The BBC pulls an edition of Noel's House Party at the last minute following a disagreement between Noel Edmonds and the BBC over the quality of the programme and a reduction of its budget. A compilation show from the previous series is repeated in its place.
6 January – The BBC and ITV agree their scheduling arrangements for the 1998 World Cup, which will see both England and Scotland's opening matches airing on BBC One, while each nation's second group match will air on ITV.[2]
7 January – The BBC confirms that Helen Rollason will return to television to present weekend sports bulletins for BBC One and BBC Two following treatment for colon cancer.[3]
8 January
ITV airs the docudrama Miracle at Sea: The Rescue of Tony Bullimore which reconstructs the events of yachtsman Tony Bullimore's dramatic rescue after his boat capsized during the 1996 Vendée Globe yacht race.[4]
13 January – Debut of the docusoap The Cruise on BBC One.
14 January
Channel 4 airs the 2000th episode of its long-running soap Brookside.[11]
Debut of ITV Nightscreen, which is shown during the early hours of the morning.
17 January – Media sources report the arrival of a new EastEnders family, the Di Marcos, who will make their first appearance later in the month and set up an Italian restaurant in Albert Square.[12] The majority of the family are written out of the soap two years later.[13]
21 January – The former Conservative MP Rupert Allason loses a libel action against BBC Worldwide and Hat Trick Productions over comments made in a 1996 book based on the satirical series Have I Got News for You. A paragraph in Have I Got 1997 for You had noted "...given Mr Allason's fondness for pursuing libel actions, there are also excellent legal reasons for not referring to him as a conniving little shit".[14]
24 January – ITV airs the first episode of Ice Warriors, a spin-off from Gladiators, but the series is not a success and is axed after nine episodes with the last one airing on 21 March.
25–26 January – Channel 4's coverage of American football comes to an end with its broadcast of the 1998 Super Bowl.[15]
26 January – Hayley Patterson, British soap's first transgender character, is first seen in Coronation Street. Hayley, played by Julie Hesmondhalgh, is a regular in the series for sixteen years and helps to change public attitudes towards transgender issues. The character is killed off in a dramatic and emotional right to die storyline in January 2014 after Hesmondhalgh decides to leave the show.[16][17]
30 January – The Weather Channel closes in the UK after fewer than 18 months on the air, owing to low viewership. Rival weather station The Weather Network also closes its UK operation around the same time.
4 February – Debut of The Pepsi Chart Show on Channel 5. Initially presented by Rhona Mitra and Eddy Temple-Morris, the show is intended as a stablemate to the Pepsi Chart that airs across commercial radio. It becomes one of the channel's most watched programmes, but has difficulty attracting some of the bigger acts of the day.
7–22 February – The BBC provides coverage of the 1998 Winter Olympic Games from Japan. Due to the time difference, live coverage is limited with little action shown, especially during the second week of the Games.
17 February – The Central discussion series Central Weekend is criticised by the Independent Television Commission after an elderly couple complained about an item on the show's 9 January edition that included a discussion about the size of male genitalia.[18]
27 February – Castle Transmission International is confirmed as the supplier of the BBC's Digital Terrestrial Television Service and says it will invest £100 million in broadcast capacity.[20]
February – CNBC Europe merges with European Business News, upon which the channel is officially known as "CNBC Europe – A Service of NBC and Dow Jones".
February – Middlesbrough Football Club launches Boro TV, and becomes the first football club in the world to launch their own dedicated TV channel.
1 March – Positions for BBC Governors are advertised for the first time in the Sunday newspapers.
2 March – Channel 5 begins a rerun of the 1980s' Australian soap Sons and Daughters. This is the series first networked broadcast as its previous run on ITV had varied from region to region.
Debut on ITV of Airline, a brand new six-part fly-on-the-wall documentary series, produced by London Weekend Television narrated by Charlie Higson, that highlights the daily happenings of the passengers, ground workers and flight crew of Britannia Airways. From the second series, the show switches its attention to EasyJet.
