The Independent Television Commission (ITC) replaces the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA). On the same day the Broadcasting Act 1990 takes effect, thus beginning the deregulation of British television and radio.
New Year's Day highlights on BBC1 include the network television premieres of SpaceCamp and The Lost Boys.[1]
3 January –
Well known sitcom The Brittas Empire starring Chris Barrie and Pippa Haywood begins its first ever premiere on BBC1. The first episode was "Laying the Foundations".
Popular children's television puppet Gordon the Gopher returns to television with a 13 episode television series on BBC1.
7 January – BBC 1 launches the local news programme, East Midlands Today for the East Midlands region. News coverage for the area had previously been provided by a seven-minute opt out from the Birmingham-based Midlands Today.[2]
8 January – The opening episode of season two of Twin Peaks makes its UK television debut on BBC2.[3]
14 January – American television sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is broadcast in the United Kingdom for the first time, making its debut on BBC2 as part of the DEF II programming strand.[4]
17 January-2 March – Regular programming is abandoned to bring live coverage of the Gulf War after Allied Forces launch Operation Desert Storm against Iraq. Over the coming weeks there is extended coverage of events in the Persian Gulf. On BBC1, in addition to extended and additional news bulletins, a special daytime news analysis programme War in the Gulf, presented by David Dimbleby, is broadcast although as the war progresses the length of each programme and frequency of broadcast is scaled back. ITV also broadcasts additional news and discussion programmes about the war, including all-night coverage during the early stages of the conflict. And Channel 4 broadcasts a two-hour special programme at midnight as well as Saturday editions of The Channel 4 Daily. Some coverage, particularly in the earlier part of the war, comes from CNN.
18 January – BBC2 airs a special edition of Arena in which playwright Arthur Miller meets ANC leader Nelson Mandela. In the film Mandela talks for the first time about his life and experiences from a personal standpoint.[5]
19 January – The 17 January edition of Top of the Pops is broadcast, having been postponed from that date due to extended news coverage of the Gulf War.
28 January – Oliver Reed appears on an edition of the late night discussion programme After Dark discussing militarism, masculine stereotypes and violence to women. Reed drinks alcohol during the broadcast, leading him to become drunk, aggressive and incoherent.[6] He refers to another member of the panel, who has a moustache, as 'tache' and uses offensive language. After one hour Reed returns from the toilet and, getting more to drink, rolls on top of the noted feminist author Kate Millett. The show is briefly taken off air following a hoax call to the station claiming that Channel 4 boss Michael Grade is furious.
February[]
12 February – A year after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, BBC2 airs an edition of its Assignment documentary strand in which journalist Donald Woods returns to South Africa to give his personal assessment of that country's future.[7]
15 February – The COWident is seen for the final time on BBC1, after six years in use, and the BBC2 'TWO' ident is also seen for the final time after five years in use.
16 February –
BBC1 and BBC2 receive new idents, both generated from laserdisc and featuring the BBC corporate logo introduced in 1986. BBC1 features a numeral '1' encased in a globe, and BBC2 features eleven idents based around a numeral '2'.
Matthew Kelly succeeds Bruce Forsyth as presenter of ITV's You Bet!.
25 February – BBC1 transmits a new television series for children featuring live action and puppetry called Radio Roo starring actor, former Play School presenter and veteran children's television scriptwriter Wayne Jackman.[8]
26 February – Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein announces the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. As the war comes to its conclusion, television programming begins to return to regular broadcasting.
March[]
March – Following the conclusion of the Gulf War, the ITN Early Morning News is halved in length and now goes on air at 5.30. From this point, the ITN World News is no longer broadcast as part of the bulletin.
1 March – The monopoly on listings magazines ends with the deregulation of TV listings. Before today, the Radio Times published only BBC listings and TVTimes published ITV and from 1982, Channel 4 (including S4C in a pull-out supplement Sbec) listings. However, from today they can carry listings for all channels. Newspapers are also allowed to publish 7-day listings for the first time, having previously only been able to publish the present day's (and two days on Saturdays). A raft of listings magazines start up in the wake of the changes.[9]
9 March – While appearing as a guest on the ITV chat show Aspel & Company, singer Rod Stewart takes off his shoes and tosses them into the audience.
