1 January – Channel 4 airs One in Five, a late-night profile of homosexual lifestyles. This programme and The Eleventh Hour: Veronica 4 Rose, featuring two schoolgirls discussing lesbianism, lead to extreme criticism for the channel and an attempt by Conservative MP John Carlisle to have the channel banned.[1]
3 January – Children's ITV launches as a new branding for the late afternoon programming block on ITV, replacing Watch It!.
6 February – The Australian soap opera Sons and Daughters makes its UK debut when Central becomes the first ITV region to begin showing the programme. All other ITV regions soon follow suit.
8 February – Minipops makes its debut on Channel 4. Though a ratings success, it is axed after only one series due to heavy media criticism.
Roger Hargreaves' Little Miss TV series is first broadcast on BBC1. The Mr Men series is also broadcast on BBC1 for reruns; however, only 13 episodes are broadcast due to the first 13 Little Miss books released.
17 February – Woodland Animations introduces a new stop-motion animated series, Gran, on BBC1, following the success of Postman Pat, the same day as the final episode of the sitcom Tom, Dick and Harriet airs on ITV.
22 February – The US television series Knight Rider makes its debut on ITV with the feature-length pilot episode; the following episode is shown two nights later. However, scheduling of the show varies across ITV regions, with STV not broadcasting the hit series until 5 April.
TV-am cuts its Daybreak programme to 30 minutes, allowing Good Morning Britain to begin half an hour earlier. Original Daybreak presenters Robert Kee and Angela Rippon are both replaced, with Gavin Scot on weekdays and Lynda Barry on weekends.[2][3]
BBC1 begins broadcasting a 30-minute Ceefax slot prior to the start of Breakfast Time. It is called Ceefax AM.[4] It is first mentioned in Radio Times on 21 March.[5]
18 March – Amid falling ratings and mounting pressure from investors, Peter Jay steps aside as TV-am's Chief Executive allowing Jonathan Aitken (a sitting Conservative MP at this time) to take on the role.[6][7][8]Angela Rippon and Anna Ford come out publicly to support Jay, referring to events as "treachery", unaware he has already left.
23 March – The BBC regrets that because of an industrial dispute at the printers next week's editions of Radio Times are in short supply, but copies will be available in the South West, West, North East, parts of the South and North of England, but no S4C listings in the Wales edition.
1 April – Roland Rat makes his first appearance on TV-am.[9] Created by David Claridge and launched by TV-am children's editor Anne Wood to entertain younger viewers during the Easter holidays,[10][11] Roland is generally regarded as TV-am's saviour, being described as "the only rat to join a sinking ship".[12]
2 and 9 April – Two issues of Radio Times fail to be published, due to industrial action.
5 April – Debut of First Tuesday on ITV, the subject matter os mainly social issues and current affairs stories from around the world, with programmes being shown on the first Tuesday of the month.
7 April – ITV airs an evening of programmes under the banner of ITV's Channel Four Showcase. It includes both current and upcoming Channel 4 programmes.[1]
12 April – Timothy Aitken succeeds his cousin Jonathan as chief executive of TV-am, due to the IBA rules regarding MPs operating a television station.[13]
2 May – From this day, Ceefax pages are broadcast during all daytime downtime although BBC2 continues to fully close down for four hours after Play School. Teletext transmissions also begin on Channel 4 at around this time. Shown on weekday afternoons, they consist of two magazines - 4-Tel on View and Oracle on View - and are shown in fifteen minute bursts which are repeated several times each day prior to the start of each day's transmissions.
4 May – Jack Scott retires from the Met Office and presents his final national forecast for BBC Weather after 14 years and joining Thames News as its weatherman for five years.
