New Year's Day highlights on BBC1 include a TV film adaptation of The Mill on the Floss and Global Sunrise, an 80-minute film presented by Julian Pettifer. It also includes the culmination of a project that saw camera crews at twenty locations around the world on 1 January 1996, recording the rising sun through six continents and all time zones.[1]
ITV introduces a third weekly episode of Emmerdale.
2 January – Test transmissions begin for Channel 5 in some areas. Details of them are made available on Ceefax page 698 for a few weeks.[2]
3 January – The final episode in the second run of the game show Celebrity Squares, presented by Bob Monkhouse, is broadcast on ITV, although it would be revived briefly in 2014.
6 January – Channel 4 closes down for the last time with 24-hour transmissions commencing at 6am the following day. Consequently, after nearly 15 years on the air, 4-Tel On View ends.
7 January – Carlton presents Monarchy: The Nation Decides, a live studio debate discussing the future of the monarchy in the UK, fronted by Trevor McDonald, John Stapleton, Michele Newman and Roger Cook. Viewers are encouraged to vote on the issue in what is the UK's largest television phone poll. However, Carlton is forced to extend the deadline for calls following complaints from people unable to get through. Of the 2.6 million callers who vote, 66% are in favour of retaining a monarch.[3]
8 January – The serialised children's series The Wild House makes its debut on BBC1.[4]
9 January – BT releases an advert featuring Letitia Dean and nine other former EastEnders stars in its Friends and Family promotion despite the BBC threatening them with legal action. The BBC subsequently withdraws its threat to sue after BT pays them an undisclosed five-figure amount.[5]
14 January – Viewing figures released for 1996 indicate that BBC1 and BBC2 as the only terrestrial channels to increase their audience share during the year.[6]
29 January – Debut of the spoof documentary series Brass Eye on Channel 4.
31 January
The Independent Television Commission receives two applications for the licence to operate digital terrestrial television in the UK. They come from British Digital Broadcasting (BDB), a joint venture between Carlton, Granada and British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB)[7] and from Digital Television Network (DTN), a company created by cable operator CableTel, later known as NTL.[8]
Details of Channel 5's schedule are leaked to Broadcast magazine. A spokeswoman for the channel confirms the schedule is largely accurate but that the amount of imported content has been distorted, Channel 5's schedule will be made up of 70% UK-produced content.[9]
Trouble launches, broadcasting programmes aimed at teenagers and young adults. It shares space with Bravo, the broadcasting hours of which change to 8pm to 6am.
The Family Channel relaunches as a game show channel called Challenge TV, although Family Late continues to broadcast as an overnight programming block.
Pre-school programmes block Tiny TCC which aired every day from 6am until 9am is transferred to UK Living and is renamed Tiny Living with its airtime being changed to 7am to 9am on weekdays and 7am to 10am during the weekend.
5 February – The first Wednesday edition of the National Lottery is broadcast on BBC1 with the introduction of a second weekly draw.[10]
9 February – The live final of the 1997 Masters on BBC2 is interrupted by snooker's first ever streaker, 22-year-old secretary Lianne Crofts, who invaded the playing area at the beginning of the third frame. After stewards removed her from the arena, Ronnie O'Sullivan amused the crowd by comically wiping the brow of veteran referee John Street who was refereeing the final match of his career.[11][12][13]
12 February – Channel 5 releases details of its programme scheduling. It will introduce the concept of stripping and stranding to British television, stripping being where a programme is shown at the same time each day and stranding being where similar programmes are shown at the same time each day.[14] A full schedule is published on 18 February.[15]
14 February – The cable-only entertainment channel Carlton Select replaces SelecTV which it acquired when Carlton bought Pearson Television.
19 February – Ceefax ceases to provide information on Channel 5 test transmissions.[16]
24 February – The final episode of the sitcom The Brittas Empire is broadcast on BBC1.
28 February – The BBC sells its transmitters and transmission services to Castle Transmission Services for £244 million to help fund its plans for the digital age.
February – The Paramount Channel relaunches as the Paramount Comedy Channel, a channel dedicated solely to comedy.[17] Previously, the channel had aired drama alongside its comedy output.
