1984 in British television

This is a list of British television related events from 1984.

List of years in British television (table)
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Events

January
  • 4 January – Pat Phoenix leaves Coronation Street for the second and final time as Elsie Tanner as she goes to live with old flame Bill Gregory in Portugal, having been in the show since its inception in 1960.
  • 8 January – BBC1 begin showing the romantic US miniseries The Thorn Birds, starring Richard Chamberlain, Rachel Ward and Christopher Plummer.
  • 7 January
    • Fraggle Rock makes its UK debut on ITV, nearly a year after airing in the US and Canada. The series is a co-production by TVS, CBC, HBO and Henson Associates.
    • Daytime Ceefax transmissions are renamed Pages from Ceefax following the decision by Radio Times to begin listing daytime Ceefax broadcasts.[1]
  • 9 January – British-made children's animated series Towser makes its debut on ABC in Australia, several months before debuting in the UK.
  • 16 January – Satellite Television Limited is renamed Sky Channel.
  • 30 January – The BBC's Panorama documentary series airs "Maggie's Militant Tendency" which claims links between several Conservative MPs and far-right organisations both in Britain and Europe. Two of the MPs named, Neil Hamilton and Gerald Howarth subsequently sue the BBC for slander. In 1986, after the BBC withdraws from the case, Hamilton is awarded £20,000 in damages.[2]
  • 31 January – The long-running comedy sketch show Alas Smith and Jones, starring Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones makes its debut on BBC2.

February
  • 6 February – The short-lived American action series Blue Thunder, based on the 1983 hit movie of the same name makes its UK debut on BBC1.
  • 14 February
    • The first of six episodes of Tom Keating On Impressionism, a follow-up to the award-winning Tom Keating On Painters,[3] is broadcast two days after Keating's death, from a heart attack, at age 66.[4]
    • An estimated 24 million viewers watch Torvill and Dean win gold at the 1984 Winter Olympics skating to Ravel's Boléro.
  • 26 February – Debut of the long-running satirical puppet comedy series Spitting Image on ITV.

March

April

May

June
  • 4 June
    • The hit animated series Danger Mouse is broadcast on children's cable network Nickelodeon in the US, becoming the first British cartoon to air on that channel and one of the earliest to be in syndication there.
    • The short-lived American fantasy series Manimal makes its UK debut on BBC1, starring Simon MacCorkindale.
  • 7 June – The first edition of Crimewatch UK is broadcast on BBC1.[7] The first case to be featured on the show is the murder of Colette Aram which had occurred the previous year. A man is finally charged with the murder in 2009[8] and is sentenced to life imprisonment in January 2010 after pleading guilty.[9]
  • 19 June – The final episode of Ben Elton's anarchic comedy series The Young Ones is broadcast on BBC2 in spectacular fashion by blowing up the entire cast after briefly surviving a bus crash.
  • 23 June – ITV airs the rock concert New Brighton Rock recorded at the event staged in the seaside resort of New Brighton, Merseyside over two days on 21 and 22 May.

July
  • 27 July – The final edition of Sixty Minutes is broadcast on BBC1, ending less than a year after it first went on the air.
  • 28–29 July – BBC2 hosts Jazz on a Summer's Day, a weekend of programmes devoted to jazz music.[10]
  • 28 July–12 August – The BBC airs the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. Due to the Games taking place in Los Angeles, BBC1 stays on the air into the night to provide live coverage of the major events.
  • 30 July
    • BBC1's teatime news programme reverts to its original name of Evening News and to its original broadcast time of 5:40pm. The regional news programmes follow broadcasting for 20 minutes from 5:55pm. This is a stop-gap measure and continues for five weeks until the launch of BBC1's new teatime newshour.
    • ITV begins airing the American science-fiction miniseries "V" and "V" The Final Battle. The alien invasion drama starring Marc Singer, Faye Grant and Jane Badler is shown over five consecutive nights.

August
  • 4–12 August – During the second week of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, the BBC extends its live coverage until around 4am. Rather than closing down, they fill the gap with Ceefax Olympics AM which provides news from the Games to fill the gap between the end of live coverage and the start of Olympic Breakfast Time.[11] This is the first time that Ceefax pages are broadcast overnight.
  • 6 August – ITV screen the UK terrestrial premiere of the 1979 horror film The Amityville Horror, starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder.
  • 25–26 August – For the second time, BBC2 Rocks Around the Clock.[12]
  • 27 August
    • The network television premiere of the 1979 gangster film The Long Good Friday on ITV, starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren.
    • Technicians at Thames walk out on strike over the use of new cameras and editing equipment along with overtime payments for transmission staff. The strike lasts for two weeks but the station is off the air for just one day over the August Bank Holiday weekend.[13] Management and administration staff take over their roles, broadcasting a skeleton service.[14]
  • 31 August – ITV begins airing the popular French/American children's cartoon series Inspector Gadget.

