2 January – The Doors, Oliver Stone's critically acclaimed biopic of Jim Morrison, receives its British television debut on BBC2, starring Val Kilmer.[1]
4 January – ITV airs the network television premiere of Chris Walas' 1989 horror sequel film The Fly II, starring Eric Stoltz, Daphne Zuniga, Lee Richardson and John Getz, with a special appearance by Jeff Goldblum.
16 January –
BBC World Service Television is renamed as "BBC World" at 7.00pm GMT as the international free-to-airnews channel. It was officially launched on Thursday, 26 January 1995 at 7.00pm GMT.
Mirror Group plc launches Mirror Television by purchasing Wire TV. It plans to launch Sportswire as a full-time channel and replace Wire TV with a new channel called L!VE TV.
24 January – Martine McCutcheon makes her EastEnders debut as Tiffany Raymond (later Mitchell).
27 January – Debut of the medical drama series Dangerfield on BBC1, starring Nigel Le Vaillant.
29 January – Start of BBC2's weekly roundup of proceedings in the O. J. Simpson murder trial with The Trial of O. J. Simpson.[2]
30 January – The most watched episode of Brookside was broadcast on Channel 4, where the body of Trevor Jordache was found under the patio.
February[]
3 February – An edition of the live morning ITV discussion programme The Time, The Place is abruptly ended ten minutes early. After an item about men's fashion featured a black male model wearing a skirt, another black man in the audience starts complaining that the show is racist, eventually making his way onto the stage.
5 February – ITV airs its first showing of the 1990 holiday film Home Alone, starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard and Catherine O'Hara.
13 February – ITV broadcasts the British television premiere of Deceived.
15 February – As part of the Modern Times series, BBC2 airs Death on Request, a Dutch documentary showing a doctor giving a terminally-ill patient a lethal injection of drugs. The programme is criticised by groups opposed to euthanasia.
16 February – Cable channel Wire TV is sold to Mirror Television, a subsidiary of Mirror Group plc.[3]
19 February – 10th anniversary of the launch of EastEnders. As part of the celebrations, the first 25 episodes from 1985 are repeated each morning at 10am during February and March, starting from episode one on Monday 20 February,[4] and ending on Friday 26 May.[5] Selected episodes from 1985 and 1986 are also repeated on BBC1 on Friday evenings at 8:30pm for a short while. Billed as The Unforgettable EastEnders the episodes aired are as follows:
17 February: The identity of the father of Michelle Fowler's baby is revealed in October 1985.[6]
24 February: Michelle and Lofty's wedding day in September 1986.[7]
3 March: Den Watts hands Angie divorce papers on Christmas Day 1986.[8]
10 March: Two-hander episode featuring Dot and Ethel from July 1987.[9]
25 February – BBC2 airs a documentary about The Rev. W. Awdry called The Thomas the Tank Engine Man as part of their Bookmark series. The documentary is narrated by Hilary Fortnam, Awdry's daughter and includes a look at Thomas merchandise, the success of Thomas, images from the original Railway Series books with stock narration by John Gielgud, interviews with several people such as The Reverend himself, fans of Thomas, Awdry's son Christopher, children's author and poet Michael Rosen, various people who worked on the books and toys, Brian Sibley who also wrote the Reverend's autobiography, the people behind the television broadcasts and rights of Thomas in Japan and the producers of the television series Britt Allcroft and David Mitton, plus a special behind the scenes peek of the 100th episode "Thomas and the Special Letter" and the Reverend criticizing the third series episode "Henry's Forest".
27–28 February – Sky One airs Episode 404 of E Street, the final episode of the Australian soap, splitting the hour-long episode into two half-hour episodes.
March[]
4 March – Channel 4 airs "Pot Night", eight hours of programming dedicated to cannabis.[10]
11 March – Channel 4 begins airing a rerun of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais' comedy drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, originally shown on ITV since its began on 11 November 1983, and also debuted "Red Light Zone", a season of "late-night programming focusing on sex, the sex industries and sexual tourism". The strand runs weekly for eight weeks.[11]
17 March – The Night of Comic Relief, the 1995 Comic Relief telethon, airs on BBC1.[12]
20 March — Film 95 reports about the illegally-rented pirate videos repeating claims that piracy was helped by the Federation Against Copyright Theft was directly funding organized crime, counterfeiting currency, drugs trade and child pornography.