3 March – Dave Spikey becomes the sixth host for the final series of the ITV weekday morning game show Chain Letters in the same year as its 10th anniversary.
4 March – The BBC and Flextech agree on a deal to provide BBC-branded channels. BBC Showcase, for entertainment, BBC Horizon, for documentaries, BBC Style, for lifestyle programming, BBC Learning, for schools and BBC Arena, for the arts plus three other channels: BBC Catch-Up, for repeats of popular programmes within days of their original broadcast, a dedicated BBC Sport channel and a TV version of Radio 1.[18]
8 March – ITV takes over the UK television rights to Formula One after 18 years of coverage on the BBC. It shows full coverage of qualifying as well as the race itself, something that the BBC generally did not do.
10 March – The Simpsons is moved from BBC1 to BBC2 and is shown between Monday and Friday at 6pm.
14 March – Among the highlights of that year's Comic Relief telethon is Prime Cracker, a short spoof crossover of ITV stablemate crime dramas Prime Suspect and Cracker, starring Helen Mirren and Robbie Coltrane as their respective characters.[19]
18 March – The final episode of Come Outside is broadcast on BBC2.
21 March – Campaign magazine reports that the BBC and Flextech have ratified their joint venture. They will create two new operational ventures, one that will develop and launch subscription channels in the UK and Ireland and one that will acquire and run UK Gold.[20]
23 March
The science documentary The Language Master makes its debut on BBC2 in which language teacher Michel Thomas taught French to sixth form students for five days at a further education college in London.[21] As a result of the interest generated by this documentary, the publisher Hodder & Stoughton commissioned Thomas to produce commercial versions of his courses.[22]
25 March – ITV's Network First strand presents a ground-breaking documentary about Edinburgh's Royal Blind School, a boarding school for visually impaired students.[23]
ITV airs the comedy pilot Cold Feet. It returns for a full series the following year and runs until 2003. It will be revived in 2016 for four series.
31 March
The hugely popular preschool children's series Teletubbies makes its debut on BBC2.[24]
The game show Blockbusters relaunches on BBC2, presented by Michael Aspel. This is the first version featuring adult contestants and the only version to have purple rather than blue hexagons while retaining the same format. The series continues until 28 August.
Channel 5 becomes the subject of a ratings war with all major channels adopting aggressive scheduling to retain viewers. As well as Lord of the Dance, BBC1 airs two episodes of EastEnders and the thriller Malice, while ITV screens five films, including Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and RoboCop 2. Channel 4 has the films The Goodbye Girl and Breakheart Pass.[27]
The inaugural edition of 5 News features an interview with Labour Party leader Tony Blair.[28]
Among the new shows that made their debut on Channel 5 that day include the game shows 100% and Whittle as well as Hot Property and the children's programming block Milkshake!.
Debut of BBC World's flagship interview series HARDtalk.[29]
At 4:40am, Channel 5 begins a rerun of the Australian soap Prisoner: Cell Block H. This is the series first networked broadcast in the UK as during its earlier run on ITV, scheduling of the show had varied from region to region.
Quincy, a series that was previously shown on ITV, begins airing on BBC1 as part of their daytime schedule.[30]
3 April
BBC1 airs Episode 2710 of Neighbours in which the character Cheryl Stark, played by Caroline Gillmer, is killed when she is hit by a vehicle while trying to cross a road to save her daughter. Scenes involving the accident are censored by the BBC before the episode is broadcast. Five seconds of the episode had also been cut before it aired in Australia in September 1996.[31][32]
Postman Pat returns for a new series of 13 episodes on BBC1, copyrighted the previous year. Two special episodes were aired two and a half years prior to making another 15 episodes in total.[33]
The 1997 Grand National is delayed after a suspected IRA bomb threat.[35] The race is eventually run on 7 April at 5pm.[36] It was the last of 50 Nationals, including the void race of 1993 to be commentated by Peter O'Sullevan.
Debut on Channel 5 of the music game show Night Fever, presented by Suggs.
Debut on BBC1 of the game show Whatever You Want, presented by Gaby Roslin.
Debut on BBC1 of the children's game show 50/50, presented by Sally Gray.
HTV's main evening news programme is renamed The West Tonight, as the change coincides with the opening of a digital broadcast centre at Bristol studios.