18 March – ITV broadcasts World in Action Special: The Birmingham Six – Their Own Story, a documentary aired four days after the release of the Birmingham Six.[11] It is later nominated for a BAFTA award.[12]
30 March – Frederick Wiseman's six and a half-hour documentary Near Death on life in a Boston intensive care unit is broadcast in full by Channel 4.[13]
April[]
1 April – Sue Lawley interviews Prime Minister John Major for ITV.[14]
7 April – ITV airs the first Prime Suspect serial, starring Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison. On the same day, The Darling Buds of May premieres on ITV.
8 April –
The Power Station, one of the channels to have survived the BSB merger with Sky, closes down at 4am after it was decided that the American MTV would be used as the music channel on BSkyB's Astra satellite service.
Channel 4's three-week Banned season features a series of films and programmes which had previously been banned from British television or cinema.[15] The season includes network television showings of Scum, Monty Python's Life of Brian and Sebastiane. There is also a second broadcast of the controversial 1988 Thames Television documentary Death on the Rock which investigated the shooting of three members of the IRA by the SAS in Gibraltar. The season proves to be controversial and Channel 4 is investigated by the Obscene Publications Squad and referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions.[16]
9 April – British actor Derek Nimmo makes a cameo appearance in Australian soap Neighbours as an eccentric English aristocrat, the episode having debuted in Australia on 26 February 1990.[17]
15 April — BSB's films channel The Movie Channel launches on the Astra 1B satellite.
20 April – The Sports Channel is rebranded as Sky Sports.
29 April – On an edition of Terry Wogan's evening chat show Wogan and amid howls of laughter from the studio audience, public speaker David Icke claims that he is "the son of God", and that Britain will be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes.[18] He later said that he had been misinterpreted, and that he had used the term "the son of God" to mean an "aspect" of the Infinite consciousness.[19] The interview proved devastating for him. The BBC was later criticised for allowing the interview to go ahead, Des Christy in The Guardian calling it a "media crucifixion."[20]
May[]
3 May – BBC1 debuts The Girl from Tomorrow, a 12-part Australian children's series about a girl from the future who finds herself trapped in 1990.[21]
5 May – BBC1 airs the final season of the US drama series Dallas this time being shown on Sunday afternoons just two days after the final episode had been aired in the US.
6 May –
Eurosport briefly closes after the competing Screensport channel had filed a complaint to the European Commission over its corporate structure.[22]
Sky Movies and The Movie Channel begin broadcasting 24 hours a day. Previously they had been on air from early afternoon until the early hours of the next morning.
BBC1 airs the network television premiere of the 1987 gangster thriller The Untouchables, starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Robert De Niro.
13 May – ITV airs an edition of World in Action making allegations of malpractice in the Irish beef processing industry. The programme leads to the establishment of the Beef Tribunal, which at the time was to become Ireland's longest public inquiry.[23][24]
20 May – BBC1 airs its final episode of ThunderCats.
22 May – Eurosport resumes broadcasting after TF1 Group steps in to replace BSkyB as Eurosport's joint owners.
27 May – BBC1 shows the network television premiere of the 1987 parody film Dragnet, starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks.[25]
June[]
10 June – Postman Pat beings airing on ABC TV for the very first time in Australia along with Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends's sister show Tugs.
16 June – BBC1 shows the network television premiere of Cry Freedom, Richard Attenborough's acclaimed film about South African journalist Donald Woods. The film is shown in two parts, with the second part broadcast on 23 June.[26][27]
18 June – BBC2 airs the concluding episode of David Lynch's offbeat drama, Twin Peaks.[28]
20 June –
The murder of Harry Collinson, the planning officer for Derwentside District Council, takes place at Butsfield, County Durham while television news crews are filming for a news item about a planning dispute. At the time of the murder, the Derwentside District Council is involved in the dispute with Albert Dryden over the erection of a building by Dryden on green belt land without planning permission, and as television crews are filming, Dryden aims a handgun—a .455Webley Mk VI revolver—at Collinson and shoots him dead. As the journalists and council staff flee, Dryden opens fire again, wounding television reporter Tony Belmont and Police Constable Stephen Campbell.[29][30][31][32] Dryden is convicted of Collinson's murder following a trial in April. Additionally he is also convicted of the attempted murder of council solicitor Michael Dunstan and the wounding of Campbell and Belmont. He is sentenced to life imprisonment.[33][34]
An edition of BBC2's The Late Show is the final programme to be broadcast from the BBC's Lime Grove Studios.
