New Year's Day highlights on BBC1 include the first network television showing of Roger Donaldson's historical drama, The Bounty.[1]
BBC2 airs a five-hour Whistle Test special to welcome 1988. The special, aired from 9:35pm on New Year's Eve to 2:55am on New Year's Day, 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]
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.
6 January – All ITV regions network Emmerdale Farm in the Wednesday and Thursday 6:30pm slot.
8 January – 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 – ITV airs the British television premiere of the 1984 film Supergirl, starring Helen Slater.
11 January – The first episode of the game show Fifteen to One airs on Channel 4. 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 aimed at resolving the ongoing strike.[7]
TV-am celebrates its fifth birthday, with Anne Diamond joined by Richard Keys, Gyles Brandreth, Su Pollard and Jimmy Greaves. It is the first time TV-am 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]
10 February – Debut on BBC1 of Moondial, a six part series adapted from the novel by Helen Cresswell.[10][11] The series is repeated by BBC1 in 1990.[12]
Central, which had been keeping its transmitters on 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 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 –
An early morning 60-minute news programme – ITN Early Morning News – is launched but is only available in areas which have 24-hour broadcasting. 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 – Channel 4 starts broadcasting into the early hours, closing down between 2am and 3am. Previously Channel 4 had closed down at just after midnight.
March
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 airing.
7 March – ITV's lunchtime news programme returns to the 1pm timeslot.
18 March – The final US edition of Top of the Pops airs in the United States.
21 March – Anglia's silver statue of a knight on horseback ident is consigned to history, having even used as Anglia's ident since the station went on 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.[17]About Anglia is also given a new look to co-inside with the ident change.
22 March – Prime MinisterMargaret 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.[18]
25 March – BBC2 shows Two of Us, a gay-themed television film.[19] It was produced as part of the BBC Schools SCENE series, and intended for young adults. It confronted the Thatcherite government's attempt to ban gay sex education in schools via the controversial (and since repealed) section 28 legislation.[20] Given this backdrop, the BBC opted not to show it during the day and it was screened late at night on this day, even though it was originally created for a school audience. In 1990 the play was finally shown during the day, when it was broadcast in a lunchtime slot.[21][22]
4 April – The original series of Crossroads airs for the last time on ITV. It returns in 2001 before being axed again in 2003.
6 April – ITV's chart show The Roxy airs for the last time.
7 April – The Irish market has purchased the Welsh children's stop motion animated programme Fireman Sam for television broadcasting in Ireland. The series would premiere on RTÉ1 with only the first series and will return to air a number of times on RTÉ2 (of what was known as Network 2 at the time) in 2000, although viewers in Ireland with access to British television were able to see earlier transmissions including all four series and the Christmas Special with their original premiere dates.
10 April – Channel 4 premieres East of the Moon a new television series for children based on fairy tales written by former Monty Python member Terry Jones and features his stories brought to life with live action and animation and songs written and performed by Neil Innes.
23 May – Three gay rights activists invade the BBC studios during a Six O'Clock bulletin of the BBC News to protest about the introduction of Section 28, a law preventing schools from teaching their students about homosexuality. Protesters can be heard chanting as Sue Lawley continues to read the news, prompting the presenter to comment "we have been rather invaded by some people who we hope to be removing very shortly".[26]
29–30 May – ITV stages the 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 United Kingdom.
TV-am does not go on 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 date, and fearful of sparking a nationwide dispute, TV-am's acting Managing Director, Adrian Moore, allows ITV to use the early morning airtime.[7]
1 June – Horse racing is shown for the final time on ITV when it simulcasts Channel 4's coverage of the Derby. The sport was not to return to ITV screens until 2017.
