BBC2 airs a five-hour Whistle Test special to welcome in 1988 which aired from 9:35pm on New Year's Eve to 2:55am on New Year's Day. The special takes a look back through the archives in what is the programme's final outing.[2] It will be three decades later in 2018 before a new edition of the programme is broadcast.[3]
Michael Grade takes on the role of Chief Executive of Channel 4.[4]
From today, each programme on ITV is no longer preceded by the identifier of the regional company that had produced the show.
2 January – No. 73 is broadcast for the final time on ITV. It has been known as 7T3 since January.
4 January – BBC1 moves the repeat episode of Neighbours to a 5:35pm evening slot,[5] the decision to do this having been made by controller Michael Grade on the advice of his daughter.
5 January – Actor Rowan Atkinson launches the new Comic Relief charity appeal.
6 January – All ITV regions network Emmerdale Farm in the Wednesday and Thursday 6:30pm slot.
8 January –
BBC1 premiere of the hit 1984 musical drama film Footloose, starring Kevin Bacon.
Launch of LWT News, a news service from London Weekend Television providing at least eight bulletins each weekend for the ITV London region and created as a response to IBA concerns about the lack of a proper news service in London at weekends.
9 January – The network television premiere of the 1984 film Supergirl on ITV, starring Helen Slater.
Debut of the game show Fifteen to One on Channel 4, presented by William G. Stewart. The show's first winner is Gareth McMullan, a teacher from Northern Ireland.[6]
14 January – Talks between TV-am's management and the ACTT union begin, aiming to resolve the ongoing strike.[7]
25 January – TVS launches Late Night Late and gradually extends its broadcast hours over the next few months.[8]
25–29 January – TV-am airs a week of live broadcasts from Sydney to celebrate Australia's bicentenary and featuring Anne Diamond and Mike Morris.[7]
30 January – The network television premiere of the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy on ITV, starring Roger Moore.[9]
TV-am celebrates its fifth birthday, with Anne Diamond being joined by Richard Keys, Gyles Brandreth, Su Pollard and Jimmy Greaves. It is the first time has been able to get its daily output down to an hour of pre-recorded material since the beginning of the strike. However, the station continues to air imports of old US shows for several months.[7]
The deadline on which the ACTT must accept TV-am's "Ten Point Plan" aimed at resolving the strike. However, the plan is rejected by a ballot and the union refuses to resume negotiations.[7]
5 February – The inaugural Red Nose Day sees Comic Relief air its first A Night of Comic Relief fundraiser on BBC1.[10]
9 February – MPs vote in favour of allowing television cameras into the House of Commons.[11]
10 February – Debut of Moondial, a six-part series adapted from the novel by Helen Cresswell on BBC1.[12][13] The series is repeated by BBC1 in 1990.[14]
13 February
Scottish and Granada[15] begin 24-hour broadcasting.
Central, which has been keeping its transmitters on the air since last April by filling its closedown period with its Jobfinder service, launches a full overnight schedule. Jobfinder also launches on both Granada and Scottish and all three companies broadcast Jobfinder for one hour beginning at 4am.
13–28 February – The 1988 Winter Olympics are held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and broadcast to television audiences around the world. In the UK, the BBC provides around five hours of live and recorded coverage each day.
15 February
Channel 4 starts broadcasting into the early hours, closing down between 2am and 3am. Previously, Channel 4 has closed down at just after midnight.
An early morning 60-minute news programme, ITN Early Morning News, is launched but is available in areas which have 24-hour broadcasting only. The first 30 minutes of the programme includes a full broadcast of ITN's international news bulletin ITN World News. The new bulletin is supplemented by the launch of additional, brief news summaries which are broadcast at various points through the night.
16 February – TV-am Managing Director Bruce Gyngell sacks the station's locked out staff and calls a meeting of its remaining employees the following morning to announce that the ACTT will never again organise itself at TV-am's studios. His decision fails to resolve the crisis, however, as picketing continues and the quality of its output remains unchanged.[7]
February – British Medical Television is officially launched, ahead of it commencing broadcasting later in the year as a subscription service airing during BBC1's overnight closedown period.[18]
3 March – BBC1 airs Around the World with Willy Fog with former CBBC and Broom Cupboard presenter Andy Crane singing the theme tune. A special event called "National Willy Fog Day" which Crane invented will also appear on 28 April to air the final episode and celebrate the final broadcast.
7 March – ITV's lunchtime news programme returns to the 1pm timeslot.
11 March – The final episode of the long-running children's series Play School is broadcast on BBC1, although repeats will continue until October.