Central Weekend is briefly taken off the air when a member of the audience becomes aggressive during a discussion about women's football.[22]
9 March – The name Tyne Tees Television is brought back to ITV viewers in the North East of England, having been rebranded as Channel 3 North East two years earlier.
14 March – Debut of the Saturday morning children's series Diggit on ITV.
An episode of Coronation Street, in which the character Deirdre Rachid is jailed for mortgage and credit card fraud, is watched by 16.5 million viewers, giving the soap its highest Sunday viewing figures since the weekend episode was added in 1996. The crimes having been committed by her lover, Jon Lindsay, Deirdre's wrongful conviction sparks a public outcry. Her case is championed by national newspapers and even Prime Minister Tony Blair offers to refer the conviction to Home Secretary Jack Straw.[25][26]
1 April – Episode 2965 of Neighbours airs on BBC One; it sees Anne Haddy make her final appearance as matriarch Helen Daniels, the character having been killed off. The episode aired in Australia on 17 October 1997.[27] Haddy, the soap's longest serving cast member at the time of her departure, dies herself in June 1999.[28]
4 April – After just nine shows, Ice Warriors is axed by ITV owing to poor ratings and the show itself is not recommissioned for a second series.
6 April
Cable and Wireless viewers see the Nordic version of The Children's Channel due to a pre-agreed contract signed some years before to air The Children's Channel in Scandinavia. Flextech creates an advertisement-free version known as TCC Nordic to fulfil this requirement.
Teletubbies starts airing in the US on PBS as part of the PTV Park block.
Progress in Northern Ireland after overnight talks as the final draft of a Good Friday Agreement is almost ready for signature. At about 5:30pm, BBC Two drops its scheduled programmes in the late afternoon to cover developments picking up in the middle of a joint press conference at Castle Buildings in Stormont Estate by the Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern.
After 13 years with EastEnders, Gillian Taylforth makes her final regular appearance as Kathy Beale with the show airing a one-hour special to coincide with her departure.[29]
16 April – CITV is scheduled to air the tenth episode of ReBoot's third series. However, the episode is not broadcast and Timmy Towers is shown instead.
17 April – Coronation Street character Deirdre Rachid is freed from prison after her lover Jon Lindsay is exposed as a bigamist. Four separate tabloid newspapers subsequently claim victory in securing her release, but the soap's producers say they always planned for the jail storyline to conclude after three weeks.
21 April – Magdalen College, Oxford wins the 1997–98 series of University Challenge on BBC Two, beating Birkbeck, University of London 225–195.
27 April
ITV airs the final episode of the children's programme Tots TV.
Kevin Lloyd, who has played Tosh Lines in The Bill since 1988, is dismissed from the role by ITV owing to his alcoholism. He dies at the age of 49 within a week.[30]
15 May – ITV announces that ITV2, a new digital terrestrial channel scheduled for launch later in the year, will be aimed at a younger and lighter audience, with an emphasis on male viewers.[31]
25 May – Labour MP George Galloway demands an investigation into an edition of Panorama aired on 21 May, which he describes as "racist". The edition had focused on two British nurses accused of the murder of Yvonne Gilford, a colleague with whom they worked in Saudi Arabia, and included a reconstruction of the two women being interrogated by Saudi Police. Galloway, himself accused of racism[33] and antisemitism,[34] describes the programme as "tabloid television at its worst".[35]
26 May – CITV is relaunched with a new logo as well as the revival of in-vision continuity, introducing Stephen Mulhern and Danielle Nicholls as regular presenters.