5 June – Channel 4 airs the Thames Television documentary Waldheim: A Commission of Inquiry, a programme investigating the history of the alleged Nazi conspirator Kurt Waldheim.[4]
20 June – TVS and Channel commence 24-hour broadcasting.
21 June – BBC 1 airs Crystal Clear, a film based on the award-winning play of the same name that deals with the subject of sight loss.[35]
July
1 July – Australian series The Flying Doctors makes its British television debut on BBC 1.[36] Initially aired on Fridays at 8:10pm, from 20 August, it is moved to a Saturday early evening slot.[37]
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 was to look at issues reflecting all aspects of the countryside rather than just focussing on farming.[39]
19 July – The Bill broadcasts the first episode of its fourth season 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 (played by Peter Dean) proposes a toast to that "bloody old bag". Wing herself died, aged 98, in 2013.[40]
July – Stephen Barden is appointed 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]
August
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 was BBC policy at the time) performance of their hit, are not played the backing track through their monitors, and so sit motionless while the television and studio audience hear the song.[41] 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 debuts on BBC1.[42]
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 police appealed to viewers of the BBC's Crimewatch for help.[43]
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]
1 September – To celebrate BBC Radio 1's FM "switch on day", BBC1's Top of the Pops is simulcast with Radio 1 for the first time, allowing listeners to hear the programme in stereo. This edition is presented by Steve Wright and Mark Goodier.[44]Top of the Pops is then simulcast weekly with Radio 1 until August 1991.[45]
5 September – BBC1 airs Bros Special, a 30-minute programme showing exclusive footage of pop band Bros in concert and on their UK tour.[46] The programme is repeated on 29 December.[47]
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.[48] 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.[49]
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.[50]
9 September – Casualty returns to BBC1 for a third series,[51] moving from its previous Saturday evening slot to Friday evenings.
13 September – A brand new children's cartoon series PC Pinkerton gets its debut on BBC1.[53] The series was produced by Trevor Bond who has also worked on the original Mr. Men series and Bananaman with veteran animation producer Terry Ward and featured the voice of Ian Lavender best known for the 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. BBC Television provides live coverage, as does ITV, in conjunction with Channel 4. This was to be the final time that ITV broadcast the Olympic Games, and Channel 4's only broadcast of the Olympics. ITV shows daytime coverage while Channel 4 airs the overnight and breakfast coverage.
20 September – Death, at the age of 54, of actor Roy Kinnear, who the previous day had 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 died from a heart attack, brought on by his injuries.[57]
30 September – Television presenters Mike Smith and Sarah Greene are seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Gloucestershire.[58]
5 October – ITV begins airing the Australian soap Richmond Hill in a 2:00pm 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 Australia's Channel Ten in 1989.
19 October – Home SecretaryDouglas 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 Independent Broadcasting Authority prohibiting the broadcast of direct statements by representatives or supporters of 11 Irish political and military organisations.[61][62]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. The restrictions – targeted primarily at Sinn Féin – means that actors are used to speak the words of any representative interviewed for radio and television.[63]
23 October – Final broadcast of Channel 4's groundbreaking youth music and current affairs programme Network 7.
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.
30 October –
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.
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 oppositionLabour Party condemning the government's decision over the broadcasting ban as "incompatible with a free society" is rejected, despite some Conservative MPs voting with Labour.[65]
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.[66]
15 November – Premiere of an educational documentary series called 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 favourite Fireman Sam is played in Singapore for the first time with the series being shown on MediaCorp Channel 5.
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.[72] 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 had 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.[73]
December
1 December – ITV's ORACLE Teletext service launches Park Avenue, a teletext based soap opera. It is written by Robert Burns and runs until ORACLE loses its franchise at the end of 1992.
11 December – Launch date of the Astra Satellite. The satellite 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 United Kingdom, United States 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, is broadcast by ITV as part of its Christmas Day line up.
Christmas Day highlights on BBC1 include the British television premieres of Back to the Future and Silverado
26–30 December – As part of a Christmas special, Channel 4 soap Brookside airs five episodes over five consecutive days.[4]
28 December – BBC1 airs the first part of the Australian film Bushfire Moon.[80] The second part is shown on 30 December.[81]
29 December – British television debut of Gremlins on ITV.
30 December – Channel 4 airs "The Cotton Collection", an evening of archive classics 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.
^(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.
^Brown, Maggie (23 July 2010). "Channel Five: a timeline". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Archived from the original on 2018-11-22. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