24 March –
Following the recent death of James Herriot, BBC1 airs A Tribute to James Herriot in which Robert Hardy introduces a 1980 episode of the television series All Creatures Great and Small which was based on Herriot's memoirs as a Yorkshire vet.[13]
Channel 4 broadcasts the final edition of its music show, The Word after five years on air.
29 March – Trinity College, Cambridge wins the 1994–95 series of University Challenge, beating New College, Oxford 390–180.[14]
April[]
2 April – BBC1 airs the final episode of Brum for now, but the show will return for brand new revamped series in 2001 and will continue being repeated on the BBC. It is also Toyah Willcox's final episode as narrator for the series.
3 April – A Scottish Court imposes a ban on BBC Scotland airing an edition of Panorama that includes an interview with Prime Minister John Major amid concerns it could affect local elections to be held on 6 April. However, the edition is broadcast in England and Wales.
10 April – Conservative MP Jonathan Aitken calls a televised press conference three hours before the transmission of a World in Action film, Jonathan of Arabia, demanding that allegations about his dealings with leading Saudis be withdrawn.[15] He promises to wield "the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play ... to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism."[16] After launching a subsequent libel case against the makers of the film Aitken is sentenced to 18 months in prison for perjuring himself.[17]
17 April – ITV airs a TV adaptation of the Joanna Trollope novel A Village Affair.[18]
21 April – Channel 4 airs the first episode of the Irish comedy series Father Ted.
22 April – Fully Booked replaces Parallel 9 as BBC1's Saturday morning summer magazine programme.
28 April – US sitcom Friends and US medical drama ER make their British television debuts on Channel 4.
29 April –
The final edition of ITV's Saturday morning show What's Up Doc? is broadcast. It is replaced the following Saturday by a new programme Scratchy & Co..
Matthew Kelly presents You Bet! for the final time.
May[]
1 May – ITV airs what is billed as a one-off episode of Boon. This episode, Thieves Like Us was originally due for transmission at the end of series 7 in 1992/93. No reason for this delay has ever been given as the record wait was two or three years long.
2 May –
Closing date for applications to run Channel 5. Four bids are received, from New Century TV Ltd (British Sky Broadcasting, Goldman Sachs, Granada Group, Hoare Govett, Kinnevik, Polygram, Really Useful Group and TCI International) who bid £2,000,000; Virgin TV Ltd with a bid of £22,002,000; UKTV (CanWest Global Communications Corp., Scandinavian Broadcast System SA, SelectTV Plc, The Ten Group Ltd) who bid £36,261,158 and Channel 5 Broadcasting Ltd (MAI (now United News and Media Plc), CLT/UFA, Pearson Plc, Warburg Pincus & Co) with a bid of £22,002,000.[19]
Debut of News '45, a news bulletin-style programme presented by Sue Lawley to mark the 50th anniversary of VE Day.
8 May –
The 50th anniversary of VE Day is widely marked in television programmes.
BBC2 shows the network television premiere of Boyz n the Hood.[20]
9 May – The US/Canadian police comedy drama Due South makes its British television debut on BBC1.[21]
13 May – Norway's Secret Garden win the 1995 Eurovision Song Contest with "Nocturne".
25 May–24 June – ITV provides coverage of the 1995 Rugby World Cup from South Africa as the first Rugby World Cup to be held entirely in one country, since it was banned during the apartheid regime.
31 May –
Debut of the new BBC twice-weekly soap Castles, centring on the lives of the middle-class Castle family. The series attracts a relatively poor peak time audience of 3.2 million, leading the corporation's head of Drama, Charles Denton to brand it a failure.[23] It is cancelled after 26 episodes. The last episode is aired on 20 August.[24]
Cable channel Wire TV is closed by its new owner as part of a plan to split Wire TV into two separate channels. L!VE TV which would replace Wire, with Wire's evening Sportswire programming block launching as a full-time service.
