Debut of the BBC1 soap Triangle,[2] a twice-weekly series set aboard a North Sea ferry and filmed on location using outside broadcast cameras.[3] The website TVARK describes the programme as being chiefly remembered as "some of the most mockable British television ever produced" owing to its clichéd storylines and stilted dialogue as well as being notable for its troubled production. It is axed after three series in 1983.[4]
10 February – Alan Rogers' cutout animation series Pigeon Street makes its debut on BBC1.[7] The series runs until December before repeats on BBC1 and BBC2 throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
29 March – BBC1 airs highlights of the first London Marathon under the International Athletics strand.[8] Live coverage of the event begins the following year.[9]
March – TV-am purchases a former car showroom in Camden as its headquarters. The building is subsequently renovated to create the Breakfast Television Centre.[10]
30 April – The long-running science-fiction series Doctor Who starts airing in Sri Lanka with the first part of the
seventh seriesSpearhead from Space which is broadcast on the Independent Television Network.
May
17 May – Sunday Grandstand launches. It airs during the summer months on BBC Two.[11]
June
2 June – The music series Razzamatazz makes its debut on ITV; it will run for 6 years.
July
04 July – BBC1 launch the long running music quiz show Pop Quiz, hosted by
Mike Read.
The marriage of the Prince of Wales (later
Charles III) and
Lady Diana Spencer takes place at St Paul's Cathedral. More than 30,000,000 viewers watch the wedding on television, the second highest television audience of all time in Britain.[12]
ITV show the network television premiere of the 1977
disco-set drama Saturday Night Fever, starring
John Travolta. This is the
edited for television version which removes all profanity and adult themes from the original version of the film.
27 July – ITV begins showing
Storybook International, featuring children's folk tales and fairy stories from around the world.
August
1 August – This week's issue of the Radio Times is not published due to a printing dispute.
11 August –
TSW takes over
Westward Television but continues to use the Westward name until 1 January 1982.
27 August –
Moira Stuart, aged 31, is appointed as the BBC's first black newsreader.
31 August – The network television premiere of
Richard Donner's 1975 supernatural horror film The Omen on ITV, starring
Gregory Peck and
Lee Remick. The following morning, newspapers report numerous complaints of viewers being horrified after the showing of the movie.[13]
August –
Southern sells its studios to
TVS but continues to use them until its franchise runs out at the end of the year.
9 September –
Rediffusion launches a movie channel called
Starview.[16] It is allowed to launch the channel following a decision by the Home Office granting several experimental licences to broadcast subscription television and Rediffusion has won one of these licenses.
16 September – Postman Pat, the children's stop motion series about a rural postman with a black and white cat written and created by
John Cunliffe and voiced and narrated by
Ken Barrie, makes its debut on BBC1. Episode 8 introduces a more authentic look to the
Royal Mail and
Post Office Ltd logos and more storybooks are produced after 13 episodes being broadcast on BBC1 and BBC2 which makes the series more popular than expected to be, starting from Christmas 1981 along with Pigeon Street.
22 September - BBC1 begin showing the 10-part supernatural drama Dark Towers, produced for the children's educational Look and Read series.
Debut of the darts-based game show Bullseye on ITV, presented by
Jim Bowen.
October
3 October – TVTimes is rebranded as TVTimes Magazine, the premise for the change of name being that it now contains more than television listings.
8 October – ITV airs the network television premiere of
Steven Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster thriller Jaws, starring
Roy Scheider,
Robert Shaw and
Richard Dreyfuss. The film is watched by an estimated 23 million viewers, making it the most watched film of the year.
11 October – See Hear is launched on
BBC1, initially as a series of 20 programmes. Broadcast with open
subtitles It is presented in
sign, thereby becoming the first regular television programme for
deaf and
hard-of-hearing people in the United Kingdom.[17]
BBC1 starts to air
season 5 of the US drama series Dallas.
Debut of the long-running Jersey-set crime drama Bergerac on BBC1, starring
John Nettles.
23 October – The last ever teatime block of Open University programmes is transmitted on BBC2 today. From the 1982 season, only a single Open University programme is aired, at 5:10pm ahead of the start of BBC2's evening programmes.
October – Scottish Television becomes the first ITV station to operate a regional ORACLE teletext service, containing over 60 pages of local news, sport and information.[18]
November
November – BBC2 starts its weekdays at the earlier time of 3:55pm.
2 November – The TV licence increases in price from £34 to £46 for a colour TV and £12 to £15 for black and white.
12 November –
Noele Gordon, eight times winner of the TVTimes award for best actress, leaves Crossroads after playing Meg Richardson since the series began in 1964, having been sacked from the show.
December
December – The BBC's Open University broadcasts begin using computer generated clocks.
21 December - Final episode of the Cult Sci-Fi series Blake's Seven on BBC1
29 December – Pipkins is broadcast for the final time.
31 December – The final day on air for the ITV regional stations
ATV,
Southern and
Westward.
Unknown
Radio Rental Cable Television launches the UK's first pay-per-view movie channel 'Cinematel' for cable viewers in Swindon. The channel later expands to Chatham, Kent. As well as showing movies, the channel also broadcasts some local programming, including one-off documentaries and a live news-magazine programme called Scene in Swindon launches. Also provided is a local teletext service with pages about film information, horoscopes, recipes, local bus times and job vacancies.