5 May – Top of the Pops celebrates its 1000th edition. The programme is also broadcast on BBC Radio 1 to allow viewers to listen to the programme in stereo.[16]
23 May – TV-am's new look begins as Daybreak is axed,[18] with Good Morning Britain extending to start at 6:25am. Commander David Philpott is moved to present the weather at the weekends only, with Wincey Willis becoming the new weekday weather presenter.[19]
24 May – Engineering Announcements is shown on Channel 4 and S4C for the first time. The channel transfer sees the bulletin broadcast twice, with a lunchtime repeat beginning on this day. The programme continues to be shown on Tuesdays.
6 July – Screened on BBC2, Maggie Wadey's powerful drama The Waiting War dramatises the conflict of the Falklands War via the experiences of three navy wives in Portsmouth whose husbands were aboard HMS Sheffield.
16 July – Debut of The Mad Death on BBC1. The three-part series examines the effects of an outbreak of rabies in the United Kingdom and is noted for its occasionally chilling content.
22 July – The hit US action-adventure series The A-Team makes its UK debut on ITV, with the feature-length pilot. The full series commences a week later on 29 July. Starring Mr. T as B. A. Baracus, George Peppard as "Hannibal" Smith, Dirk Benedict as Templeton Peck (played by Tim Dunigan in the pilot) and Dwight Schultz as "Howling Mad" Murdock.
5 August – After 14 years on the air, the final edition of Nationwide is broadcast on BBC1.
16 August – ITV broadcasts a police procedure drama called Woodentop as part of its Storyboard series. It would later be turned into a series and renamed The Bill, commencing on 16 October 1984 and lasting until 31 August 2010.
26 August – The Big Match becomes a nationally networked programme, as ITV move away from regional highlights. However, after the second weekend of the season highlights coverage is knocked off the air til February by an industrial dispute involving videotape editors.[23][24]
27–28 August – BBC2 Rocks Around the Clock for the first time by broadcasting non-stop music programmes all day and also all night.[25]
29 August – The game show Blockbusters is launched on ITV, presented by Bob Holness and features sixth-form students as contestants.
3 September BBC1 begins showing the US comedy detective series Remington Steele, starring future 007 Pierce Brosnan. Although the series would run for five seasons in the US, the BBC broadcasts only the first.
BBC1 screen part one of a four-part presentation of Mario Puzo'sThe Godfather. Shown over consecutive nights, this is a specially re-edited version of both Godfather films, incorporating previously unseen material and presented in chronological order from 1901 to 1959. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
6 September – ITV broadcasts Killer. It would later be turned into a series and renamed Taggart.
9 September – London Weekend Television launches a computerised version of its ident with the tagline "Your Weekend ITV".[26]
12 September – The children's animated series Henry's Cat, created by veteran animators Stan Hayward and Bob Godfrey, makes its debut on BBC1.
16 September – BBC2 closes down during the day for the final time. All future daytime downtime is filled by Pages from Ceefax.
19 September – Daytime on Two launches on BBC2. Broadcasting during term time from just after 9am until 3.00pm, the strand brings together the BBC Schools programming previously shown on BBC1 and the BBC's adult educational programmes which are shown at lunchtime during the autumn and spring terms. A special version of its 'Computer Generated 2' is launched to introduce the programmes, as is a special sequence of Ceefax pages called the Daytime on Two information Service which is broadcast during the longer gaps between programmes.[27][28]
September – Central finally launches its East Midlands service. An industrial dispute had prevented them from launching it when it first went on air at the start of 1982.
October – Ceefax In Vision is seen through the morning and into the afternoon on BBC2 at the weekend on a regular basis for the first time during the Open University's off-season. It continues to be shown on weekend mornings until the Open University reopens at the start of February.
2 October – ITV shows a live top flight football match for the first time since 1960. This marks the start of English football being shown on a national basis rather than on a regional basis, resulting in The Big Match becoming a fully national programme.
Debut of the Welsh children's animated series SuperTed on BBC1 which is based on a series of stories written by Welsh writer, producer and animator Mike Young to help his son overcome his fear of the dark. The series becomes so popular it is spawned into merchandising and is broadcast in many countries worldwide.
