11 February – Australian soap Home and Away makes its British television debut on ITV. It is the second networked Australian soap on ITV following short-lived Richmond Hill which was still airing during the afternoon. Home and Away is crucially scheduled in early evening slots of either 5.10pm, 6.00pm or 6.30pm across the ITV regions and it immediately became the counterpart series to the BBC1's Neighbours airing at 5.35pm. This scheduling continues thirty years later with both series now in these same slots but together on Channel 5.
12 February – ITV launches its Find a Family campaign to find permanent homes for youngsters in care.
14 February – Debut of Channel 4's Out on Tuesday, the UK's first weekly magazine programme for gay and lesbian viewers. Later changing its name to Out, the programme aired for four series before being axed in 1992.[7]
23 February – Some 23 million viewers tune in to watch the exit of the hugely popular character Den Watts (Leslie Grantham) from EastEnders. Grantham filmed his final scenes in the show in the autumn of 1988 but his exit was delayed into 1989 to avoid the show suffering the double blow of losing Den so soon after his former wife Angie (Anita Dobson) exited in April 1988. The character falls into a canal after being shot, but the character's exact fate is left unconfirmed.
25 February – The long-awaited WBA Heavyweight title fight between Britain's Frank Bruno and America's Mike Tyson is held at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas. Because of the time difference between Britain and the United States, the fight is televised in the UK in the early hours of 26 February. Tyson wins after the referee stops the bout in the fifth round.[8]
March[]
2 March –
First transmission of My Brother David, an edition of the BBC2 schools series Scene in which Simon Scarboro talks about the life of his brother, David Scarboro, who originally played the EastEnders character Mark Fowler, and who fell to his death from Beachy Head in 1988. The programme is repeated again on 19 June for a general audience as part of BBC2's DEF II strand.[9][10][11][12]
After much publicity, a two-minute advert for Pepsi featuring Madonna's latest single "Like a Prayer" is shown during a commercial break on ITV, 12 minutes into The Bill.
6 March – Debut of the three-part ITV drama Winners and Losers, starring Leslie Grantham. The series is Grantham's first post-EastEnders role.
9 March – On Top of the Pops, comedian Lenny Henry joins regular presenter Nicky Campbell for a special Comic Relief edition of the programme.
10 March – On the second Red Nose Day, BBC1 airs the eight-hour telethon, A Night of Comic Relief 2.[13]
15 March – BBC1 airs John's Not Mad,[14] an edition of the QED documentary strand that shadowed John Davidson, a 15-year-old from Galashiels in Scotland, with severe Tourette syndrome. The film explores John's life in terms of his family and the close-knit community around him, and how they all cope with a misunderstood condition.[15]
31 March – The last Oracle on View transmission takes place on Channel 4.
March –
The Independent Broadcasting Authority recommends that the headquarters of a fifth channel should be situated outside London, preferably at a location north of Birmingham.[16]
The Children's Channel launches free-to-air on Astra 1A,[17] airing from 5.00am to 10.00am on weekdays and from 5.00am to 12.00pm on weekends, time-sharing with Lifestyle.
April[]
1 April –
Five Star appear on CBBC's Going Live! to promote their latest single "With Every Heartbeat". During a live phone-in, a teenage caller verbally abuses them and asks why they are "so fucking crap". Presenter Sarah Greene quickly cuts off the call as the tirade continues.[18][19][20][21][22] On 23 September 2019, an individual claiming to be Eliot Fletcher, the caller, apologises to the band for the incident via a social media account.[23] However, doubt is then cast on the authenticity of the apology after several other people claim to be the notorious caller.[24]
Discovery Channel Europe launches. The channel broadcasts via Intelsat and on cable systems.
2–3 April – ITV airs The Heroes, an Australian-British television miniseries based on the World War IIOperation Jaywick, starring John Bach and Jason Donovan.
3 April –
Channel 4 launches its breakfast television show The Channel Four Daily. The programme is based heavily on news and current affairs, with segments focusing on sports, finance, lifestyles, arts and entertainment, and discussion. It is axed in 1992 after failing to gain enough viewers and was subsequently replaced by The Big Breakfast.
Australian children's television series The Bartons makes its British television debut on BBC1.[25]
8 April – Debut of American action series MacGyver on BBC1, starring Richard Dean Anderson.
15 April – The date of the Hillsborough Disaster. BBC Television's cameras are at the Hillsborough ground to record the FA Cup semi-final clash between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest for their Match of the Day programme, but as the disaster unfolds the events are relayed to their live sports show, Grandstand, resulting in an extreme emotional impact on the general British population.