Debut of the BBC1 soap Triangle,[2] a twice-weekly series set aboard a North Sea ferry and filmed on location using outside broadcast cameras.[3] The website TVARK describes the programme as being chiefly remembered as "some of the most mockable British television ever produced" owing to its clichéd storylines and stilted dialogue as well as being notable for its troubled production. It is axed after three series in 1983.[4]
10 February – Alan Rogers' cutout animation series Pigeon Street makes its debut on BBC1.[7] The series runs until December before repeats on BBC1 and BBC2 throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
29 March – BBC1 airs highlights of the first London Marathon under the International Athletics strand.[8] Live coverage of the event begins the following year.[9]
March – TV-am purchases a former car showroom in Camden as its headquarters. The building is subsequently renovated to create the Breakfast Television Centre.[10]
30 April – The long-running science-fiction series Doctor Who starts airing in Sri Lanka with the first part of the
seventh seriesSpearhead from Space which is broadcast on the Independent Television Network.
May
17 May – Sunday Grandstand launches. It airs during the summer months on BBC Two.[11]
June
2 June – The music series Razzamatazz makes its debut on ITV; it will run for 6 years.
July
04 July – BBC1 launch the long running music quiz show Pop Quiz, hosted by
Mike Read.
The marriage of the Prince of Wales (later
Charles III) and
Lady Diana Spencer takes place at St Paul's Cathedral. More than 30,000,000 viewers watch the wedding on television, the second highest television audience of all time in Britain.[12]
ITV show the network television premiere of the 1977
disco-set drama Saturday Night Fever, starring
John Travolta. This is the
edited for television version which removes all profanity and adult themes from the original version of the film.
27 July – ITV begins showing
Storybook International, featuring children's folk tales and fairy stories from around the world.
August
1 August – This week's issue of the Radio Times is not published due to a printing dispute.
11 August –
TSW takes over
Westward Television but continues to use the Westward name until 1 January 1982.
27 August –
Moira Stuart, aged 31, is appointed as the BBC's first black newsreader.
31 August – The network television premiere of
Richard Donner's 1975 supernatural horror film The Omen on ITV, starring
Gregory Peck and
Lee Remick. The following morning, newspapers report numerous complaints of viewers being horrified after the showing of the movie.[13]
August –
Southern sells its studios to
TVS but continues to use them until its franchise runs out at the end of the year.
9 September –
Rediffusion launches a movie channel called
Starview.[16] It is allowed to launch the channel following a decision by the Home Office granting several experimental licences to broadcast subscription television and Rediffusion has won one of these licenses.
16 September – Postman Pat, the children's stop motion series about a rural postman with a black and white cat written and created by
John Cunliffe and voiced and narrated by
Ken Barrie, makes its debut on BBC1. Episode 8 introduces a more authentic look to the
Royal Mail and
Post Office Ltd logos and more storybooks are produced after 13 episodes being broadcast on BBC1 and BBC2 which makes the series more popular than expected to be, starting from Christmas 1981 along with Pigeon Street.
22 September - BBC1 begin showing the 10-part supernatural drama Dark Towers, produced for the children's educational Look and Read series.
Debut of the darts-based game show Bullseye on ITV, presented by
Jim Bowen.
October
3 October – TVTimes is rebranded as TVTimes Magazine, the premise for the change of name being that it now contains more than television listings.
8 October – ITV airs the network television premiere of
Steven Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster thriller Jaws, starring
Roy Scheider,
Robert Shaw and
Richard Dreyfuss. The film is watched by an estimated 23 million viewers, making it the most watched film of the year.
11 October – See Hear is launched on
BBC1, initially as a series of 20 programmes. Broadcast with open
subtitles It is presented in
sign, thereby becoming the first regular television programme for
deaf and
hard-of-hearing people in the United Kingdom.[17]
BBC1 starts to air
season 5 of the US drama series Dallas.
Debut of the long-running Jersey-set crime drama Bergerac on BBC1, starring
John Nettles.
23 October – The last ever teatime block of Open University programmes is transmitted on BBC2 today. From the 1982 season, only a single Open University programme is aired, at 5:10pm ahead of the start of BBC2's evening programmes.
October – Scottish Television becomes the first ITV station to operate a regional ORACLE teletext service, containing over 60 pages of local news, sport and information.[18]
November
November – BBC2 starts its weekdays at the earlier time of 3:55pm.
2 November – The TV licence increases in price from £34 to £46 for a colour TV and £12 to £15 for black and white.
12 November –
Noele Gordon, eight times winner of the TVTimes award for best actress, leaves Crossroads after playing Meg Richardson since the series began in 1964, having been sacked from the show.
December
December – The BBC's Open University broadcasts begin using computer generated clocks.
21 December - Final episode of the Cult Sci-Fi series Blake's Seven on BBC1
29 December – Pipkins is broadcast for the final time.
31 December – The final day on air for the ITV regional stations
ATV,
Southern and
Westward.
Unknown
Radio Rental Cable Television launches the UK's first pay-per-view movie channel 'Cinematel' for cable viewers in Swindon. The channel later expands to Chatham, Kent. As well as showing movies, the channel also broadcasts some local programming, including one-off documentaries and a live news-magazine programme called Scene in Swindon launches. Also provided is a local teletext service with pages about film information, horoscopes, recipes, local bus times and job vacancies.