18 March – The final US edition of Top of the Pops is broadcast.
19 March – Corporals killings: Two British soldiers in civilian dress are killed after stumbling into an IRA funeral procession in Belfast. Footage of the incident is captured by journalists and widely broadcast.[19]
21 March – Anglia's silver statue of a knight on horseback ident is consigned to history, having been used as Anglia's identity since the station went on the air 29 years earlier. It is replaced by a new identity, a quasi-heraldic stylised 'A' made of triangles, designed by Robinson Lambie-Nairn at a cost of £500,000.[20]About Anglia is also given a new look to coincide with the ident change.
22 March – Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher tells the House of Commons that journalists have a "bounden duty" to assist the police investigation into the Corporals killings by handing over their footage. Many have refused to do so fearing it could place them in danger.[21]
23 March – Film of the Corporals killings is seized from the BBC and ITN under the Prevention of Terrorism and Emergency Provisions Acts.[21]
25 March
BBC2 shows Two of Us, a gay-themed television film.[22] It has been produced as part of the BBC Schools Scene programme and is intended for young adults. It confronts the Thatcherite government's attempt to prohibit gay sex education in schools via the controversial and subsequently repealed section 28 legislation.[23] Given this backdrop, the BBC opts not to show it during the day and it is screened late at night on this day, even though originally created for a school audience. In 1990, the play is finally shown during the day, when it is broadcast in a lunchtime slot.[24][25]
Former MP John Stonehouse collapses on set during an edition of Central Weekend in Birmingham during the filming of a programme about missing people. He is given emergency medical treatment at the studio and taken to hospital, where he is diagnosed as having suffered from a minor heart attack.[26]
6 April – ITV's chart show The Roxy airs for the last time; that same day, Children's ITV begins re-airing Thomas & Friends Season 2.
7 April – Ireland has purchased the Welsh children's stop-motion animated series Fireman Sam for television broadcasting there. The show will debut on RTÉ1 with the first series only, and will return to air a number of times on RTÉ2, known at this time as Network 2, although viewers in Ireland with access to British television are able to see earlier transmissions including all four series and the Christmas special with their original airdates.
10 April – Debut of East of the Moon on Channel 4, a new series for children based on fairy tales written by former Monty Python member Terry Jones brought to life with live-action and animation and songs written and performed by Neil Innes.
15 April – The Pogues perform their controversial hit Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six, a song expressing support for those convicted over the Guildford and Birmingham pub bombings on the Ben Elton-presented Channel 4 show Friday Night Live. The song is cut short, however, by a commercial break.
19 April – Liz Forgan becomes Channel 4's first official Director of Programmes.[4]
23 April-10 September – Two new Saturday morning magazine series are shown this Summer: On the Waterfront is aired for the first part of the season[28] with UP2U taking over in mid-July.[29] The same two shows are also shown the following Summer.
ITV broadcasts Death on the Rock, a hugely controversial episode of Thames's This Week current affairs strand, investigating Operation Flavius which resulted in the SAS killing three members of the IRA in Gibraltar on 6 March.
23 May – Three gay rights activists invade the BBC studios during this day's Six O'Clock News bulletin on BBC1 to protest about the introduction of Section 28, a law preventing schools from teaching their students about homosexuality. Protesters are heard chanting as Sue Lawley continues to read the news, prompting her to comment "we have been rather invaded by some people who we hope to be removing very shortly".[32]
27 May – Almost all of the production areas at the BBC Television Centre are shut down after the discovery of asbestos fibres in the soundproof ceiling of TC5 during routine maintenance. It is also found in the coating of trusses supporting the studio grids. As a consequence, production teams are required to move from Television Centre to other BBC studios, such as Bristol and Birmingham. Work to remove the asbestos takes several months.[33]
29–30 May – ITV stages its first Telethon, a 27-hour nationwide fundraising effort involving participation and input from all of the regional broadcasters around the country. Its aim is to raise money for disability charities across the UK.
30 May
Yorkshire Television resumes 24-hour broadcasting.
TV-am does not go on the air, with its airtime instead taken up by coverage of ITV's Telethon '88. The ACTT had asked its members to boycott the programme on this day and fearful of sparking a nationwide dispute, TV-am's acting Managing Director, Adrian Moore, allows ITV to use the early morning airtime.[7]
31 May
Debut of People, a thirteen-part series on BBC1 featuring human interest stories, which is presented by Derek Jameson. He is joined by Jeni Barnett, Lucy Pilkington and Chris Serle.[34]
Debut of Charles Wood's screenplay Tumbledown on BBC1, about the experiences of Scots Guard Robert Lawrence who was left paralysed after being shot in the head by a sniper at the Battle of Mount Tumbledown during the Falklands War.[35] The film is shown again on 9 October.[36]
1 June – Live horse racing is shown for the final time on ITV when it simulcasts Channel 4's coverage of the 1988 Epsom Derby. The sport will to return to ITV in 2017.