30 June – Channel 4 airs the first episode of Family Pride, the first British soap to feature a predominantly Asian cast. The series is produced by Central Television and also shown on ITV in the Midlands region.
July[]
13 July – Bernard Wenton, performing as Nat King Cole wins the second series of Stars in Their Eyes.
14 July – Sue Lawrence wins the 1991 series of MasterChef.
14-25 July – Sky Sports broadcasts full live coverage of the 1991 World Student Games, which are held in the UK. This is the only time that Sky has broadcast a multi-sport event and it is the only time the event has been broadcast live.
22 July – BBC1 airs an extended edition of Wogan in which Terry Wogan meets and talks to pop star Madonna.[35]
24 July – The final programme to be recorded at the BBC Television Theatre in Shepherd's Bush is aired, an edition of Wogan recorded on 18 July 1991.
29 July–2 August – Tim Brooke-Taylor and Lisa Aziz present QD – The Master Game, a game aired over five nights by Channel 4, and comprising mental and physical challenges.[13]
30 July – Debut of Australian children's television series for pre-schoolers Johnson and Friends on BBC2.[36]
31 July –
Pavarotti in the Park, a concert celebrating thirty years of Luciano Pavarotti's operatic career, is held in London's Hyde Park. The concert is attended by an audience of 125,000, who gather despite the wet weather, and is broadcast to thirty countries. In the UK the concert is aired by British Sky Broadcasting.[37]
The BBC's Lime Grove Studios close.
August[]
3 August – First showing on network television of , a comedy thriller starring Ed Begley Jr, which airs on BBC1.[38]
14 August – BBC1 airs Mozart in London, the first of a three-part series marking the bicentenary of Mozart's death, and in which his earliest pieces are performed by children of about the same age as he was when he wrote them. It is the first time this has been done on British television.[39]
23 August-1 September – Eurosport broadcasts the World Athletics Championships for the first time. The event is also shown on the BBC.
26 August – BBC2 airs a day of programmes paying tribute to the Lime Grove Studios, which includes a remake of the 1950s soap opera The Grove Family featuring actors from the present day. The day also includes a repeat of "An Unearthly Child", the first-ever episode of Doctor Who from 1963.[40]
29 August – Top of the Pops is simulcast on Radio 1 for the last time, the programme introduced by Jakki Brambles.[41]
31 August – NICAM stereo sound introduced on BBC Television.
September[]
3 September – Debut of 2point4 Children , a sitcom starring Belinda Lang and Gary Olsen on BBC1.[42]
5 September – The actor Arthur Pentelow, who died on 6 August, makes his final on screen appearance as Henry Wilks in Emmerdale. The character dies off screen on 3 October.
11 September – ITV screens Thatcher: The Final Days, a dramatisation of the final days of Margaret Thatcher's premiership. The film stars Sylvia Syms as the former prime minister.
13 September – The documentary The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife is aired on Channel 4. It is set during the final days of the apartheid regime in South Africa, particularly centering on Eugène Terre'Blanche, founder and leader of the far-right, white supremacist political organisation AWB. In 1992, Channel 4 faces its first libel case by Jani Allan, a South African journalist, who objected to her representation in the documentary.[43]
14 September – Channel 4 airs "A Night in Japan", a night of programmes dedicated to all things Japanese, from 8pm to 6am.[13]
17 September – Comedy series Bottom starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson debuts on BBC2.[44]
20 September – BBC2 begins a rerun of Gerry Anderson's classic 1960s television series Thunderbirds.[45] The series proves to be popular, leading to a shortage of Tracy Island toys in stores during the run up to Christmas 1992, something that prompts the children's television series, Blue Peter to show viewers and their parents how to make their own Tracy Island model.[46] An instruction sheet produced by the programme receives more than 100,000 requests.[47]
21 September – More than eight years after launching a weekday breakfast television service, the BBC launches a five-minute long weekend breakfast news bulletin.[48]
22 September –
Sponsorship of ITV programmes are first allowed.
ITV airs the network television premiere of Adrian Lyne's 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction starring Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer.
26 September – Children's TV series Brum debuts on BBC1.[49]
28 September – ITV airs the 1988 film Buster, starring Phil Collins as Great Train robberBuster Edwards.
October[]
October – Cigar and pipe tobacco adverts are banned from UK television.