September

October
  • 5 October
    • The first programme produced by Maddocks Cartoon Productions The Family-Ness makes its debut on BBC1.
    • BBC2 broadcasts an Open University programme at teatime for the final time.
  • 6 October – TV Times Magazine is rebranded back to its original TV Times name.
  • 7 October–December – Pirate television station Thameside TV broadcasts illicitly from south London.[16]
  • 8 October
    • BBC2 launches a full afternoon service, consisting primarily of repeats of Dallas and old feature films.[17]
    • The Australian soap Prisoner: Cell Block H makes its UK debut when Yorkshire Television becomes the first ITV region to begin airing the programme in a late night slot. It is followed by all other ITV regions over the following five years.
    • Scottish Television relaunches its regional news programme Scotland Today as a features-led magazine format with the news relegated to brief summaries before and after the programme.[18]
    • Pirate television station Channel 36 'Late Night London Television', run by Waveview Holdings, begins broadcasting illicitly.[16]
  • 9 October – The children's series based on the books by the Rev. Wilbert Awdry and narrated by Ringo Starr, Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends makes its debut on ITV, becoming one of the most successful children's TV programmes of all time since Postman Pat first went to air on the BBC three years earlier. The show will move to one future station, Cartoon Network in the mid-1990s, before returning to terrestrial television in 2003 and moving to its new permanent future station Channel 5 three years later.
  • 12 October – The American helicopter action series Airwolf makes its UK debut on ITV, starring Jan-Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine.
  • 15 October – Channel 4's output increases by 25%. The weekday schedules now begin at 2:30pm instead of 5pm while weekend airtime starts at 1pm rather than 2pm.[19]
  • 16 October – The Bill airs for the first time on ITV. It debuted last year as a pilot show Woodentop.[20] When the last episode is shown in 2010, it will be the longest-running police procedural in British television history.
  • 17 October – Another strike begins at Thames over the same issue which unions went on strike six weeks earlier.
  • 19 October
    • A management-operated schedule is introduced on Thames. It broadcasts programming between around 1:30pm and around midnight as well as the ITV breakfast service TV-am. For the intervening four hours, instead of schools programmes, Thames viewers are left with a blue screen showing their upcoming emergency schedule and, with no access to ITN News, Thames viewers have to make do with short news bulletins. Weekend ITV schedules for the London region are not affected by the strike, with London Weekend Television coming on air on Fridays at 5:15pm as usual.[21]
    • Yorkshire Television airs a special documentary on the birth of Prince Harry.
  • 23 October – BBC News presenter Michael Buerk gives a powerful commentary of the famine in Ethiopia which has already claimed thousands of lives and reportedly has the potential to kill as many as seven million people. The news report subsequently leads to the formation of the charity supergroup Band Aid and the No.1 single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" as well as the Live Aid concerts the following year.

November
  • 3 November
    • Following the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 31 October, coverage of her funeral is televised by the BBC and ITV.
    • The strike at Thames Television finally ends, after 62 film editors agree to the new conditions while the ACTT agrees as well to start negotiations about the introductions of new technology. Additional episodes of network productions are screened to help clear the backlog.[22]
  • 7 November – BBC1 starts airing season 8 of the American drama series Dallas.
  • 21 November – Debut of Alan Seymour's dramatisation of the 1935 John Masefield children's fantasy adventure novel The Box of Delights. on BBC1, starring Patrick Troughton and Robert Stephens.[23] The six-part series concludes on Christmas Eve.[24]

December

Unknown
  • Telstar TV, the UK's first pirate television station goes on the air in Birmingham. The channel broadcasts for about eight weeks on the BBC2 transmitter in the Northfield and Rubery areas of the city, showing a mixture of films and music videos after BBC2 closes at weekends. It goes unnoticed by the authorities for several weeks much to their embarrassment.[29]

Debuts

BBC1

BBC2

ITV

Channel 4

Channels

New channels
Date Channel
29 March Music Box
Screensport
The Entertainment Network
1 September The Children's Channel
Premiere

Rebranded channels
Date Old Name New Name
16 January Satellite Television Sky Channel

Television shows

Returning this year after a break of one year or longer
  • 26 March – What's My Line? (1951–1964, 1984–1996)
  • 9 September Thunderbirds (1972–1980, 1984–1987)