Gerry Anderson and Christopher Burr's science-fiction puppet series Terrahawks makes its debut on ITV. The show is Anderson's first in over a decade to use puppets for its characters, making use of latex Muppet-style hand puppets to animate the characters in a process Anderson dubs "Supermacromation".
16 October – Satellite Television officially begins broadcasting in the UK. The channel had launched the previous year on cable in various European countries but to view the channel in the UK a satellite dish approximately 10 feet (3 metres) wide is required due to the channel being broadcast via the Orbital Test Satellite.[29]
24 October – Sixty Minutes launches on BBC1, replacing Nationwide but ends less than a year later.
28 October – The BBC had planned to show a live league football match for the first time but this broadcast is cancelled due to industrial action that takes Match Of The Day off the air for several weeks. As a replacement, BBC1 shows Carry On Girls.[31]
3 November – The network television premiere of the 1978 sci-fi film, Battlestar Galactica The Movie on ITV. Unbilled as such, this is the extended television version of the film, rather than the theatrical release version.
6 November – The final edition of Sale of the Century is broadcast on ITV after 12 years on the air.
18 November – The famous "turkey" episode of Family Fortunes is broadcast on ITV in which one contestant (Bob Johnson), while playing the Big Money round, offers the answer to the first three questions, scoring zero for the first two and 21 points for the third. Earlier in the episode, both families struggled to name a famous Irishman.
20 November – ITV begins showing the BAFTA- and Golden Globe-winning three-part miniseries Kennedy, starring Martin Sheen as US President John F. Kennedy.
25 November – BBC1 airs a special feature-length episode of Doctor Who to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its first broadcast with "The Five Doctors", featuring all the previous Doctors alongside Peter Davison's current Time Lord. In the US, Chicago PBS station WTTW showed the programme on 23 November.
29 November – BBC1 airs An Englishman Abroad, based on the true story of a chance meeting of actress Coral Browne (who stars as herself) with Guy Burgess (Alan Bates), a member of the Cambridge spy ring who spied for the Soviet Union while an officer at MI6. The production has been written by Alan Bennett and directed by John Schlesinger.
November – An episode of ITV's animated series Danger Mouse has viewing figures reaching 21.59 million,[33] an all-time high for a British children's programme.
5 December – Following the end of the Daytime on Two term, Ceefax is shown non-stop throughout the day on BBC2 for the first time with transmissions running continuously from around 9am until the start of programmes at 5:35pm.
10 December – ITV airs The Day After, about a fictional war between the NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact countries that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union which were due to start World War III.
16 December
BBC televises a live Football League game for the first time, as they broadcast Manchester United's 4–2 win over Tottenham Hotspur.[34]
Channel 4 airs Skywhales, an animated short film by Derek Hayes and Phil Austin that depicts a fictional society of alien creatures dwelling in the atmosphere of a gas giant, noted for the completeness of its depiction of a fictitious society including social structures and practices.
The children's stop-motion animated film version of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame is shown on ITV, featuring the voices of David Jason as Toad, Richard Pearson as Mole, Ian Carmichael as Rat and Michael Hordern as Badger.
The network television premiere of Oh, God! on BBC2, Carl Reiner's comedy about an unassuming supermarket manager chosen by God to spread his message and starring George Burns and John Denver.[36]
28 December – ITV screen the UK terrestrial premiere of the 1976 horror film Carrie based on the novel by Stephen King and starring Sissy Spacek.
29 December – Channel 4 broadcasts Raymond Briggs' animated television film The Snowman for the second time, with a new introduction by legendary pop superstar David Bowie.
^Johnstone, Bill (1983-06-29). "News International buys 65% of satellite group". The Times. London. p. 13.
^Briggs, Asa; Spicer, Joanna (1986). The franchise affair: creating fortunes and failures in independent television (Illustrated ed.). Century. ISBN9780712612012.