June[]
TCI (owners of Telewest) and NYNEX do a deal with BSkyB which includes a clause that the cable operators do not launch any rival channels to those already operated by Sky. This marks the end of Cable Program Partners One (CPP1)', which had been set up to try to provide alternative content to the satellite-dominated multi-channel environment of the time, and causes the collapse of sports channel Sportswire, days before its launch.
12 June – Mirror Group Newspapers launches the cable channel L!VE TV.[25] It launches as a channel which broadcasts live programming based around three blocks of live broadcasting each day from its base on the 24th floor of London's Canary Wharf building. The output is orientated towards a rolling mix of celebrities, interviews, reviews, lifestyle features and reports from events and happenings across the UK.
20 June – ITV airs the network television premiere of Tony Scott's 1991 buddy action comedy film The Last Boy Scout, starring Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans.
22 June – Prime Minister John Major's intention to resign and stand in a Conservative Party leadership election is announced on screen as England are playing France in the Rugby World Cup third place play off.
29 June – Debut of Gaytime TV on BBC 2, the BBC's first gay magazine programme.[26]
July[]
3 July – The successful children's art and crafts series Art Attack receives its very first screening in Australia on ABC and will mostly be shown during the school holidays.
8 July –
BBC1 repeats the documentary Girl Friday, in which Joanna Lumley spends nine days on a desert island with just a basic survival kit and a film crew.[27]
Lee Griffiths wins the sixth series of Stars in Their Eyes, performing as Bobby Darin.
9 July – Marion Macfarlane wins the 1995 series of MasterChef.
26 July – BBC Enterprises, the BBC's commercial arm, is restructured as BBC Worldwide Ltd.
August[]
2 August – Channel 4 begins a season of documentaries and features for gay and lesbian viewers.[26]
14 August – BBC1 airs the very first episode of its sitcom Oh, Doctor Beeching!.
15 August – Sue Lawley presents News '45: VJ Day to mark the 50th anniversary of VJ Day and the conclusion of World War II.
27 August – Speaking at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Michael Mansfield, QC, one of Britain's leading barristers calls for television cameras to be admitted into English courts to help demystify the legal process and restore public confidence in it.[28]
2 September – Channel 4 debuts Dyke TV, the first television series aimed at lesbians.[26]
4 September – Carlton Television introduces its new look.
5 September –
US animated fantasy sitcom featuring the first ever animated superstar Felix the Cat titled The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat debuts on ITV before airing in its homeland which won't happen until 16 September of that year.
Jill Dando succeeds Sue Cook as co-presenter of Crimewatch alongside Nick Ross.[29]
10 September – BBC Wales relaunches its rugby union coverage under the name of Scrum V. It replaces Rugby Special Wales.
11 September – Debut of children's stop motion animated series Oakie Doke on BBC1.[30]
12 September – An animated series for children Oscar's Orchestra featuring the voice of Dudley Moore starts screening on BBC1.[31] The series was designed to inspire children with the delights of classical music and incorporates famous orchestrated works from famous legendary composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach.
15 September – The popular children's stop motion animated series Noddy's Toyland Adventures airs on Network 2. This was the first time it has been shown on television in Ireland, although viewers with access to the BBC and various British television channels were able to see earlier transmissions including the series' original 29 September 1992 television premiere.
24 September – Pride and Prejudice, the BBC's massively popular adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, debuts on BBC1.[32] The six-part serial finishes on 29 October.[33]
28 September – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine makes its debut on BBC2, with the feature-length episode "Emissary".[34]
September – STV acquires a 20% stake in HTV worth £36 million, as part of a deal with Flextech.[35]
September – Janet Street-Porter resigns from L!VE TV and is replaced by Kelvin MacKenzie who axes the rolling content and replaces it with programmes that quickly earns it a reputation as tabloid television.
October[]
1 October –
Six years after it was originally planned, a British version of the Disney Channel launches in the UK.
The Sci-Fi Channel launches. However its full schedule (8am to 2am) is only available to cable viewers with satellite subscribers only able to see the channel for a few hours each day as it shares transponder space with a number of other channels.
