1988 in Australian television

• 1 January – Australia Live, a four-hour celebration welcoming a year of celebrations for Australia's bicentennial of European settlement airs on the ABC, SBS, the Nine Network and regional solus stations. It also aired in the U.S. on A&E.
• 2 January – Imparja starts broadcasting to remote Central Australia via satellite It would have its official launch on 15 January.
• 17 January – The first episode of Home and Away one of the longest running Australian TV soaps since Neighbours airs on Seven Network
• 24 January – Ten launches Richmond Hill, a Grundy Organisation production, created by Reg Watson. Billed as a sister-soap to Neighbours, it airs on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 19:30-20:30.
• January – Five months after Countdown's demise, Molly Meldrum returns to television and joins Nine's Hey Hey It's Saturday as part of the weekly Molly's Melodrama segment.
• 18 January – A Current Affair launches on the Nine Network after a ten-year absence, hosted by Jana Wendt.
• 24 January – Network Ten unveils new logo, the "X" logo.
• February – Seven Network launches Family Feud.
• 8 February – Canadian teen drama series Degrassi Junior High, the second in the Degrassi trilogy series debuts on the ABC.
• 16 February – The Comedy Company starring Mark Mitchell (Con The Fruitier), Glenn Robbins (Uncle Arthur), Mary-Anne Fahey (Kylie Mole), Ian McFayden, Kim Gyngell (Col'n Carpenter), Chris Keogh, Russell Gilbert, Siobhan Tuke, Paula Gardener and Peter Rowsthorn debuts on Channel Ten (1988–1990).
• 7 March – The ABC begins airing their only Rankin/Bass animated series, The Comic Strip.
• 12 March – Nine Network broadcasts its Australian premiere of the American police procedural television series 21 Jump Street.
• 20 March – The Nine Network takes over the Rugby league rights from Network Ten, which they continue to broadcast to the present day.
• 26 March – In Neighbours, Daphne Clarke becomes the first character in history to die to do so after being in a coma in a car crash four months earlier.
• 28 March – The ABC's current affairs program Four Corners presents a television special called Wither the ABC? which was a debate over the future direction of the national broadcaster. Hosted by Andrew Olle there will be interviews with ABC managing director David Hill, Gareth Evans, Max Walsh, Terry Hayes, Peter Luck and Ted Thomas.
• 28 March – Blah Blah Blah a new Australian comedy series premieres on Australian Broadcasting Corporation at 9:50pm and at 10:45pm. It was hosted by Andrew Denton which also marked his very first hosting role.
• 18 April – The ABC launches an afternoon block for younger children at 4:30 pm called Stop at this Station. This block will include animated television series from overseas such as Alias the Jester and the live-action series Tales from Fat Tulip's Garden.
• 25 April – The 10:30 pm timeslot becomes an unlikely battle ground as Graham Kennedy returns to the Nine Network after a 13 years absence to co-host Graham Kennedy's News Show (re-titled Graham Kennedy's Coast to Coast when the show returns for 1989) up against Seven Network's Newsworld with Clive Robertson and Network Ten's Late Night Australia with Don Lane.
• 29 April – QSTV (now Seven Central) starts broadcasting to remote Eastern Australia via satellite.
• 20 May – Perth's third commercial television station NEW-10 opens, giving Perth the same number of stations as the eastern states.
• 18 May – In Neighbours, Madge Mitchell and Harold Bishop marry.
• 20 June – ABC debuts a new children's sketch TV series called Swap Shop (based on the British Saturday Morning children's programme of the same name) at 4:30 pm.
• June – After six months of middling ratings, Ten Network cancels struggling soap opera, Richmond Hill, with production ending later in the year. Coincidentally, the new serial had just been purchased by the ITV network for broadcast in the United Kingdom.
• 17 July – In Neighbours, this was Charlene Robinson's final episode. Kylie Minogue leaves the show to focus on her recently launched recording career.
• 10 September – Brisbane's TVQ-0 becomes TVQ-10. On the same day, Toowoomba's DDQ-10 became DDQ-0.
• October – Lee Lin Chin defects from ABC Local Radio and moves to SBS Television.
• 3 October – Long running Australian soap opera Home and Away starts airing on Network 2 (originally RTÉ2) in Ireland.
• 5 October – Ten Network's soap opera, Richmond Hill, launches on the ITV network in Britain. Originally intended to air early evening across the country, its cancellation in Australia leads to it airing in a graveyard mid-afternoon slot and it makes no impact whatsoever.
• 24-25 October – In Neighbours, Mrs. Mangel marries Englishman John Worthington, immigrate to the UK and lived happily ever after.
• 31 October – The British long running science fiction series Doctor Who returns to the ABC with the very first serial of Season 24 Time and the Rani, which marked the first episode to star Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor. Because the show is no longer airing at an early evening timeslot, it now airs as part of the hit weekday afternoon magazine series The Afternoon Show at 5:30 pm. The show will also end on 23 November with the last part of Remembrance of the Daleks to celebrate the series' 25th anniversary.
• November – Australian soap opera Home and Away airs on television in Canada for the first time on the country's already newly launched cable television channel YTV.
• 4 November – In Neighbours, Bronwyn Davies (Rachel Friend) and Henry Ramsay (Craig McLachlan) get together.
• Christopher Skase buys Perth's TVW-7 & SAS-7 from Alan Bond's Bell Group for $130 million, meaning that all stations in the Seven Network were owned by the one company for the first time.
• 12 December – Final episode of Neighbours for 1988 airs on Network Ten with a Ramsay Street Christmas Party and Jane Harris proposes to Mark Granger.

This is a list of programs which made their premiere on an Australian television network that had previously premiered on another Australian television network. The networks involved in the switch of allegiances are predominantly both free-to-air networks or both subscription television networks. Programs that have their free-to-air/subscription television premiere, after previously premiering on the opposite platform (free-to air to subscription/subscription to free-to air) are not included. In some cases, programs may still air on the original television network. This occurs predominantly with programs shared between subscription television networks.

International

Program	New network(s)	Previous network(s)	Date
It Ain't Half Hot Mum	Seven Network	ABC TV	23 February
/ Zoom the White Dolphin	SBS TV	ABC TV	13 July
Who Will Comfort Toffle?	ABC TV	SBS TV	29 August
Murder She Wrote	Network Ten	Nine Network	29 December

• 1988 in Australia
• List of Australian films of 1988