20 April – John Leslie becomes the first Scottish presenter of Blue Peter.[26]
21 April – BBC2's 25th anniversary. Programming includes an edition of Arena in which the author Graham Greene sets out to trace a namesake who posed as him for many years, and an edition of The Late Show which looks at the early BBC2 jazz programme Jazz 625.[27]
24 April –
The BBC's Ceefaxteletext only runs as a partial service due to a strike by broadcasting unions.
Jon Snow joins Channel 4 News as its main newscaster, replacing Peter Sissons.
26 April – BBC1 airs "A Case of Spontaneous Human Combustion", a Q.E.D. documentary which sets out to investigate apparent instances of the phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion, combustion of the human body without an apparent external source of ignition.[28]
27 April – BBC2 airs the 40 Minutes documentary "Inside Broadmoor", a film showing life inside Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire.[29]
May[]
2 May – ITV airs an edition of the First Tuesday documentary strand investigating the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War. Four Hours in My Lai is later shown in the United States as part of the Frontline series with the title Remember My Lai.[30]
6 May – Yugoslavia's Riva win the 1989 Eurovision Song Contest with "Rock Me".
ITV broadcasts live the last game of the season, between Liverpool and Arsenal at Anfield. Arsenal win the league title with the last kick of the season thanks to a late goal from Michael Thomas. More than 8 million people are said to have tuned in.
June[]
3 June – Sky Television and The Walt Disney Company come to an arrangement which allows to broadcast movies for a five-year period, this agreement comes a few weeks after plans to create a full-time channel were scrapped, although a Disney-branded version eventually launched on 1 October 1995.
19 June – For the first time, BBC2 broadcasts during the morning when not showing Daytime on 2. Programmes begin at 10.00am, as opposed to lunchtime.
22 June –
John Craven signs off for the last time on the children's news programme John Craven's Newsround. The show continues under the name Newsround.
An edition of Question Time looks back at Robin Day's ten years as the show's presenter as he prepares to step down from the role. The edition is presented from the Greenwood Theatre in London, with panellists Michael Foot, Lady Antonia Fraser, Michael Heseltine, David Owen.[32]
Debut of the Channel 4 miniseries Traffik, a drama about the illegal drugs trade.
July[]
10 July –
The first edition of the music magazine programme The O-Zone airs on BBC1.[33]
ITV introduces a second daily showing of Home and Away.
12 July – A special edition of Question Time from Paris, France, is the last to be chaired by Robin Day. Panellists on the programme are Leon Brittan, Chantal Cuer, Denis Healey and Yvette Roudy.[34]
19 July –
Debut of the game show Interceptor is broadcast on ITV, hosted by former tennis player and Treasure Hunt sky-runner Annabel Croft, with the eponymous Interceptor was played by actor Sean O'Kane. The first seven episodes until the series was aired on 1 January 1990 for the New Year special.
The BBC programme Panorama accuses Shirley Porter, Conservative Leader of Westminster City Council, of gerrymandering.
25 July – ITV airs "Don't Like Mondays", an episode of The Bill featuring a storyline in which several characters are caught up in a bank robbery. The episode sees the exit of PC Pete Ramsey (played by Nick Reding), who is shot in the chest by one of the robbers while protecting a colleague. The fate of the character is left unresolved.
28 July – London Weekend Television's current affairs programme Friday Now! is axed after ten months on air due to poor ratings. From the autumn it is replaced by Six O'Clock Live.
30 July – Sky Channel is rebranded as Sky One, and confines its broadcasting to the United Kingdom and Ireland.
August[]
18–20 August – Michael Aspel presents Murder Weekend, a five-part televised murder mystery for ITV. The series, devised and written by Joy Swift sees celebrities attempting to solve a murder, with viewers also invited to identify the suspect.[35]
25 August – Rupert Murdoch delivers the MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival in which he launches an attack on the narrow elitism within the British television industry.[36]
27 August – Launch date of the first Marcopolo Satellite, which will serve as a platform for British Satellite Broadcasting.
28 August–3 September – BBC1 airs News '39, a week of news-style programmes presented by Sue Lawley, marking the 50th anniversary of the start of World War II. Each edition is presented in news bulletin format reporting on events as if they were occurring in the present.
September[]
1 September –
The first ITV generic look is introduced.