5 June – Channel 4 airs the Thames documentary Waldheim: A Commission of Inquiry, a programme investigating the history of the alleged Nazi conspirator Kurt Waldheim.[4]
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch announces to the British Academy of Film and Television Arts his intention to launch a four-channel service on the soon to be launched Astra satellite.[38]
11 June – The Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert is staged at Wembley Stadium, London[39] and is broadcast to 67 countries worldwide to an audience of 600 million. In the UK, it is broadcast on BBC2.[40]
13 June – Presenter Frank Bough leaves the BBC after a News of the World exposé of his private life.[41]
20 June – TVS and Channel Television commence 24-hour broadcasting.
21 June – BBC1 airs Crystal Clear, a film based on the award-winning play of the same name that deals with the subject of sight loss.[42]
1 July – The Australian series The Flying Doctors makes its UK debut on BBC1.[43] Initially aired on Fridays at 8:10pm, from 20 August, it is moved to a Saturday early evening slot.[44]
4 July – Miami Vice returns to BBC1 after 10 months; however, owing to controversies over violence and drug use, several of the episodes are not shown on the BBC, including one featuring a sympathetic IRA member played by Liam Neeson, and another which sees the death of a key character, "Larry" Zito, played by John Diehl.
7 July – The Times reports that TVS have bought US production company MTM Enterprises for £190m.[45]
15 July – London Weekend Television airs the final edition of its Friday evening programme The Six O'Clock Show. It is replaced by Friday Now!, a smaller scale current affairs programme from October.
17 July – After 1,576 episodes, Farming is broadcast on BBC1 for the final time. It is replaced the following week by Countryfile whose brief is to look at issues reflecting all aspects of the countryside rather than just focussing on farming.[46]
19 July
The Bill broadcasts the first episode of its fourth series and switches to a year-round serial format.
26 July – Anna Wing makes her final appearance as EastEnders matriarch Lou Beale, dispensing words of wisdom and advice to her family before retiring to her bedroom to slip away. Her final words in the soap are: "That's you lot sorted. I can go now." The character has died by the following episode and at her funeral, her on-screen son Pete (Peter Dean) proposes a toast to that "bloody old bag". Wing herself will die, at the age of 98, in 2013.[47]
July – Stephen Barden is appointed as TV-am's new Managing Editor. With the station facing criticism from the IBA over the quality of its output, he acts quickly to improve matters. Repeats of imported US programmes finally come to an end, while new programming is launches and programmes such as Frost on Sunday, off air since the strike began, are restored.[7]
3 August – Brookside is moved from Tuesdays to Wednesdays which means the soap can now be seen on Mondays and Wednesdays.
4 August – The band All About Eve perform their single "Martha's Harbour" on Top of the Pops. The group, ready to do a mimed (as is BBC policy at this time) performance of their hit, are not played the backing track through their monitors and they sit motionless while the television and studio audience hear the song.[48] Due to this error on the part of the BBC, the band are invited back the following week and insist on playing the song live.
5 August
The eight-part New Zealand thriller Steel Riders makes its debut on BBC1.[49]
10 August – Debut of Crimewatch File, a BBC1 documentary series in which detectives tell the inside stories of some of the UK's major criminal investigations during which they appeal to viewers for help.[50]
19 August – Following concerns about the quality of TV-am's programming, an emergency meeting of the IBA considers whether to review the station's franchise in early 1989. However, it is ultimately decided not to proceed with the review since the next franchise round is approaching and the IBA feels the success of both organisations is mutually exclusive.[7]
22 August – HTV begins 24-hour broadcasting.
August – Weekly highlights of First Division matches in the 1988-89 season are shown on satellite and cable via Super Channel,[51][52][53] doing so by relaying the Chrysalis Television produced English Soccer programme
1 September – To celebrate BBC Radio 1's FM "switch on day", BBC1's Top of the Pops is simulcast with that station for the first time, allowing listeners to hear the programme in stereo. This edition is presented by Steve Wright and Mark Goodier.[54]Top of the Pops is then simulcast weekly with Radio 1 until August 1991.[55]
2 September – TSW, Grampian and Border begin 24-hour broadcasting.
3 September – Motormouth launches as ITV's new Saturday morning children's programme.[56][57]
5 September
BBC's main evening news programme Wales Today moves to the 6:30pm timeslot.