1 October – The Comedy Channel launches.
2 October – Channel 4 airs the 1000th episode of Brookside.[50]
3 October – 2 November – ITV airs coverage of the 1991 Rugby World Cup. The competition is hosted by England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France.
4 October – British television premiere of US animated series The Legend of Prince Valiant on BBC1.
6 October – BBC1 airs "Conundrum", the final episode of the original run of Dallas. The feature-length episode imagines a world in which the soap's central character, J. R. Ewing had not existed.[51]
9 October – The 1000th episode of Brookside is broadcast on Channel 4.
14 October – BBC World Service TV launches its Asian service.
16 October – The ITVfranchise auction results are announced and take effect starting midnight GMT on 1 January 1993. It will see many notable names going off air after losing their franchises, including Thames Television, TVS, Television South West, TV-am and ORACLE Teletext.
19 October – The final edition of Channel Television's TV listings magazine, CTV Times is published. It had remained on sale long after the other ITV regions had replaced their listings magazine with the TVTimes in the South of England edition along with TVS as it was feared that Channel Television might cease trading without the revenue from its own magazine.
October – Scottish Television rebrands its overnight service as Scottish Night Time, and removed the overnight in-vision continuity.[52]
November[]
14 November – Debut of Dark Season, a six-part BBC1 science fiction series for children which sees actress Kate Winslet make her first onscreen appearance.[53]
15 November – BBC World Service Television begins broadcasting via satellite to Pearl River Delta a subsidiary of STAR TV and owner by News Corporation a conglomerate of Rupert Murdoch member of Hutchison Whampoa.
17 November – Debut of Biteback, a monthly programme that gives viewers a right-to-reply on issues raised by BBC content. It is presented by Julian Pettifer.[54]
December[]
3 December – Channel 4 screens the controversial documentary The Holy Family Album as part of its Without Walls series.
16 December – ITV's Central region airs the final episode of Prisoner: Cell Block H, making it the first ITV region to complete the series.
21 December –
BBC1 shows the network television premiere of the romantic thriller The House on Carroll Street.[55]
BBC2 airs A Perfect Christmas, featuring the best of Christmas programming from the BBC archives. Shows include festive episodes of The Flower Pot Men, Dr. Finlay's Casebook, and the 1986 Christmas Day episodes of EastEnders.[56]
23 December – BBC1 airs the British television premiere of Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise.[57]
24 December – Christmas Eve highlights on BBC1 include the first part of the Only Fools and Horses story "Miami Twice", and the network television premiere of the 1987 thriller No Way Out starring Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, and Sean Young.[58]
25 December –
Postman Pat returns to BBC1 with two 10th anniversary special episodes, one on Christmas morning and the other in the new year.
Christmas Day highlights on BBC1 include the concluding episode of the Only Fools and Horses story "Miami Twice", and the network television premieres of Tim Burton's Batman starring Michael Keaton, and Coming to America starring Eddie Murphy.[59]
In an unusual move for a pre-recorded television series, the Royal Christmas Message is integrated into the first of the day's episodes of Coronation Street on ITV. Character Alf Roberts sat down in front of his television, 'watched' the speech in its entirety, and the episode resumed. Details of plans to include the Queen's Speech in the episode were leaked a few weeks prior to Christmas raising concerns the BBC may attempt to outdo their ITV rivals with their own Christmas Day surprise, but Granada Television decided to go ahead anyway.[60]
26 December – Boxing Day highlights on BBC1 include "All for Love", a feature-length episode of Bergerac and the network television premiere of A Fish Called Wanda.[61]
28 December – BBC2 shoes the network television premiere of Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, Taylor Hackford's acclaimed documentary celebrating Chuck Berry's 60th birthday, with footage of two concerts from 1986.[62]
29 December – British television premiere of White Mischief on BBC2.[63]
31 December –
BBC1's New Year's Eve highlights include the network television premiere of Back to School, and the year's end review programme Clive James on 1991.[64]
The cult 1979 Australian thriller Mad Max gets its British television debut on BBC2.[65]
^McKay, Neil (14 March 2009). "The day a good man died – and we all realised nobody is safe from the threat of violence". The Journal. Newcastle upon Tyne. p. 30.
^Wainwright, Martin (21 June 1991). "Planning chief killed in demolition row: Bitter dispute over ex-steel worker's illegal summerhouse spills over". The Guardian. London. p. 2.