Launch of London Weekend Television's Friday evening news magazine programme Six O'Clock Live.[37]
3 September – BBC1 broadcasts the television film Bomber Harris, a drama based on the life of Arthur Harris, and starring John Thaw in the epinimus role.[38]
10 September – BBC1 debuts Screen One, an anthology of one-off dramas. The first film is One Way Out, directed by Mick Ford, and starring Bob Peck, Denis Lawson, Samantha Bond and Enn Reitel.[39]
13 September – The BBC is accused of censorship after banning an interview with Simon Hayward, a former Captain of the Life Guards who spent several years in a Swedish prison after a drug smuggling conviction, just hours before he is due to appear on the Wogan show. The decision, taken by BBC1 Controller Jonathan Powell followed protests from several MPs. The BBC says the subject is not appropriate for a family programme, but will be discussed on other shows.[40]
14 September –
Peter Sissons takes over as presenter of Question Time as the series returns after its summer break.[41]
For the first time ever, children's stop motion animated series Postman Pat is transmitted on television in Ireland on Network 2 as part of Dempsey's Den. Animated series for preschoolers The Adventures of Spot also begins airing on the same day and month with an Irish language being dubbed called Echtrai Bhrain.
15 September – Ceefax AM is broadcast for the final time.
25 September – BBC2 airs The Interrogation of John, Malcolm McKay's 1987 ScreenPlay, starring Dennis Quilley, Bill Paterson and . The film, about the police questioning of a murder suspect and first shown in 1987, now forms the first of a three-part series titled A Wanted Man, which further develops the story. The second part of the trilogy, The Secret, airs on 27 September, while Shoreland concludes the series on 28 September.[42][43][44]
26 September – Debut of Capital City, a series about investment bankers produced by Euston Films for Thames Television. Thames spend an estimated £500,000 to run newspaper and billboard advertisements to promote the series' launch, believed at the time to be the largest advertising spend for a program in the history of ITV. Full-page advertisements are taken in six national newspapers including the Financial Times, The Times and The Independent, promoting Shane-Longman, the fictitious company of the series, and featuring images of cast members in character.[45]
28 September – Sybil Ruscoe and Jenny Powell are the first female duo to present Top of the Pops.[46][47]
October[]
1 October – The largest entertainment company in Britain HIT Entertainment (which was originally a Jim Henson production company called Henson International Television) was launched. The company specializes in acquiring rights and distributing television series for children such as Thomas & Friends, Bob the Builder, Barney and Friends, Fireman Sam, Pingu, Angelina Ballerina and The Wiggles.
2 October –
Launch of RTL Veronique, a Dutch private commercial television station broadcasting from Luxembourg. The channel aired to Europe via the Astra satellite, and attracted attention in its early days due to its late night line up of erotic programmes. The station changed its name to RTL 4 in 1991.[48]
The BBC programme Breakfast Time is relaunched as Breakfast News.
4 October – Jeremy Paxman makes his first appearance as presenter of BBC2's Newsnight.
11 October –
Debut of BBC1 series Around the World in 80 Days, a seven-part series in which Michael Palin circumnavigates the world, following the route taken by Jules Verne's fictional character Phileas Fogg.[49] The series concludes on 22 November.[50]
Launch of the latest version of the Rover 200. Part of its promotion includes a television commercial in which a man halts his lover's wedding to someone else before the pair drive off together in a Rover 200, accompanied by the track "Up Where We Belong".
20 October – ITV introduces a third weekly episode of Coronation Street which airs on Fridays at 7.30pm.
29 October – Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher appears on ITV's The Walden Interview with Brian Walden. Walden's tough stance with Thatcher during the programme is one of the things that helps to contribute to her downfall the following year.[51][52]
November[]
1 November – ITV airs One Day in the Life of Television, a documentary filmed by 50 camera crews looking behind-the-scenes of British television on 1 November 1988.[53]
2 November – The final-ever episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, "Goodbyeee" is broadcast on BBC1.[54] With one of the most moving endings ever seen on British television, it is broadcast nine days before Remembrance Day.
8 November – The teenage drama series Byker Grove makes its debut on BBC1.[55]
9 November – The last episode of Emmerdale Farm to air under its original title.
14 November – Yorkshire Television soap Emmerdale Farm changes its name to Emmerdale after 17 years.
16 November – Debut of Tony Robinson's well known children's comedy series Maid Marian and Her Merry Men airs on BBC1.[56]
19 November–26 November – Prince Caspian becomes the second Narnia book to be aired as a television serial by the BBC in two parts.[57][58]
20 November – The Ceefax service is relaunched to focus on news, sport and current affairs. The magazine elements are significantly reduced and are mainly restricted to the weekend.[59]
20–24 November – TVS pilots a 30-minute late night edition of its news programme Coast to Coast entitled Coast to Coast Late.[60]
21 November – Television coverage of proceedings in the House of Commons begins.
22 November –
Following the commencement of televised coverage of the House of Commons the previous day, BBC2 launches a breakfast round-up of yesterday's proceedings. This is preceded by the 8.00am bulletin from Breakfast News.[61] Previously, the only BBC2 breakfast output was programmes from the Open University. Open University programmes continue to be shown on BBC2 at breakfast, but in an earlier timeslot.