The UK's first Christian television Christian Channel Europe launches. It broadcasts for three hours each day, between 4am and 7am.
7–28 October – Cable channel L!VE TV broadcasts many of the matches from the 1995 Rugby League World Cup. It shows many of them exclusively because apart from the opening game, the BBC does not show any live matches until the semi-final stage.
8 October – BBC2 airs the final edition of The Trial of O. J. Simpson as coverage of the trial draws to a conclusion.[36]
9 October – Launch of The Learning Zone, an education service shown overnight on BBC2.
12 October – ITV airs "Bait", an episode of The Bill that concludes a three-part story, and sees the exit of the character Jo Morgan (played by Mary Jo Randle), who is shot while trying to warn June Ackland (Trudie Goodwin) of an impending attack on her car.
16 October –
After 25 years as Coronation Street landlady Bet Lynch, Julie Goodyear makes her final regular appearance in the soap. She briefly returned to the show in 2002 and 2003, and starred in a spin-off series, Coronation Street: After Hours in 1999. At the time of her departure, Goodyear had recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the inaugural National Television Awards.
ITV airs a five-part documentary every weekday celebrating 40 years of their children's input since the launch of their network in 1955, Simply the Best: CITV. Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends receives its only mention on Wednesday after three seasons.
20 October – Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited is awarded the licence to launch Channel 5.[37][38] It is a consortium of four investors — Pearson, United News and Media, CLT-Ufa and Warburg Pincus.[39]
21 October –
Comedian Jim Davidson succeeds Bruce Forsyth as presenter of The Generation Game.[40]
Short-lived American science-fiction series VR.5 makes its debut on Sky One.
22 October – Jenna Tinson wins the 1995 series of Junior MasterChef.
23 October – Channel 4 broadcasts the first ever episode of Hollyoaks.
November[]
1 November – Four more satellite and cable channels launch in the United Kingdom: European Business News, Playboy TV, The Paramount Channel and Sky Sports Gold.
11 November –
The History Channel launches in the UK.
ITV airs the British television premiere of The Bodyguard, starring Kevin Costner and singer Whitney Houston.
12 November – BBC2 airs Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, David Lynch's 1992 prequel to the acclaimed television series Twin Peaks. The film stars Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise and Kyle MacLachlan.[41]
20 November
Zee TV (Hindi television channel) launches in the UK.
During an hour-long interview with Martin Bashir for the BBC's Panorama programme, The Princess of Wales speaks about her marriage to The Prince of Wales, his affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles and admits to her intimate relationship with James Hewitt.[42] An estimated 22.78 million watch the broadcast,[43] the all-time record for a British current affairs programme.
22 November – After Virgin TV challenges the ITC's decision to award the licence to run the UK's fifth television channel to Channel 5 Broadcasting Ltd, the High Court grants leave for a judicial review into the decision.[19]
December[]
2–3 December – Channel 4 airs "Soap Weekend", a weekend of programming dedicated to soap operas, with documentaries and classic episodes of series including EastEnders, Neighbours and Brookside.[10]
7 December – PText, the Paramount Comedy Channel's teletext service, begins showing old episodes of the ORACLE soap, Park Avenue. After showing the first four episodes, from 11 December they switch to episode 376, doing so in order that the dates correspond (i.e., 11 December in the soap is also 11 December for the viewers). In all PText showed 700 episodes of Park Avenue.
24 December — A Close Shave, the third short film starring Wallace and Gromit, premieres on BBC2.
25 December – Christmas Day highlights include the British television premiere of Indecent Proposal on BBC1.[44]
31 December – New Year's Eve highlights on BBC1 include Songs of Praise on Ice from the Blackpool Pleasure Beach Ice Arena, and Baz Luhrmann's 1992 comedy romance Strictly Ballroom.[45]
December – Channel 4 screens the documentary Sex with Paula in which Paula Yates talks to celebrities about their love lives. Originally made in 1986, the programme was deemed to be unsuitable for audiences at the time due to its perceived message of promiscuity at the height of the AIDS epidemic.[10]