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
4 January Jameson Clark 76 actor
11 February John Comer 59 actor (Sid in Last of the Summer Wine)
1 March Roland Culver 83 actor
4 March Geoffrey Lumsden 69 actor (Captain Square in Dad's Army)
12 March Arnold Ridley 88 actor (Private Charles Godfrey in Dad's Army)
17 March John Dearth 63 actor (The Adventures of Robin Hood)
27 March Derek Francis 60 actor
31 March Jack Howarth 88 actor (Albert Tatlock in Coronation Street)
1 April William Kendall 80 actor
15 April Tommy Cooper 63 comedian and magician
26 April Barry Gray 75 theme tune composer
2 May Frank Forsyth 78 actor
4 May Diana Dors 52 actress (Queenie's Castle, Just William, The Two Ronnies)
15 May Mary Adams 86 television producer and director
27 May Reginald Bosanquet 51 journalist and newsreader, presented News at Ten during the 1970s
28 May Eric Morecambe 58 comedian (Morecambe and Wise)
30 May Michael Elliott 52 television director
6 June Edith Sharpe 89 actress
24 June Tommy Godfrey 68 actor
11 July Hugh Morton 81 actor
18 July Lally Bowers 70 actress
23 July Anthony Sharp 69 actor
12 August Christine Hargreaves 45 actress (Christine Appleby in Coronation Street)
27 August Bernard Youens 69 actor (Stan Ogden in Coronation Street)
6 September Donny MacLeod 52 television presenter (Pebble Mill at One)
27 September Toke Townley 71 actor (Sam Pearson in Emmerdale)
5 October Leonard Rossiter 57 actor (Rising Damp, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin)
10 October Alan Lake 43 actor
26 October Noel Howlett 81 actor (Please Sir!)
6 November Seymour de Lotbiniere 79 pioneer of outside broadcasts
20 November Peter Welch 62 actor (Dixon of Dock Green, Spy Trap, Emmerdale)
23 November Margaret Burton 60 actress (The Tomorrow People)
15 December Lennard Pearce 69 actor (Grandad in Only Fools and Horses)
22 December Sidney Vivian 83 actor (Hadleigh)
24 December Ian Hendry 53 actor

See also

References
  1. "BBC Two England – 7 January 1984 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  2. Wilson, Jamie (22 December 1999). "Who will listen to his story now?". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  3. Gosling, Kenneth (18 March 1983). "Channel 4 wins two awards". The Times. p. 5.
  4. "Tom Keating, 66, a Painter; Gained Fame as Art Forger". The New York Times. Associated Press. 14 February 1984. pp. D6. Retrieved 17 April 2023.
  5. "The Price is Right". UKGameshows. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  6. "La Marée et ses Secrets". BroadcastForSchools.co.uk. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
  7. BBC Programme Index BBC1 7th June 1984
  8. "Man remanded in 1983 death case". BBC News. 9 April 2009. Archived from the original on 11 April 2009. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
  9. "Man sentenced to life for 1983 murder of Colette Aramref". BBC News. 25 January 2010. Archived from the original on 28 January 2010. Retrieved 25 January 2010.
  10. "BBC Two England – 28 July 1984 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  11. BBC Genome Project - BBC1 listings 3 August 1984
  12. "BBC Two England – 25 August 1984 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  13. "Thames strike caption (27 August 1984)". YouTube. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
  14. Cherry, Simon (2005). ITV: The People's Channel. London: Reynolds and Hearn. p. 196. ISBN 9781903111987.
  15. "Threads – BBC Two England – 23 September 1984 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  16. Ricketts, Ben (March 2022). "Anarchy over the airwaves". Best of British: 58–60.
  17. "Schedule - BBC Programme Index". BBC Programme Index. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
  18. Docherty, Gavin (8 October 1984). "Kelly gets his eye in". Evening Times.
  19. "1984 : Off The Telly". Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  20. "The Bill". tv.com. Archived from the original on 14 November 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2012.
  21. Rodger, Gary (29 November 2019). "Carry On Euston".
  22. TV film editors end strike. Barker, Dennis The Guardian (1959–2003); 3 November 1984
  23. "The Box of Delights – BBC One London – 21 November 1984 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  24. "The Box of Delights – BBC One London – 24 December 1984 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  25. "Miss Marple: The Body in the Library: Part 1 – BBC One London – 26 December 1984 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  26. "Miss Marple: The Body in the Library: Part 2 – BBC One London – 27 December 1984 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  27. "Miss Marple: The Body in the Library: Part 3 – BBC One London – 28 December 1984 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  28. "Kramer vs Kramer – BBC One London – 30 December 1984 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  29. Minto, Veronica (19 February 1984). "Britain's First Pirate TV Station". West Indian World. No. 650. Freespace.virgin.net. Archived from the original on 17 October 2012. Retrieved 19 February 2012.
  30. "What the Papers Say in pictures". The Guardian. 29 May 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2022.
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