28 May – Channel 4 is censured by the Broadcasting Standards Commission for an episode of the series TV Dinners in which a woman's afterbirth was served up to friends and relatives as pâté. Several viewers, including MP Kevin McNamara, complained about the programme, shown in February, which the Commission deemed had broken a taboo and "would have been disagreeable to many".[36]
30 May – BBC One airs The Bee Gees: One Night Only, a concert recorded in Las Vegas by them in 1997.[37]
31 May – Sky Scottish closes after 19 months on the air, having failed to meet its financial targets.[38]
The Big Breakfast presenter Denise van Outen apologises for taking an ashtray and tissue box holder from Buckingham Palace. She took the items while attending a royal reception two days earlier, but returns them with a note of apology following criticism in the press.[39]
The US comedy-drama series Ally McBeal makes its UK debut on Channel 4.[40]
5 June – The BBC signs a deal with BSkyB to make BBC channels available through Sky Digital when it is launched later in the year.[41]
7 June – To mark the tenth anniversary of the death of Russell Harty, BBC Two airs You Are, Are You Not, Russell Harty?, a documentary paying tribute to the chat show presenter.[42]
9 June
Film critic and host of The Film ProgrammeBarry Norman announces he will leave the BBC after 25 years to join BSkyB. He will leave Film 98 at the end of its current run and join Sky in September.[43]
The Bill episode The People Person is aired as a tribute to Kevin Lloyd, who died on 2 May.
10 June – The BBC switches on its digital signal, doing so to coincide with the start of the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The technology will be showcased at a number of public venues over the Summer before the launch of the BBC's first digital television channel, BBC Choice, in the Autumn.[44]
10 June–12 July – The BBC and ITV show live coverage of the 1998 FIFA World Cup.
11 June – Blue Peter presenters Katy Hill and Richard Bacon bury a time capsule containing various items associated with the show in the foundations of the Millennium Dome. It will be opened in 2050.[45]
21 June – The final Screen Two broadcast takes place. The strand ends after 13 years as the BBC moves its attentions away from single dramas to focus production on series and serials.
25 June – The final episode of BBC One's The Human Body is the first British television programme to show the final moments of a cancer patient. 63-year-old Herbert Mower, who died the previous year, had given permission for his death to be recorded for the series.[47]
BBC Chairman Sir Christopher Bland officially opens the BBC News Centre.
BBC One airs the first of three bitesize episodes of EastEnders to coincide with the 1998 World Cup Final; they see some characters travelling to Paris for the final. Subsequent episodes are aired on 11 and 12 July.[52][53][54]
The US animated series South Park makes its UK terrestrial debut on Channel 4.
The Independent Television Commission upholds a viewer's complaint after a member of the Irish girl group B*Witched used the phrase "feck off" during a live interview on children's channel Nickelodeon on 13 May.[57]
12 August – BBC Two announce plans for an evening of programmes dedicated to the Helen Fielding novel Bridget Jones's Diary and issues raised in the book for later in the year.[58]
15 August – On the first day of the 1998–99 football season, the first edition of an afternoon-long continuous football news, scores and results programme Soccer Saturday is broadcast on Sky Sports. It replaces Sports Saturday which had featured action from a variety of different sports and had only focussed on football from around 4.30pm.
19 August – It is reported that talk show host Vanessa Feltz has been sacked by Anglia because of her "unreal" demands to have her wages doubled to £2.75 million.[59]
24 August – Channel 5 is reprimanded by the Independent Television Commission for showing an advert during its soap Family Affairs after both featured the same actor. The advert for McDonald's, aired on 18 May, featured actor Stephen Hoyle, who plays Liam Tripp in the series. The ITC has strict rules governing the separation of television programmes and adverts and after two viewers complained about the incident rules that Channel 5 had breached its regulations.[60]
27 August – Vanessa Feltz signs an exclusive two-year contract with the BBC.[61]
28 August – The satellite channel Bravo launches The Doll's House, an online series enabling internet users to observe the lives of four women living in a house in London. The women have been selected from 250 applicants to live rent free in the house for six months with weekly highlights of their activities being aired on the channel's men's magazine The Basement. The project, inspired by JenniCam, a US site established by Jennifer Ringley, follows an experiment by Bravo earlier in the year where cameras chronicled the life of actress Sara West over three months.[62][63]The Doll's House later attracts some media attention after one of the housemates sleeps with a male partner, unaware they are both on camera at the time.[64]
The music series CD:UK makes its debut on ITV; it airs immediately after SMTV Live and is also presented by Ant & Dec with Cat Deeley.