The Stone Roses are invited to appear on BBC2's The Late Show. During their performance the electricity is cut off by noise limiting circuitry, prompting singer Ian Brown to shout "Amateurs, amateurs" as presenter Tracey MacLeod tries to link into the next item.
25 November – Helen Sharman is selected as the first Britain to travel into space in a live programme aired by ITV. She was one of 13,000 people to apply for the chance to become an astronaut after responding to a radio advertisement, and journeys to the Mir space station in 1991.[62]
29 November – Debut of four-part serial Blackeyes on BBC2 is written and directed by Dennis Potter, adapted from the novel of the same name starring Gina Bellman as an attractive model with Michael Gough in a key role as her uncle, described the series' theme as the objectification of "young and attractive women as consumer goods in a way that brutalizes both sexes". The serial continues on 20 December.
December[]
3 December – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, another Narnia story, is aired as a four-part serial by the BBC.[63] The serial continues on 24 December.[64]
4 December – ITV airs the 3000th episode of Coronation Street.
6 December – The last episode of the 26-year original run of Doctor Who, Part three of Survival, is broadcast on BBC1. The show would not resume regular airing for 16 years, with the only new material during this time being an American telemovie in 1996.
8 December – Alan Bradley (Mark Eden) is fatally run over by a Blackpool tram on Coronation Street, getting the programme's biggest ever audience at almost 27 million viewers, a record that remains to this day.[65][66]
11 December – Debut of The Art of Landscape on Channel 4, a programme that shows slowly changing sceneries, animations and landscapes accompanied by music. Initially a three-hour programme, broadcast throughout the morning when ITV Schools was off-air, from March 1990 the slot is reduced to 30 minutes and aired prior to The Channel Four Daily. After disappearing from the schedule in early 1991 the programme makes a one-off return in August 1997.[67]
BBC1 airs the network television premiere of Jim Henson's 1986 fantasy adventure Labyrinth, featuring David Bowie.
25 December –
Christmas Day highlights on BBC1 include the network television premieres of Crocodile Dundee and Clockwise.[69]
Christmas Day highlights on ITV include the network television premieres of The BFG, and Down and Out in Beverly Hills.[68]
26 December – Boxing Day highlights on ITV include the network television premieres of Return of the Jedi and Ruthless People.[68]
28 December – Paul Gambaccini guest presents a special end-of-decade edition of Top of the Pops with Mike Read.[70]
29 December – Deirdre Barlow (Anne Kirkbride) confronts her husband Ken (William Roache) on Coronation Street before throwing him out, ending their decade-long television marriage.
31 December –
BBC1 says goodbye to the 1980s with Clive James on the 80s, a special two-hour programme reviewing the decade.[71]
BBC2 has its own review of the 1980s, with The Late Show Eighties, featuring highlights of 1980s rock music.[72]
Animated television special Granpa based on a book by veteran English children's author and illustrator John Burningham and produced by John Coates and directed by Dianne Jackson best for working on the British animated Christmas special The Snowman is shown on Channel 4 at 6.30pm.
December
The controversial Broadcasting Bill is introduced into Parliament by the Government. It will pave the way for the deregulation of commercial television.[73]
A hearing at the Appeal Court upholds the broadcasting ban.[74]
^Brown, Maggie (23 July 2010). "Channel Five: a timeline". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
^Caroline Westbrook (27 June 2015). "12 Moments Of Extreme Awkwardness From 80s TV". Metro Newspaper (website). Associated Newspaper Ltd. Retrieved 30 March 2016. It was all going so well for the five-piece band of siblings – who fair dominated the charts in the latter part of the decade – as they appeared on the Saturday morning kids' show to promote new single With Every Heartbeat. Until, that is, the now infamous moment when one Eliot Fletcher called in to ask the band 'why they're so f*****g crap!' Cue shocked expressions all round, and presenter Sarah Greene not knowing quite what to say.
^"Broadcast ban". The Law Gazette. The Law Society of England and Wales. 10 January 1990. Archived from the original on 30 June 2013. Retrieved 30 June 2013.