Peter Baldwin makes his final appearance as popular character Derek Wilton in Coronation Street, having appeared on and off since 1976, with Derek dying of a heart attack following a road rage incident. The character was axed in a high-profile cull by producer Brian Park.
8 April
BBC journalist Martin Bell announces that he is to stand as a candidate against Neil Hamilton in the Tatton constituency on an anti-corruption platform.[40]
The American/Canadian children's animated series Arthur makes its UK debut on BBC1.
12 April – The final edition of the game show You Bet! is broadcast on ITV after 9 years on the air.[28]
15 April – The Bookmark documentary film The Thomas the Tank Engine Man airs on BBC2 again as a tribute to the author and creator of The Railway Series and Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, the Rev. W. Awdry, who died in his home in Stroud, Gloucestershire after being bedridden and suffering from health problems on 21 March.
1 May – General Election night: for the first time, brothers David and Jonathan Dimbleby anchor rival results programmes on BBC1 and ITV, respectively. The same arrangement will occur for the General Elections in 2001 and 2005.
10 May – Debut on BBC1 of the crime mystery series Jonathan Creek, starring Alan Davies as the titular character.
13 May – Jeremy Paxman speaks to Michael Howard on Newsnight on BBC2 and the interview becomes the programme's most notorious. Howard, who had been Home Secretary until thirteen days earlier, had held a meeting with Derek Lewis, head of the Prison Service, about the possible dismissal of the governor of Parkhurst Prison, John Marriott. Howard, having given evasive answers, was asked by Paxman the same question, "Did you threaten to overrule him [Lewis]?", a total of twelve times in succession, 14 if the first two enquiries worded somewhat differently and some time before the succession of 12 are included. Howard did not give a direct answer, instead repeatedly saying that he "did not overrule him" and ignoring the "threaten" part of the question.[44][45][46] Howard finally answered Paxman's question on his final edition of Newsnight in 2014, saying "No, Jeremy, I didn't. But feel free to ask another eleven times."[47]
21 May – Serena Martin wins the 1997 series of Junior MasterChef on BBC1.
23 May – The long-running Channel 4 game show Countdown celebrates its 2000th edition with a special retrospective programme.[48]
24–26 May – Channel 4 dedicates the Spring Bank Holiday weekend to sitcoms. It features classic episodes, 1970s spin-off films and documentaries about the genre's appeal.
ITV airs a one-off special programme, Kids Behaving Badly; Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan present a live debate spotlighting lawlessness among Britain's youth with video evidence of juvenile crime and live links to troubled areas.
Michael Grade steps down from the role of Chief Executive of Channel 4. He is succeeded by Michael Jackson who takes over the following day.[50]
Channel 5 airs its first international football coverage, a match between England and Poland. The channel experiments with a new presenting format which tries to recreate the atmosphere of a bar with presenters supplying coverage against the backdrop of chatter from an invited audience. The format draws criticism with The Independent's Glenn Moore describing it as a "shambles"[51] However, the coverage gives the channel its largest audience so far with a viewership of five million.[52]
The last football match commentated by Jock Brown for BBC Scotland which was a World Cup qualifier when Scotland played away to Belarus to win 1–0. He leaves the station at the end of the month to take a role as general manager at Celtic FC.
BBC2 airs the documentary Homeground: An Exile's Return, telling the story of Martin McGartland, a former British agent who infiltrated the Provisional Irish Republican Army.[53]
11 June – SMG buys Grampian Television, the ITV contractor for Northern Scotland, for £105 million.[54]
18 June – The final episode of the supernatural soap Springhill is broadcast on Sky1.
19 June – Media agencies reject Granada Group chairman Gerry Robinson's call for the formation of a single ITV company, expressing concerns it would be extremely damaging to advertisers.[55]
25 June – The Independent Television Commission award the sole digital terrestrial television broadcast licence to British Digital Broadcasting.
26 June – Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television plc is acquired by Granada Group plc.[56]
30 June – BBC1 airs a day of coverage of the Hong Kong handover ceremony, marking the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China, an event that happens at midnight local time, which is 5pm in the UK.[57]
1 July – MTV launches on all satellite and cable platforms in the UK and Ireland. It replaces the pan-European service and is part of a strategy which sees localised MTV channels launch across Europe.