August – The BBC's domestic television channels become available on Sky Digital's satellite service. An unintended consequence of this is that people in the rest of Europe can now watch BBC One and Two using viewing cards from the UK (as the signal is encrypted). This applies even within the UK: people in England can now watch BBC channels from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and vice versa.
1 September – Channel 4 pulls a documentary from the following day's schedule after learning that it was faked. Daddy's Girl tells the story of aspiring model Victoria and her father, Marcus, who speaks candidly of his feelings about his daughter's career, but father and daughter are revealed to be boyfriend and girlfriend when Victoria's real father contacts Channel 4 after seeing a trailer for the documentary.[65]
Debut on ITV of The Moment of Truth, a game show presented by Cilla Black, in which families or groups of friends can win prizes if one of their members is able to complete a difficult task, such as getting 24 tiddlywinks into a pot in under two minutes or memorising then playing the US national anthem on a xylophone.[68][69][70] The show achieves audiences of nine million, but is criticised as being cruel because children are shown the prizes even though they could lose and are visibly distressed when their family loses. Black herself later admits she was not "emotionally prepared" for the reaction of losing contestants and the rules are changed to allow larger consolation prizes for the second series.[71]
9 September
Manchester United F.C. informs the London Stock Exchange that it has accepted a £623.4 million takeover bid by Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting.[72]
10 September – Sky Movies Screen 1, Sky Movies Screen 2 and Sky Movies Gold have their names changed to Sky Premier, Sky MovieMax and Sky Cinema ahead of the launch of digital television.
12 September – London's Burning returns to ITV for its eleventh series with a new set of opening and closing credits.
14 September – Data released by the National Grid indicates that a special edition of EastEnders which aired the previous evening beat ITV's Sunday edition of Coronation Street. Power surges recorded as the soaps ended suggest three times as many viewers tuned into EastEnders over Coronation Street.[73]
17 September – ITV's This Morning conducts the first live test of the anti-impotence drug Viagra.[74]
18 September – In an attempt to attract more viewers to its soap Family Affairs, Channel 5 announces that its entire central cast, the Hart family, will be killed off in a dramatic storyline.[75]
19 September – BBC Two airs a special Bee Gees edition of TOTP2.[76]
21 September
The long-running BBC soap EastEnders is sold to television stations in Ireland for the first time despite airing in Northern Ireland at the same time as its first broadcast in the rest of the UK. The first Irish television network to air the series is the newly launched commercial free-to-air channel TV3.
Footage of US President Bill Clinton's recent testimony to a Grand Jury about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky is released to US television networks and aired by broadcasters around the world, including the UK.[77][78]
BBC Choice, the UK's first digital-only television channel, launches.[79]
BBC Parliament launches on digital satellite and analogue cable. It replaces the cable-only Parliamentary Channel.[80]
The BBC warns Blue Peter viewers to ignore a hoax chain letter claiming to be supported by the show.[81]
ITV's Autumn schedule will include what is reported to be the most expensive costume drama the broadcaster has ever made, being the seafaring adventure Hornblower, which will cost £3 million an episode to produce.[82]
28 September – Three police officers are awarded substantial libel damages against Granada at the High Court after the broadcast of an April 1992 edition of World in Action, which accused them of fabricating evidence against a prisoner charged with the murder of his cellmate.[83]
2 October – UK Gold Classics launches. On air as a part-time channel, broadcast from Friday to Sunday on Sky Digital from 6pm to 2am, the spin-off from UK Gold airs a number of early shows, including some black-and-white programmes which had been acquired in the early years of the UK Gold service. It also airs some recent shows from the main channel, but its primary purpose is to broadcast older shows from the early years of UK Gold to complement the main channel which has begun to move towards showing newer programmes.
