List of years in British television (table)
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This is a list of British television related events from 1980.

Events

January

  • 1 January – The sitcom, Hi-de-Hi!, set in a holiday camp in 1959/60 makes its debut on BBC1.[1]
  • 6 January – Debut of the game show Family Fortunes on ITV, presented by Bob Monkhouse.
  • 20 January – The largest ever British TV audience for a film is recorded when some 23,500,000 viewers tune in for the ITV showing of the James Bond film Live and Let Die, released in 1973 and starring Roger Moore, making his debut as Ian Fleming's secret agent 007.[2]
  • 24 January – The Independent Broadcasting Authority announces that in the next ITV franchising round it will offer a national licence for breakfast television on ITV.
  • 26 January – ITV show the feature length pilot episode of Hart to Hart, starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers.
  • 28 January – The first edition of Newsnight is broadcast on BBC2.[3] Its launch has been delayed for four months by the Association of Broadcasting Staff, at this time the main BBC trade union.[4]

February

  • 1 February – Debut of the game show Play Your Cards Right on ITV, presented by Bruce Forsyth.[5]
  • 10 February – London Weekend Television launches Gay Life, a late night regional series for gay viewers airing on Sundays. It is the first UK television series specifically aimed at a gay audience and is aired for two series in 1980 and 1981.[6]
  • 19 February – Debut of the Scottish Television produced soap opera Take the High Road on ITV.
  • 25 February – The political sitcom Yes Minister makes its debut on BBC2 with the episode "Open Government".[7]

March

  • 12 March – The very first in-vision Ceefax transmissions is broadcast on BBC1[8] between 8:30am and 9am. In-vision teletext broadcasts on BBC2 start shortly after, airing between 10 and 10:30am and 3:30 and 4pm although if BBC2 were to be transmitting programmes at these times, the channel would broadcast Ceefax pages for the 30 minutes prior to the start of the first programme. These broadcasts are shown only on weekdays.

April

  • 2 April – Violet Carson makes her last appearance as Ena Sharples on Coronation Street.
  • 8 April – Decided by the IBA, weekly episodes of Crossroads are now reduced from four to three, Tuesday to Thursdays. Starting from that day, ATV had planned to replace the fourth episode with a spin-off series called A Family Affair but the idea was dropped.
  • 9 April – ITV airs the critically acclaimed Death of a Princess, a drama documentary about a young princess from a fictitious Middle-Eastern Islamic nation and her lover who are publicly executed for adultery. The drama is believed to be based on the true story of Princess Misha'al bint Fahd al Saud and its showing causes a great deal of controversy, provoking an angry response from the Government of Saudi Arabia.
  • 12 April – The comedy sketch show Russ Abbot's Madhouse makes its debut on ITV.
  • 17 April – BBC1 begin showing the US sitcom Taxi, starring Judd Hirsch, Danny DeVito, Andy Kaufman and Christopher Lloyd.
  • 26 April – The Dallas spin-off series Knots Landing makes its debut on BBC1. It is shown on the same time slot where Dallas itself had been shown.
  • 28 April – Thames launches its long-awaited late night Thames News bulletin to follow News at Ten, the launch having been postponed from September 1978 due to union problems.

May

  • 5 May – Both the BBC and ITV interrupt their scheduled programming to live broadcast footage of the SAS assault which ends the Iranian Embassy siege in London. The coverage launches the careers of several journalists such as the BBC's Kate Adie, while ITN Director, David Goldsmith and his team receive a BAFTA for their coverage.
  • 22 May – Blue Peter interviews two of the stars of The Empire Strikes Back, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. Hamill goes on to name the next Star Wars movie (Revenge of the Jedi) as well as an accurate prediction on the eventual prequels almost two decades later.
  • 24 May – The fantasy game show The Adventure Game makes its debut on BBC1.
  • 26 May – BBC1 airs the third-season finale of the US drama series Dallas two months after its US airing in which J. R. Ewing is shot by an unknown assailant in his office; this leads to the Who shot J.R.? phenomenon which lasts until November 1980 when the series returns for the fourth season.

June

July

  • 19 July–3 August – The BBC and ITV provide live coverage of the 1980 Summer Olympics from Moscow.

August

September

  • 4 September – The US science-fiction series Battlestar Galactica makes its debut on ITV.
  • 6 September
    • BBC2 launches a computer generated clock, probably the first in the world,[9] although ATV has an electronic digital timepiece by this time, the digits are electronically superimposed onto a physical "ATV – COLOUR" caption.
    • The family comedy series Metal Mickey makes its debut on ITV in which a five foot silver robot becomes the member of a household. The show attracts an audience of 12 million viewers.
  • 8 September – Watchdog is launched as a weekly consumer slot on BBC1's news magazine programme Nationwide. It becomes a series in its own right in 1985.[10]
  • 13 September – ITV begin showing Hammer House of Horror, the supernatural annthology series produced by Hammer Films.
  • 17 September – The government reverses its position on the establishment of a separate Welsh language television service for Wales following opposition from the public and Welsh politicians and the idea is given the green light. This leads to the establishment of the Welsh Fourth Channel Authority and ultimately S4C.[11]
  • 19 September – Regional peak time continuity on BBC1 ends and with it the weeknight closedown regional news bulletin.
  • September – Edmund Dell is appointed as the chairman of Channel 4, the UK's forthcoming fourth channel while Jeremy Isaacs becomes its chief executive.[12]

October

  • 1 October – BBC1's lunchtime children's block is now called See Saw.[13]
  • 2 October – Thames airs a 10-hour Telethon to raise money for good causes in the London area.