BBC1 airs Bros Special, a 30-minute programme showing exclusive footage of pop band Bros in concert and on their UK tour.[58] The programme is repeated on 29 December.[59]
The Welsh language sports programme Sgorio debuts on S4C. It is set up to provide highlights of European football although other sports are included within it.
6 September – The children's animated series Count Duckula makes its debut on Children's ITV. Devised as a sequel to Danger Mouse it again features the voice of David Jason.
7 September
Repeat showing of Paul Hamann's death row documentary Fourteen Days in May, telling the story of the final days of Edward Earl Johnson as he awaits execution on Mississippi's death row on BBC1.[60] The film is followed on 14 September by The Journey, in which lawyer Clive Stafford Smith returns to Mississippi in an attempt to posthumously clear Johnson of the crimes to which he always professed his innocence.[61]
8 September – Channel 4 drops plans to invite Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams to appear on an edition of its late-night discussion programme After Dark, following objections from other contributors.[62]
9 September – Casualty returns to BBC1 for a third series,[63] moving from its previous Saturday evening slot to Friday evenings.
10 September
Presenters Mike Smith and Sarah Greene are seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Gloucestershire.[64]
Debut of Stoppit and Tidyup on BBC1,[65] a 13-part animated series narrated by Terry Wogan and partly funded by the Tidy Britain Group charity.
Debut of 12-part documentary series Reaching for the Skies on BBC2, narrated by Anthony Quayle. The programme included many aerial sequences specifically filmed for the series together with archive material, as well as combined with interviews of those involving the aerial footage was usually accompanied by music sequences. The series ends on 28 November.
13 September – The children's animated series PC Pinkerton makes its debut on BBC1.[66] The show is produced by Trevor Bond who has also worked on the original Mr. Men series and Bananaman with veteran animation producer Terry Ward and features the voice of Ian Lavender, best known for playing the role of Private Pike in the hit sitcom Dad's Army.
17 September–2 October – The 1988 Summer Olympics are held in Seoul, South Korea and broadcast to television audiences around the world. The BBC provides live coverage, as does ITV, in conjunction with Channel 4. This is to be the final time that ITV will broadcast the Olympic Games and Channel 4's only broadcast of the Olympics. ITV also shows daytime coverage while Channel 4 airs the overnight and breakfast coverage.
20 September – The actor Roy Kinnear dies at the age of 54, having the previous day fallen from a horse during the making of The Return of the Musketeers in Toledo, Spain. He sustained a broken pelvis and internal bleeding and was taken to hospital in Madrid where he dies from a heart attack, brought on by his injuries.[70]
23 September – Channel 4 launches the improvisational comedy game show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, presented by Clive Anderson and features numerous comedians and celebrities.
2 October – Debut of the long-running comedy sketch show Hale and Pace on ITV.
3 October
The magazine programme This Morning makes its debut on ITV. It is presented by married couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan until 2001 and is broadcast from the Albert Dock in Liverpool until 1996.
Ulster is the last in the ITV network to begin 24-hour transmissions.
5 October – ITV begins airing the Australian soap Richmond Hill in a 2pm slot on Wednesdays and Thursdays, the first time the channel has networked an Australian soap. However, some regions, including Central and Granada opt out of networking the series when it is cancelled by Network Ten the following year.
6 October – Thames, Border, Tyne Tees and Ulster air the final episode of The Sullivans, becoming the first ITV regions to complete the series.
7 October – Launch of LWT's current affairs programme Friday Now!.[72]
19 October – 1988–1994 British broadcasting voice restrictions: Home Secretary Douglas Hurd issues a notice under clause 13(4) of the BBC Licence and Agreement to the BBC and under section 29(3) of the Broadcasting Act 1981 to the IBA prohibiting the broadcast of direct statements by representatives or supporters of 11 Irish political and paramilitary organisations.[73][74] The ban lasts until 1994 and denies the UK news media the right to broadcast the voices, though not the words, of all Irish republican and Loyalist paramilitaries. In view of the restrictions, targeted primarily at Sinn Féin, broadcasters use actors to speak the words of any representative interviewed.[75]
20 October – Debut of the 13-part children's stop-motion animated series Charlie Chalk, produced by Woodland Animations Ltd., the company behind Postman Pat makes its debut on BBC1, featuring the voices of Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Michael Williams and John Wells. The last three episodes will air the following year.
23 October – The final episode of Channel 4's groundbreaking youth music and current affairs programme Network 7 is broadcast.
25 October – As the 25th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy approaches, ITV airs the two-part documentary The Men Who Killed Kennedy, a film which explores discrepancies and inconsistencies in the US Government's official version of events.