5 October
ITV adopts a new set of idents and a new logo with lower case lettering themed around a heart design, a year after the BBC launched its new corporate logo.[86]
Sky One begins simulcasting part of Virgin Radio's The Chris Evans Breakfast Show after they signed a three-year sponsorship deal with BSkyB. Under the agreement, Evans is not allowed to mention Virgin Radio while the programme is being simulcast with Sky.[87][88]
Sarah, Duchess of York makes her debut as a talk show host on Sky One with the first in a ten-part series titled Sarah... Surviving Life. Each week, she will interview guests who have been through traumatic experiences, discussing with them how they overcame their difficulties. Guests in the first episode include a woman who was raped by serial killer Fred West, a man who killed someone and a car crash survivor.[89] The show, however, is panned by critics and axed in February 1999 because of poor viewing figures.[90]
6 October – The BBC announces plans to revamp its news bulletins following an 18-month review of news programming, the largest ever undertaken in the UK. Changes will include a new look Six O'Clock News concentrating on national and regional stories and an increase in world news stories for the Nine O'Clock News.[91]
BBC Two airs Blue Peter Night, a selection of programmes celebrating 40 years of the long-running children's series Blue Peter.[94]
UK Play launches. Originally intended as a television version of BBC Radio 1, it shows music programming and videos during the day and comedy during the evening. It has no tie-up with Radio 1, however.
Debut of Delia's How to Cook on BBC Two, a basic cookery show presented by Delia Smith. The series is criticised by chef and restaurateur Gary Rhodes for its back-to-basics approach while the Devon Fire Brigade criticises a piece of advice she gives to people who wish to season a new frying pan to heat oil in it and leave it to simmer on a low heat for eight hours.[96]
15 October – The BBC loses the broadcasting rights to test match cricket after the England and Wales Cricket Board accepts a rival £103 million four-year bid from Channel 4 and BSkyB. The decision brings to an end sixty years of continuous cricket coverage by the BBC.[97]
16 October
A man who got drunk and ran amok on the set of Central Weekend during a debate on women's football in March, forcing the show to be taken off the air, is jailed for 12 months over the incident.[98][99]
Blue Peter celebrates its 40th anniversary with a special show featuring former presenters.[100]
19 October – Richard Bacon becomes the first ever Blue Peter presenter to have his contract terminated in mid-run after tabloid newspaper The News of the World publishes a report of him taking cocaine.[101] After his dismissal, the Head of BBC children's programmes, Lorraine Heggessey, goes on air to explain the situation to CBBC viewers.[101]
26 October – Debut on BBC Two of Ads Infinitum after showing a pilot episode two years earlier.[102]
27 October – As part of its Q.E.D. strand, BBC One airs Hope for Helen, a documentary following Helen Rollason's fight against terminal cancer. She had been diagnosed the previous year and given three months to live.[103][104]
30 October – Debut on Channel 4 of the dating series Streetmate, presented by Davina McCall.
30–31 October – ITV broadcasts a special themed "Alien Invasion" night devoted to programmes with a mix of science-fiction and horror featuring some of the weirdest links that include Starship Bloopers as well as the quiz show Universe Challenge and John Carpenter's 1982 film version of The Thing, starring Kurt Russell.
October – Cable and Wireless stops airing the Nordic version of The Children's Channel, thereby ending all UK broadcasts after more than 14 years.
12 November – Debut on BBC One of the sitcom Dinnerladies, created, written by and starring Victoria Wood.
15 November
Digital terrestrial television launches in the UK from 81 transmitters, operated by ONdigital.[109] It changes its name to ITV Digital in July 2001 and goes into administration a year later.[110]
Carlton launches three new channels, Carlton Cinema, Carlton Kids and Carlton World while Granada, in conjunction with Littlewoods launches the home-shopping channel Shop!
After airing a pilot episode the previous year, the first full series of the comedy-drama Cold Feet begins on ITV.