November

  • 9 November – BBC1 starts airing season 4 of the US drama series Dallas.
  • 13 November
    • The Broadcasting Act 1980 paves the way for a fourth UK television service, leading to creation of Channel 4 and S4C in Wales, beginning transmission in 1982. The IBA begins the process of creating Channel 4 as a subsidiary: a subscription will be levied on the ITV companies to pay for the channel and they will sell Channel 4's airtime in return.[12]
    • The Times reports that News International has sold its remaining 25% stake in London Weekend Television, bringing an end to LWT's connection with Australian businessman Rupert Murdoch.[14]
  • 17 November – BBC1 debut the Jackanory spin off series Spine Chillers, in which a various actors read ghost stories from authors such as H. G. Wells and M. R. James.
  • 21 November
    • The first annual Children in Need charity appeal is broadcast on BBC1. Although it does not broadcast the full evening until 1984, it is a series of short segments linking the evening's programmes.[15]
  • 22 November
    • 21.5 million viewers tune in to watch the episode of Dallas which answers the question of Who shot J.R.? less than 18 hours after its showing in the United States, At this time the audience figures are a record for a soap in Britain.[16][17]
  • 24 November – The US sitcom Diff'rent Strokes makes its UK debut on ITV, starring Gary Coleman with his catchphrase "What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

December

Unknown

Debuts

BBC1

BBC2

ITV

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

Ending this year

Births

Deaths

DateNameAgeCinematic Credibility
9 January Charles Curran 58 television executive
24 January Sam Leitch 52 television presenter
25 January Queenie Watts 56 actress
4 February David Whitaker 51 television screenwriter
8 February Leslie Welch 72 television entertainer
9 February Heron Carvic 67 actor
Renée Houston 77 actress
24 March John Barrie 62 actor
31 March John Nightingale 37 actor
1 April Joyce Heron 63 actress
11 April Nicholas Phipps 66 actor
15 April Catherine Salkeld 70 actress
26 April Cicely Courtneidge 87 actress
14 May Hugh Griffith 67 film, stage and television actor
23 June John Laurie 83 actor (Dad's Army)
24 July Peter Sellers 54 comic actor (Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther)
21 August Norman Shelley 77 actor
24 August Yootha Joyce 53 actor (Man About the House, George and Mildred)
19 September Jacky Gillott 40 television presenter
6 October Hattie Jacques 58 comic actress
12 October Ambrosine Phillpotts 68 actress
20 October Isobel Barnett 62 broadcast personality (What's My Line?)
29 October Ouida MacDermott 91 actress
3 November Dennis Burgess 54 actor
8 November Julian Wintle 67 television producer
10 November Patrick Campbell 67 television personality (Call My Bluff)
16 November Imogen Hassall 38 actress
26 November Rachel Roberts 53 actress
Hector Ross 66 actor
25 December Fred Emney 78 actor and comedian

See also

References

  1. "Hi De Hi – BBC One London – 1 January 1980 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  2. 1 2 "James Bond On TV – Movies". MI6 – The Home Of James Bond 007. 5 April 2011. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  3. "Newsnight – BBC Two England – 28 January 1980 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  4. Andrew Billen "Flagship sails on" Archived 27 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine, New Statesman, 7 February 2000
  5. "Play Your Cards Right". UKGameshows.com. Retrieved 18 August 2017.
  6. Glyn Davis; Gary Needham (3 December 2008). Queer TV: Theories, Histories, Politics. Routledge. pp. 109–. ISBN 978-1-134-05856-3.
  7. "Yes Minister – BBC Two England – 25 February 1980 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  8. On This Day in History 12th March 2021
  9. BBC Two Clock Goes Electronic
  10. "Nationwide – BBC One London – 8 September 1980 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  11. Hancock, Dafydd. "A channel for Wales". EMC Seefour. Transdiffusion Broadcasting System. Archived from the original on 4 March 2009.
  12. 1 2 "Channel 4's 25 year Anniversary" (PDF). Channel 4. 2007. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
  13. "See-Saw – BBC One London – 1 October 1980 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  14. Peter Wilson-Smith "Murdoch group sells 25pc stake in LWT", The Times, 13 March 1980
  15. "BBC Children in Need: Our History". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 23 April 2009.
  16. "Echoes of who shot JR". BBC News. BBC. 5 April 2001. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  17. Bergan, Ronald (24 November 2012). "Larry Hagman obituary". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 8 June 2013.
  18. BBC Genome Project BBC1 Scotland listings 1 December 1980
  19. "Play for Today: The Flipside of Dominick Hide – BBC One London – 9 December 1980 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  20. "Green light for breakfast television". BBC On This Day. 28 December 1980. Retrieved 15 May 2009.
  21. "Listings Monday, 14th April 1980". TVRDB. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
  22. "What the Papers Say in pictures". The Guardian. 29 May 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2022.
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