1983 in British television

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

List of years in British television (table)
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Events

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.
  • 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
  • 1 February – TV-am launches on ITV at 6am, with Daybreak and Good Morning Britain.
  • 4 February – The US sitcom Cheers, starring Ted Danson makes its UK debut on Channel 4.
  • 6 February – The Australian soap opera Sons and Daughters makes its UK debut when Central becomes the first ITV region to begin showing the programme. All other ITV regions soon follow suit.
  • 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 was first broadcast on BBC1, The Mr Men Series was also broadcast on BBC1 for reruns, however, only 13 episodes were broadcast due to the first 13 Little Miss books were released.
  • 17 February – Woodland Animations introduces a new stop-motion animated series, Gran, on BBC1, following the success of Postman Pat.
  • 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 from other ITV regions, with STV not broadcasting the hit series until the 5th 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 was 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.[2][3]
    • BBC1 begins broadcasting a 30 minute Ceefax slot prior to the start of Breakfast Time. It is called Ceefax AM.[4] It is first mentioned in Radio Times on 21 March.[5]

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.[6][7][8] 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.[9] Created by David Claridge and launched by TV-am children's editor Anne Wood to entertain younger viewers during the Easter holidays,[10][11] Roland is generally regarded as TV-am's saviour, being described as "the only rat to join a sinking ship".[12]
  • 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 os 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.
  • 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.[13]
  • 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.[14]
  • 29 April – Michael Parkinson is appointed to TV-am's board of directors.[15]
  • 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, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Siobhan Redmond and Emma Thompson. It was named after the Italian word meaning "in the fresh air", unusual for a comedy sketch show of the time.
  • 2 May – From this day, Ceefax pages are broadcast during all daytime downtime although BBC2 continues to fully close down 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 and 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.[16]
  • 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.[17]
  • 23 May – TV-am's new look begins as Daybreak is axed,[18] 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.[19]
  • 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.

June

July
  • 16 July – Debut of The Mad Death on BBC1, the three-part series examined the effects of an outbreak of rabies in the United Kingdom and was 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.
  • 27–28 August – BBC2 Rocks Around the Clock for the first time by broadcasting non-stop music programmes all day and also all night.[23]
  • 29 August – The game show Blockbusters is launched on ITV, presented by Bob Holness and features sixth-form students as contestants.

September
  • 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".[24]
  • 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.[25][26]
  • 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 was 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 became so popular it was spawned into merchandising and was 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 was Anderson's first in over a decade to use puppets for its characters and made use of latex Muppet-style hand puppets to animate the characters in a process Anderson dubbed "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 meters) wide had been required due to the channel being broadcast via the Orbital Test Satellite.[27]
  • 24 October – Sixty Minutes launches on BBC1, replacing Nationwide but ended less than a year later.
  • 25 October – BBC1 starts airing the seventh season of the US drama series Dallas.[28]

November
  • 3 November – The network television premiere of Battlestar Galactica The Movie on ITV. Unbilled as such, this was 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.[29]
  • 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, offered the answer to the first three questions, it scored zero for the first two questions and 21 points for the third question. 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 show the programme two days before the UK on the 23rd 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, 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; Browne stars as herself.
  • 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,[30] an all-time high for a British children's programme.

December

Debuts

BBC1

BBC2

ITV

Channel 4

Television shows

Changes of network affiliation
Shows Moved from Moved to
Des O'Connor Tonight BBC1 ITV
BBC Schools and Colleges programmes BBC2
Tell the Truth ITV Channel 4
WKRP in Cincinnati

Continuing television shows

1920s
  • BBC Wimbledon (1927–1939, 1946–2019, 2021–present)

1930s
  • The Boat Race (1938–1939, 1946–2019)
  • BBC Cricket (1939, 1946–1999, 2020–2024)