3 July – After 17 years, Peter Snow presents Newsnight for the last time, although he will continue to make occasional appearances as a political analyst until 2005.
4 July – The Battersby family, described by the media as a "family from hell", makes its debut in Coronation Street.[58]
5 July – ITV airs the comedy pilot The Grimleys. A full series begins in 1999 and runs until 2001.
11 July – Debut on BBC1 of Celebrity Ready Steady Cook, presented by Fern Britton.
26 July – Midlands Today presenter Alan Towers announces live on air that he is leaving the programme after 25 years in broadcast journalism, describing BBC bosses as "pygmies in grey suits wearing blindfolds".[60]
1 August – The US animated series King of the Hill makes its UK debut on Channel 4.
3 August – Julie Friend wins the 1997 series of MasterChef on BBC1.
7 August – The final episode of This Life is broadcast on BBC2.
8 August – The children's animated series Postman Pat has been snapped up by Premiere 12 for broadcasting in Singapore.
24 August – Sky1 airs a special episode of The Simpsons, in which Troy McClure introduces three spin-off segments including references to many different television series, as well as American comedian and actor Tim Conway, who makes a guest appearance as himself.
26 August
It is reported that former Grandstand presenter Helen Rollason has been diagnosed with cancer and will undergo emergency surgery.[61]
Debut of the fly-on-the-wall documentary series Vets in Practice on BBC1.
31 August
Sky2 and Granada Talk TV both cease broadcasting.
BBC1 stays on the air throughout the night, simulcasting with BBC World News to bring updates of Diana, Princess of Wales's car accident and death. At 6am, a rolling news programme, anchored by Martyn Lewis and from 1pm by Peter Sissons, is shown on both BBC1 and BBC2 until the latter breaks away at 3pm to provide alternative programming. BBC1 continues to provide coverage until closedown when it once again hands over to BBC World News. ITV's unbroken news coverage of the tragedy lasts until well into the evening with the first scheduled programme being Coronation Street. In the days following her death, regular programming is abandoned in order to allow for coverage of events.
1–5 September – Extended news bulletins and additional programmes are broadcast all week to keep viewers up to date on the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
1 September
The National Geographic Channel is launched. It is an evening-only service, on air each day from 7.00 o'clock until 1.00 o'clock.
Channel 5's The Jack Docherty Show returns after the summer break with a relaunch which includes new music and titles. The Friday edition is also dropped at Docherty's suggestion, ending the original five-nights-a-week format.[62]
Queen Elizabeth II addresses the nation with a special broadcast in which she pays tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, only the second time she has done so. The address is broadcast live at 6.00pm, ahead of the early evening news broadcasts.[63][64]
6 September – The live broadcast of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales is watched by 2.5 billion viewers worldwide.[66] The ceremony's footage goes down in the Guinness World Records as the biggest TV audience for a live broadcast.[67] In the UK, 32.10 million viewers watch the broadcast. It is the UK's second most-watched broadcast of all time, behind 1966's World Cup final.[68]
14 September – Gumby: The Movie is broadcast on The Disney Channel, marking the only time Gumby is aired in the UK.
16 September
The BBC announces a radical shake-up of news and current affairs programming that will see television and radio news services produced by the same production teams.
BBC1 airs the documentary series Holiday Memories, in which presenter Esther Rantzen revisits Zimbabwe with her daughter.[71] She became severely ill after filming the episode and was subsequently diagnosed with Giardiasis. She is absent from her BBC2 afternoon talk show Esther for a few months while recovering from the condition, returning to television in early 1998.[72]
20 September – Debut of the BBC promotional film featuring a version of Lou Reed's 1972 song "Perfect Day" performed by various artists including David Bowie, Bono, Brett Anderson and Laurie Anderson. Owing to its popularity, the version is released as a single on 17 November with sales benefiting Children in Need.[73] The song ultimately spends three weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart and raises £2,125,000 for Children in Need. By November 2016, it has sold 1.54 million copies, despite not being available for download.[74][75]
22–25 September – EastEnders airs a series of episodes from Ireland which attract criticism from viewers and the Irish embassy because of their negative and stereotypical portrayal of Irish people. The BBC later issues an apology for any offence the episodes caused.[76][77]
29 September – Two new children's animated series, The Enchanted Lands, based on the book series The Faraway Tree and The Wishing Chair by Enid Blyton, and Noah's Island, made by Telemagination, the company behind The Animals of Farthing Wood make their debuts on BBC1. Both of the series first aired in Ireland, prior to airing in their homeland.