18 November
The British Egg Information Service reports that egg sales have increased by 10% since the debut of Delia Smith's BBC Two series Delia's How to Cook which teaches viewers basic cookery skills.[111]
The National Grid reports a surge in the use of electricity at 8pm as the Coronation Street episode featuring the death of the character Des Barnes, played by Philip Middlemiss, reaches its conclusion.[112]
19 November
ITV is given permission to move its 10pm news bulletin by the Independent Television Commission, a decision that will allow the channel to axe News at Ten in early 1999. ITV wants to move the programme because of declining ratings and to make way for films and dramas to air uninterrupted in its evening schedule, but the plans have been criticised by senior journalists and politicians who fear it will lead to a reduction in the quality of evening television. Once the changes are implemented, ITV's main evening bulletin will air at 6:30pm, with a shorter news programme at 11pm.[113][114]
Members of the National Assembly Against Racism, one of Britain's leading anti-racism groups, stage a protest outside the headquarters of Channel 4 as the channel airs a Dispatches documentary that claims to have established that most juvenile gang rapes are carried out by black youths.[115]
20 November
The Independent Television Commission orders ITV to take its advertising campaign for digital television off air because it is "derogatory" towards satellite television. The campaign had featured a crossed out satellite dish and had attracted complaints from other major broadcasters in the week it was shown. The regulator also decides that future digital television advertising campaigns by ITV must be submitted to the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre before going on the air.[116]
At London's Wandsworth County Court, the makers of Channel 4's game show Fifteen to One are awarded a county court judgment against Trevor Montague, a former series champion who broke the show's rule that losing contestants cannot appear on the show again. Having lost in 1989, he reapplied under a different name in 1992 and went on to become series champion, but was subsequently identified by a contestant who watched a repeat of the show on Challenge TV. He must pay £3,562 in compensation and return his prizes, two goblets and a set of decanters to Regent Productions.
27 November – ITV has scrapped plans for a documentary investigating claims of anti-English racism in Scotland because there is not enough evidence to support it, the Daily Record reports.[118]
ITV airs the one-off entertainment show Men for Sale, a special hour-long event hosted by Ulrika Jonsson and Denise van Outen, in which male celebrities go under the hammer to raise money for charity with three musical guest appearances including the Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias, pianist Jools Holland and the boy band 911.
3 December – Channel 4 announces it has secured a £400,000 deal to air the only international interview with Monica Lewinsky, the woman at the centre of the sex scandal involving US President Bill Clinton.[122]
7 December
The long-running current affairs series World in Action ends after 35 years, its final edition being an investigation into Britain's alcohol consumption called "Britain on the Booze". It will be replaced in April 1999 with Tonight.[123]
Launch of the UK's second digital-only TV channel ITV2.[124]
9 December – Channel 4 News unveils a new look for its hour-long bulletin and a new set which will be seen on air from January 1999 and marks the biggest change for the programme since its launch in 1982. Jon Snow will continue to present the bulletin.[125]
11 December – BBC governors reject a request to give Scotland its own Six O'Clock News bulletin. Instead, an extra £20 million will be spent on new jobs and programming in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.[126]
12 December
The Commission for Racial Equality has called on British soaps to change the way black and Asian people are portrayed after Marcus Wrigley, a new black character in Coronation Street, is seen breaking into a house in one of his first scenes.[127]
Viewers of the Living channel accidentally see five minutes of an adult film being aired by Television X following a switching error by the company relaying both channels. The interruption which occurs during an edition of The Jerry Springer Show generates seven complaints to the Independent Television Commission. The company responsible for the glitch later apologises and makes technical changes to ensure it won't happen again.[128]
13 December
Footballer Michael Owen is named as this year's BBC Sports Personality of the Year.[129]
ITV's long-running programme Sunday morning programme for disabled people, Link, is broadcast for the final time.
14 December
After a world-record-breaking 75 consecutive victories, Ian Lygo makes his final appearance on the Channel 5 game show 100%, after being forced to retire by the show's producers.[130][131]
After 22 years of presenting Sooty, Matthew Corbett announces his retirement and hand picks Richard Cadell and Liana Bridges as his successors in the very last edition of Sooty & Co. They appear throughout the final series of the show.
15 December – Holiday presenter Jill Dando rules herself out of becoming the face of a planned relaunched BBC Six O'Clock News following much media speculation on the topic. She says she plans to leave BBC News to concentrate on her presenting roles.[132]
16 December – Regular programming is interrupted when the United States and the United Kingdom launch air strikes against Iraq after that country fails to comply with the United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.