Following the signing of a new four-year deal to show exclusive live coverage of top flight English football, ITV begins showing a live game every Sunday afternoon.
31 October – For the first time, BBC2's Newsnight is given a fixed starting time of 10:30pm. It was established in the face of fierce objections from the then managing director of BBC Television, Bill Cotton, otherwise in charge of all scheduling decisions. The decision sparked a widely reported row within the corporation.[77]
1 November – Having decided to step down from her presenting role on TV-am, Anne Diamond makes her final regular appearance on the station.[7]
2 November
In the House of Commons, an amendment introduced by the opposition, the Labour Party condemns the government's decision over the broadcasting ban as "incompatible with a free society" is rejected, despite some Conservative MPs voting with Labour.[78]
Evacuation, an episode of ITV's The Bill features one of the series' early prominent events, an explosion at Sun Hill police station.
7 November – A government white paper on broadcasting, Broadcasting in the '90s: Competition, Choice and Quality, includes provisions for a fifth UK television channel after management consultants Booz Allen recommend it as an option, claiming the extra channel would reduce the current ITV monopoly and also reduce advertising costs.[79]
15 November – Debut of educational documentary series Secret Life of Machines on Channel 4. It is hosted by inventor and roboteer Rex Garrod and engineer, cartoonist, artist and writer Tim Hunkin who is also the creator of the series.
21 November – The Welsh children's series Fireman Sam is broadcast in Singapore for the first time, being shown on MediaCorp Channel 5.
23 November – The long-running BBC science fiction series Doctor Who celebrates its 25th anniversary and begins the three-part serial Silver Nemesis.[84]
24 November – Frank Ruse, a left-wing Labour councillor for Liverpool City Council, accompanies Liverpool's Pagoda Chinese Youth Orchestra to London for an appearance on Blue Peter.[85] He is given a Blue Peter badge, but later receives a BBC-headed letter requesting its return. The letter, later discovered to be a forgery, claims the programme has been approached by the office of Labour leader Neil Kinnock expressing concern that a councillor with hard-left views had been given a Blue Peter badge. Upon receiving the returned badge, the BBC writes back to Ruse stating that it had not sent the letter. The incident prompts Ruse to start an enquiry to find out who sent the hoax letter.[86]
1 December – ITV's ORACLE Teletext service launches Park Avenue, a teletext-based soap opera. It is written by Robert Burns and runs until they lose its franchise at the end of 1992.
11 December – Launch date of the Astra Satellite. It will provide television coverage to Western Europe and is revolutionary as one of the first medium-powered satellites, allowing reception with smaller dishes than has previously been possible.
13 December – Central airs the final episode of Sons and Daughters, making it the first ITV region to complete the series.
The final edition of It's a Knockout to air on BBC1 is another celebrity special, It's a Charity Knockout from Walt Disney World, featuring teams of celebrities from the UK, the US and Australia. The series returns to S4C in 1991.
Ding Dong Merrily, the London's Burning Christmas special and the only episode of the series to have a title, airs on ITV as part of its Christmas Day lineup.
BBC1 Boxing Day premiere of the blockbuster 1984 action comedy film Beverley Hills Cop, starring Eddie Murphy. This was the edited for television version, with the profanity censored.
BBC1 airs CivvyStreet, a spin-off episode of EastEnders, set during World War II.[91] Later that same evening, the channel airs Bruce and Ronnie, a Christmas special presented by Bruce Forsyth and Ronnie Corbett who first appeared together at the 1988 Royal Variety Performance.[92]
As part of a Christmas special, the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside airs five episodes which lasted until 30 December.[4]
28 December – BBC1 airs the first part of the Australian film Bushfire Moon.[93] The second part is shown on 30 December.[94]
30 December – Channel 4 airs "The Cotton Collection", an evening of classic BBC programmes, including episodes of Frost Over England and Dad's Army.[4]
Autumn – The BBC takes its first tentative steps into later closedowns. Previously, weekday programmes ended no later than 12:15am and weekend broadcasting at 1:30am.
Swindon cable's TV channel is relaunched as Swindon's Local Channel. This sees the return to the service of local news, sport and one-off documentaries.
^(Norfolk) Evening Star. Tuesday 22 March 1988 "Exit the knight who has had his day..."
^ abMoloney, Ed (1991). "Chapter 1: Closing Down the Airwaves: The story of the Broadcasting Ban". In Rolston, Bill (ed.). The Media and Northern Ireland. Macmillan Academic and Professional Ltd. ISBN0-333-51575-7.
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