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

Ending this year

Births

Deaths
DateNameAgeCinematic Credibility
2 January Dick Emery 67 comedian and actor
Olive Mercer 78 actress (Dad's Army)
10 January Ewan Roberts 68 actor
27 February Ruth Dunning 73 actress
5 March Rex Jameson 58 comedian
27 March James Hayter 75 actor
30 March Tony Sympson 76 actor
31 March Stephen Murray 70 actor
1 April John R. Buckmaster 67 actor
17 April Thomas L. Thomas 72 television singer (The Voice of Firestone)
22 May John Barrett 73 actor
6 June Ambrose Coghill 79 actor (The Stalls of Barchester, Six Days of Justice)
17 June George Benson 72 actor (The Forsyte Saga)
18 June Derek Godfrey 59 actor (Danger Man)
22 June Daphne Heard 78 actress (To the Manor Born)
21 July Norman Chappell 57 actor
29 July David Niven 73 actor
1 August Peter Arne 58 actor
10 October Ralph Richardson 80 actor
20 October Peter Dudley 48 actor (Coronation Street)
15 November John Le Mesurier 71 actor (Dad's Army)
4 December Maurice Browning 64 actor
22 December Charles Lloyd-Pack 81 actor
24 December Alan Melville 73 television screenwriter and actor
26 December Violet Carson 85 actress (Coronation Street)
29 December Janet Webb 53 actress (Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies)

See also

References
  1. "1983 : Off The Telly". Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  2. TV-am to start main show earlier. By Kenneth Gosling. The Times (London, England), 25 February 1983; pg. 2;
  3. Breakfast TV battle claims first victim. By Kenneth Gosling. The Times (London, England), Thursday, 17 February 1983; pg. 1
  4. The History of Pages from Ceefax
  5. BBC Genome Project – BBC1 listings 21 March 1983
  6. "Move to oust Jay at ailing TV-am". The Times. London. 18 March 1983. p. 1.
  7. Barker, Dennis; Simpson, David (1983-03-19). "Jay ousted as backers move to save TV-am". The Guardian. London. p. 1.
  8. "TV-am shake-up expected after Peter Jay quits". The Times. 19 March 1983.
  9. "Roland Rat Superstar". Ratfans.com. 1983-04-01. Archived from the original on 2019-09-15. Retrieved 2014-05-20.
  10. "Roland Rat". TV-am. Archived from the original on 2013-10-17. Retrieved 2014-05-20.
  11. "Anne Wood C.B.E. – The Children's Media Foundation". Thechildrensmediafoundation.org. Retrieved 2014-05-20.
  12. Westcott, Matt (12 January 2015). "Car Torque with TV rodent superstar Roland Rat". The Northern Echo. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  13. Gosling, Kenneth (13 April 1983). "Cousin of Aitken is TV-am chief". The Times. London, England. p. 2.
  14. Barker, Dennis; Wainwright, Martin (20 April 1983). "TV-am sacks Ford and Rippon". The Guardian (1959–2003). p. 1.
  15. Gosling, Kenneth (30 April 1983). "Parkinson gets key role in TV-am's future with place on board". The Times. London, England. p. 3.
  16. "Top of the Pops – BBC One London – 5 May 1983". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 6 January 2017.
  17. Transdiffusion Broadcasting System (3 September 2015). "☆ Last IBA Engineering Announcements on ITV – 17 May 1983". Archived from the original on 2021-12-20. Retrieved 14 October 2018 – via YouTube.
  18. Barker, Dennis (21 May 1983). "TV-am ready with its new look". The Guardian.
  19. "New radio show for Wincey Willis". BBC News. BBC. 20 August 2010. Retrieved 20 October 2018.
  20. Scum at 40: still the daddy
  21. News International buys 65% of satellite group. By Bill Johnstone, Electronics Correspondent. The Times, Wednesday, 29 June 1983; pg. 13
  22. Title The franchise affair: creating fortunes and failures in independent televisionAuthors Asa Briggs, Joanna SpicerEdition illustratedPublisher century, 1986Original from the University of MichiganDigitized 9 Oct 2006 ISBN 9780712612012
  23. "BBC Two England – 27 August 1983 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  24. "Ident Central" LWT 1970–1986". Archived from the original on 2019-02-18. Retrieved 2019-02-17.
  25. Broadcast of the Daytime On 2 Information Service
  26. BBC2 Schools and Colleges inc Continuity
  27. TV satellite set for weekend debut. By Bill Johnstone, Electronics Correspondent. The Times, Wednesday, 12 October 1983
  28. "BBC One London - 25 October 1983 - BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk.
  29. "BFI Screenonline: P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang (1982)". www.screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  30. "Cosgrove Hall: 30 years". BBC Manchester. June 2006. Retrieved 2013-10-12.
  31. "The Fog – BBC One London – 21 December 1983 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 14 October 2018.
  32. "Oh God! – BBC Two England – 27 December 1983 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2018-01-13.
  33. "The Nation's Health (screenonline)".
  34. "What the Papers Say in pictures". The Guardian. 29 May 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2022.
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