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1983 in British television

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This is a list of British television-related events from 1983.

Events

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January

  • 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 January
  • 14 January – TV-am broadcasts a special edition to advertisers ahead of its official launch on 1 February.
  • 17 January – At 6:30am, Britain's first-ever breakfast television show, Breakfast Time, launches on BBC1.
  • 29 January – Tom Keating On Painters is rebroadcast.
  • 30 January – Channel 4 becomes the first broadcaster in the UK to show the Super Bowl live.
  • 31 January – Channel 4 News introduces its current news theme "Best Endeavours" composed by Alan Hawkshaw.
  • January
    • BBC1 starts broadcasting a full afternoon service, consisting of regional programmes, repeats and old feature films.
    • London Weekend Television drops in-vision continuity.

February

7 February – BBC2's four-hour weekday transmitter shutdown resumes. It had been suspended for previous four months to assist riggers adjust aerials during the lead up to, and the launch of, Channel 4.[2]

  • 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.
  • 14 February
    • Granada faces an industrial dispute in which Coronation Street and World in Action are wiped out across the network.
    • 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.
  • 23 February – After months of "will she or won't she?" drama, Deirdre Barlow (Anne Kirkbride) makes the choice to break up with Mike Baldwin (Johnny Briggs) and reunite with her estranged husband Ken (William Roache) on Coronation Street. The episode is one of the highest-rated in the soap's history.
  • 28 February
    • 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.[3][4]
    • BBC1 begins broadcasting a 30-minute Ceefax slot prior to the start of Breakfast Time. It is called Ceefax AM.[5] It is first mentioned in Radio Times on 21 March.[6]

March

  • 10 March – Debut of the cult US comedy series Police Squad! on ITV, starring Leslie Nielsen.
  • 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.[7][8][9] 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.

April

  • 1 April – Roland Rat makes his first appearance on TV-am.[10] Created by David Claridge and launched by TV-am children's editor Anne Wood to entertain younger viewers during the Easter holidays,[11][12] Roland is generally regarded as TV-am's saviour, being described as "the only rat to join a sinking ship".[13]
  • 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 is 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]
  • 9 April – The US police action series T. J. Hooker makes its UK debut on ITV, starring William Shatner.
  • 10 April – ITV begin showing the two-part 1982 US mini-series World War III, starring David Soul and Rock Hudson.
  • 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.[14]
  • 15 April – BBC2 launches the long-running showbiz programme Entertainment USA, presented by Jonathan King.
  • 19 April – Angela Rippon and Anna Ford are axed from TV-am.[15] Subsequently, Ford encounters Jonathan Aitken at a party in Chelsea and, in a parting shot over the terms of her dismissal, throws her glass of wine in his face.[16]
  • 29 April – Michael Parkinson is appointed to TV-am's board of directors.[17]
  • April – No. 73 launches nationally as ITV's Saturday morning children's show. It had been launched the previous year as a regional programme by TVS.

May

  • 1 May – Debut of Alfresco on ITV, starring Robbie Coltrane, Ben Elton (the principal writer), Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Siobhan Redmond and Emma Thompson. It is named after the Italian word meaning "in the fresh air" because it is filmed entirely on location, unusual for a comedy sketch show of the time. It runs for two seasons.
  • 2 May – From this day, Ceefax pages are broadcast during all daytime downtime although BBC2 continues to close down fully 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, then 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.[18]
  • 11 May – Peter Adamson makes his last appearance as Len Fairclough on Coronation Street.
  • 17 May – Engineering Announcements is broadcast on ITV for the final time.[19]
  • 23 May – TV-am's new look begins as Daybreak is axed,[20] 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.[21]
  • 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.
  • 30 May – The morning broadcast of Play School moves to the earlier time of 10.30am.

June

July

  • 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.
  • 10 July – ITV screen Alan Clarke's controversial drama Made in Britain, starring Tim Roth as a young skinhead.
  • 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.

August

  • 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.[25][26]
  • 27–28 August – BBC2 Rocks Around the Clock for the first time by broadcasting non-stop music programmes all day and also all night.[27]
  • 29 August – The game show Blockbusters is launched on ITV, presented by Bob Holness and features sixth-form students as contestants.

September

  • 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.
  • 5 September
  • 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".[28]
  • 11 September – ITV begins showing the epic World War II miniseries The Winds of War, starring Ali MacGraw, Jan-Michael Vincent and Robert Mitchum.
  • 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.[29][30]
  • 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

  • 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.
  • 3 October – Bananaman makes its debut on BBC1, based on the Nutty comic strip with the voices of Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie (aka The Goodies).
  • 4 October
    • 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.
    • The Adventures of Portland Bill, a stop-motion animated series from FilmFair London, makes its debut on ITV.
  • 9 October
    • 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".
    • Channel 4 broadcasts Tony Harrison's The Oresteia, an adaptation of classical Greek myths.[1]
  • 12 October – Doris Speed makes her last appearance as Annie Walker on Coronation Street.
  • 14 October – Max Bygraves becomes the new host of Family Fortunes on ITV.
  • 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.[31]
  • 24 October – Sixty Minutes launches on BBC1, replacing Nationwide but ends less than a year later.
  • 25 October – BBC1 starts airing the seventh season of the US drama series Dallas.[32]
  • 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.[33]

November

  • 3 November – The network television premiere of the 1978 sci-fi film, Battlestar Galactica The Movie on ITV (except Central, who had finally began showing the series on 28th August). 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.
  • 11 November – Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais' hugely popular comedy-drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet makes its debut on ITV.
  • 17 November – Debut of the film Those Glory Glory Days on Channel 4, part of the First Love series.[34]
  • 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.
  • 26 November – ITV shows the 1979 time travel film Time After Time, starring Malcolm McDowell and David Warner.
  • 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.
  • 30 November – Debut of the Jim Davidson sitcom Up the Elephant and Round the Castle on ITV.
  • November – An episode of ITV's animated series Danger Mouse has viewing figures reaching 21.59 million,[35] an all-time high for a British children's programme.

December

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Debuts

BBC1

BBC2

ITV

Channel 4

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Television shows

Changes of network affiliation

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Continuing television shows

1920s

  • BBC Wimbledon (1927–1939, 1946–2019, 2021–present)

1930s

  • Trooping the Colour (1937–1939, 1946–2019, 2023–present)
  • The Boat Race (1938–1939, 1946–2019, 2021–present)
  • BBC Cricket (1939, 1946–1999, 2020–2024)

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

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Ending this year

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Births

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Deaths

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References

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