17 December – Jane Root is appointed Controller of BBC Two, becoming the first female head of a BBC channel. She will replace the outgoing incumbent, Mark Thompson, in January 1999.[133]
18 December
BBC political correspondent Huw Edwards is confirmed as the new face of the Six O'Clock News, taking over when the programme is revamped next year.[134]
Carlton is fined £2 million by the Independent Television Commission for a 1996 documentary called The Connection in which actors pretended to be drug traffickers.[135]
19 December – Denise van Outen presents the final of the first Record of the Year for ITV, a show allowing viewers to vote for their favourite single of 1998 through a phone-in poll.[136] More than a million viewers call to register their vote, making it the UK's largest ever television phone poll. Of the ten songs shortlisted for the show, Irish boy band Boyzone's single "No Matter What" emerges as the winner.[137]
The National Federation of SubPostmasters criticises the forthcoming Christmas Day episode of Emmerdale for featuring the death of a village postmaster during a robbery, expressing concerns it could prompt a spate of copycat incidents. The union calls on ITV to pull the episode, which sees the character Vic Windsor (Alun Lewis) killed after he strikes his head during a robbery at his post office. ITV says it has taken care not to breach Post Office security during the episode's filming.[139]
BBC Two airs a special documentary about the popular children's series Teletubbies called Big Hug!: The Story of Teletubbies. The special takes a look at the phenomenal success of the series, how it came about, the way it was done, how it was criticized and been under fire, the differences between children's television in the old and later days, how the series was commissioned for the BBC and how children communicate to the "Tubby" language. There are also interviews with several people include the creator of the TeletubbiesAnne Wood, the co-creator and writer Andrew Davenport, Anna Home a former BBC executive who commissioned the series prior to retiring, journalist and food writer Nigella Lawson, Oliver Postgate, the creator and writer of Bagpuss, The Clangers, Noggin the Nog, Pogles' Wood, Ivor the Engine and Pingwings and the president and CEO of the Children's Television Workshop David Britt.
The first ITV Panto is broadcast, starting with Jack and the Beanstalk.
Channel 4 airs The Omen, Richard Donner's 1976 supernatural horror film depicting the Antichrist, at 10:30pm,[143][144] but it leads to six viewer complaints that its scheduling on Christmas Day was in poor taste and the Broadcasting Standards Commission later agrees with this sentiment.[145] However, the ruling on 27 May 1999 draws criticism from Channel 4 Chief Executive Michael Jackson, who describes it as "typical of how the commission fails to get things in proportion" and says he would schedule the film similarly again.[143]
28 December – BBC One concludes its Christmas trilogy of new episodes of Men Behaving Badly.[148]
29 December
The long-running series Come Dancing marks its 50th anniversary with an edition of the show from London's Royal Albert Hall which would be the last one ever made; the final regular series was shown in 1995.[149]
BBC Two airs a special edition of TOTP2 dedicated to glam rock.[150]
Provisional viewing figures indicate that BBC One had seven of the top ten most watched programmes over the Christmas weekend. The 28 December episode of EastEnders achieved first place with 15.7 million viewers, followed by an episode of Coronation Street from the previous day with 15.1 million. The final episode of Men Behaving Badly was watched by 14 million viewers.[153]
Other New Year's Eve highlights for BBC One include the film Getting Even with Dad and Shirley Bassey: Viva Diva in which she performs a number of show tunes with the backing of a large orchestra and the cast of the musical Chicago.[156]
Early in 1998, BBC2 stops shutting down its transmitters when it isn't broadcasting the BBC Learning Zone. Instead, BBC2 broadcasts Pages from Ceefax during all overnight downtime.[157]
^Arnold, Harry (17 December 1998). "Tv Quiz Chiefs Drop Mister 100 Per Cent: They alter rules after his 75th win". Daily Mirror. Trinity Mirror. p. 27.
