1984 in British television

Events

January
  • 4 January – Pat Phoenix leaves Coronation Street for the second and final time as Elsie Tanner goes to live with old flame Bill Gregory in Portugal, having been in the show since its inception in 1960.
  • 7 January –
  • 9 January – Children's animated series Towser premieres on ABC in Australia, several months before airing in its country of origin.
  • 16 January – "The Satellite Channel" is renamed "Sky Channel".
  • 30 January – The BBC's Panorama documentary strand broadcasts "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 damages.[2]

February

March

April
  • 5 April – Industrial action by members of the Entertainments Trade Alliance results on all of today's BBC1 programmes being cancelled.
  • 15 April – Comedian and magician Tommy Cooper dies from a fatal heart attack on live television at the age of 63, during Live From Her Majesty's.
  • 21 April – The Saturday Picture Show replaces Get Set as the BBC's summer Saturday morning magazine programme. Its running time is extended and begins at the earlier time of 8.45 am.
  • 28 April – ITV broadcasts the first episode of Robin of Sherwood starring Michael Praed as Robin Hood.

May
  • 10 May–14 June – First run of the five-part BBC Schools French language adventure series La Marée et ses Secrets (The Tide and its Secrets), which is repeated each year until 1993.[4]

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 in America.
  • 7 June – The first edition of Crimewatch UK is broadcast on BBC1.[5] 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,[6] and sentenced to life imprisonment in January 2010 after pleading guilty.[7]
  • 23 June – ITV broadcasts 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 air.
  • 28–29 July – BBC2 hosts Jazz on a Summer's Day, a weekend of programmes devoted to jazz music.[8]
  • 28 July–12 August – BBC Television broadcasts the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. Due to the Games taking place in Los Angeles, the BBC stays on 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 5.40 pm. The regional news programmes follow, broadcasting for 20 minutes from 5.55 pm. This is a stop-gap measure and continues for five weeks until the launch of BBC1's new teatime newshour.
  • 30 July - ITV begins broadcast of the US Sci-fi miniseries V and V The Final Battle 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 4 am. Rather than closing down, the BBC fills 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.[9] This is the first time that Ceefax pages are broadcast overnight.
  • 25–26 August – For the second time, BBC2 Rocks Around the Clock.[10]
  • 27 August – Technicians at Thames Television 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.[11] Management and administration staff take over their roles, broadcasting a skeleton service.[12]

September

October
  • October – BBC2 launches a full afternoon service, consisting primarily of repeats of Dallas and old feature films.[14]
  • 5 October –
    • The very first television programme produced by Maddocks Cartoon Productions The Family-Ness begins on BBC1.
    • BBC2 broadcasts an Open University programme at teatime for the final time.
  • 6 October – TVTimes Magazine is rebranded back to its original TVTimes name.
  • 7 October–December – Pirate television station Thameside TV broadcasts illicitly from south London.[15]
  • 8 October – The Australian soap Prisoner: Cell Block H makes its British television 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.[16]
    • Pirate television station Channel 36 'Late Night London Television' (run by Waveview Holdings) begins broadcasting illicitly.[15]
  • 9 October – The television series based on the children's books by the Rev. Wilbert Awdry and narrated by Ringo Starr, Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends is first broadcast on ITV, becoming one of the most successful children's TV programmes of all time since Postman Pat on the BBC three years prior. The programme would move to one future station Cartoon Network in the mid 90s, before returning to terrestrial television in 2003 and moving to its new permanent future station Channel 5 three years later.
  • 12 October - ITV begins broadcasting the US television series Airwolf.
  • 15 October – Channel 4's output increases by 25%. The weekday schedules now begin at 2.30 pm instead of 5:00 pm, while weekend airtime starts at 1:00 pm rather than 2:00 pm.[17]
  • 16 October – The Bill, a police TV drama, airs for the first time on ITV. It debuted last year as a pilot show Wooden Top.[18] 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 Thames Television over the same issue which unions went on strike six weeks earlier, and also over new technologies.
    • 19 October – A management-operated schedule is introduced. 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 were left with a blue screen showing their upcoming emergency schedule. And with no access to ITN News, Thames viewers had to make do with short Thames 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.[19]
    • Yorkshire Television broadcasts a special documentary on the birth of Prince Harry.
  • 23 October – BBC News newsreader 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 7 million people.

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 agreed to the new conditions, while the ACTT agreed as well to start negotiations about the introductions of new technology. Additional episodes of network productions were screened to help clear the backlog.[20]
  • 7 November – BBC1 airs season 8 of the US drama series Dallas.
  • 21 November – BBC1 Debut of Alan Seymour's dramatisation of the John Masefield fantasy adventure novel The Box of Delights.[21] The six part series concludes on Christmas Eve.[22]

December

Unknown
  • Telstar TV, the UK's first pirate television station goes on 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 pop videos after BBC2 closes at weekends. It goes unnoticed by the authorities for several weeks much to their embarrassment.[27]

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

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
11 February John Comer 59 actor (Sid in Last of the Summer Wine)
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)
31 March Jack Howarth actor (Albert Tatlock in Coronation Street)
15 April Tommy Cooper 63 comedian and magician
4 May Diana Dors 52 actress (Queenie's Castle,Just William, The Two Ronnies.)
27 May Reginald Bosanquet 51 journalist and newsreader, presented News at Ten during the 1970s
28 May Eric Morecambe 58 comedian (Morecambe and Wise)
12 August Christine Hargreaves 45 actress (Christine Appleby in Coronation Street)
27 August Bernard Youens 69 actor (Stan Ogden in Coronation Street)
27 September Toke Townley 71 actor (Sam Pearson in Emmerdale)
6 October Leonard Rossiter 57 actor (Rising Damp, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin)
10 October Alan Lake 43 actor
15 December Lennard Pearce 69 actor (Grandad in Only Fools and Horses)

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. "The Price is Right". UKGameshows. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  4. "La Marée et ses Secrets". BroadcastForSchools.co.uk. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
  5. BBC Programme Index BBC1 7th June 1984
  6. "Man remanded in 1983 death case". BBC News. 9 April 2009. Archived from the original on 11 April 2009. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
  7. "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.
  8. "BBC Two England – 28 July 1984 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  9. BBC Genome Project - BBC1 listings 3 August 1984
  10. "BBC Two England – 25 August 1984 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  11. "Thames strike caption (27 August 1984)". YouTube. Archived from the original on 7 May 2009. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
  12. Cherry, Simon (2005). ITV: The People's Channel. London: Reynolds and Hearn. p. 196. ISBN 9781903111987.
  13. "Threads – BBC Two England – 23 September 1984 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  14. "Schedule - BBC Programme Index". BBC Programme Index. Retrieved 12 March 2022.
  15. Ricketts, Ben (March 2022). "Anarchy over the airwaves". Best of British: 58–60.
  16. Docherty, Gavin (8 October 1984). "Kelly gets his eye in". Evening Times.
  17. "1984 : Off The Telly". Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  18. "The Bill". tv.com. Retrieved 19 October 2012.
  19. Rodger, Gary (29 November 2019). "Carry On Euston".
  20. TV film editors end strike. Barker, Dennis The Guardian (1959–2003); 3 November 1984
  21. "The Box of Delights – BBC One London – 21 November 1984 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  22. "The Box of Delights – BBC One London – 24 December 1984 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  23. "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.
  24. "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.
  25. "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.
  26. "Kramer vs Kramer – BBC One London – 30 December 1984 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  27. 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.
  28. "What the Papers Say in pictures". The Guardian. 29 May 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2022.
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