3 October – The 'Virtual Globe' ident is seen for the final time on BBC1 after six years in use.
4 October
BBC One launches its new hot air balloon globe idents to coincide with the introduction of the network's new corporate logo. Also on that day, new idents feature on BBC Two alongside the existing one's first seen in 1991 with the new logo.
BBC2 begin showing the six-part documentary series Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror, written and presented by the acclaimed horror author and director Clive Barker.
14 October – Debut of the football-based drama series Dream Team on Sky1.
16 October – Emmerdale celebrates its 25th anniversary.
27 October – UK Living changes its name to Living TV to distance itself from the forthcoming UKTV network.
30 October – BBC One airs Clive Anderson's infamous interview with the Bee Gees which ends with them storming out of the studio. He repeatedly jokes about their life and career throughout the interview, but they decide to leave after he refers to them as "tossers".[79]
31 October – Queen Elizabeth II opens a £5.5 million interactive visitors centre, the BBC Experience at Broadcasting House. The venture proved to be loss-making for the corporation and was closed in 2001.
The UKTV network is launched. Existing channel UK Gold is joined by UK Horizons, UK Arena and UK Style. The channels' full broadcast hours are only available on cable due to limited capacity on satellite.
The Movie Channel is rebranded under the Sky Movies banner, now called Sky Movies Screen 1 and Sky Movies Screen 2.[80]
4 November – BBC News Online is launched, BBC News having previously created special websites for the 1995 budget as well as this year's 1 May general election and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.[82]
9 November – At 6pm, BBC News 24 is launched, but only on cable. It is the BBC's first new channel since BBC Two in 1964. It also broadcasts on BBC One through the night after closedown.
20 November – BBC One airs live coverage of the service of thanksgiving, marking the golden wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, held at Westminster Abbey.[83]
21 November – For the first time, Children in Need has its own website, which is launched at 4pm ahead of the evening's telethon on BBC One.[84]
November – The BBC introduces regional news and sports pages to Ceefax. This is the first time that any part of the Ceefax service has been regionalised.
Sky Box Office is relaunched with four movies-on-demand channels.
Konnie Huq presents her first episode of the long-running children's series Blue Peter on BBC1. She will go on to be the longest-running female presenter and the third longest overall in the show's history, presenting for ten years before leaving in January 2008.
5 December – The Canadian/German science-fiction series Lexx makes its UK debut on Channel 5.
7 December
The Teletubbies, the characters from the BBC children's series that first went on the air at the end of March, are at number one in the UK Singles Chart with their debut single "Teletubbies say "Eh-oh!"". The track is a contender for the coveted Christmas number one, but that title is taken by the Spice Girls with "Too Much".[86][87][88]
28 December – BBC One airs a two-part adaptation of The Woman in White, based on the novel of the same name. The second part is shown the following day.
Telly Addicts returns to BBC One after a year long break with a celebrity special. The show is heavily revamped with completely new games now played by three pairs of players rather than two teams of four as before. Civilian editions of the new look show would begin to be shown in the following spring.
December – The first series of Robot Wars is filmed from December of that year to January of the following year with the first episode airing on 20 February 1998.
^"Payout ends soap ads row". The Daily Mirror. MGN. 13 January 1997. p. 15.
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^Poole, Steven (26 March 1997). "Last night's television". The Independent. Independent Print Limited. Archived from the original on 24 May 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2014.
^Jury, Louise; McKittrick, David (5 April 1997). "IRA wrecks Grand National". The Independent. Independent Print Limited. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022. Retrieved 24 September 2016.
^Thorpe, Vanessa; Blackhurst, Chris (27 July 1997). "And finally, you're all BBC pygmies". The Independent. Independent Print Limited. Archived from the original on 1 May 2022. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
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