1979 in British television

This is a list of British television related events from 1979.

List of years in British television (table)
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Events

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January

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  • 2 January
  • 3 January – The children's series The Book Tower makes its debut on ITV, featuring dramatizations of books as well as interviews with authors.
  • 3 January – ITV programming resumes in the Yorkshire Television region at 5.45pm, with the station off air for the previous 17 days due to industrial action.
  • 6 January – The US police series CHiPs makes its debut on ITV.
  • 16 January – David Attenborough's innovative nature documentary Life on Earth debuts on BBC2.
  • 18 January – The long-running game show Blankety Blank makes its debut on BBC1, presented by Terry Wogan.
  • 28 January – Thomas & Sarah, a spin-off of Upstairs, Downstairs, makes its debut on ITV. It runs for only one series.

February

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March

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April

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  • No events.
  • 3–4 May – BBC1 and ITV air coverage of the 1979 General Election which is won by the Conservatives and sees Margaret Thatcher become the first female Prime Minister of the UK.[1] The election sees both the Conservatives and Labour include plans for a fourth channel in their election manifestos. Labour favours an Open Broadcasting Authority community service aimed at minority groups while the Conservatives plan is for the channel to be given to ITV, but expresses a preference for a fourth channel to be an independent entity.[2] Both parties also pledge to launch a separate Welsh language television service for Wales.[3]
  • 21 May – John Craven's Newsround goes on its Summer break as it has done since its launch in 1972. When it returns on 10 September, it will run all year round.

June

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  • 9 June – Debut of the long-running entertainment series The Paul Daniels Magic Show on BBC1 which goes on to attract an audience of 15 million viewers.
  • June – BBC2 launches the world's first computer-generated ident, the 'Computer Generated 2'.

July

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August

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  • 6 August
    • Technicians at Thames go on strike following a long-running dispute.[4]
    • Debut of the motocross game show Kick Start on BBC1.
    • A Picture of Tom Keating is rebroadcast with a new sequence covering Keating's trial in February.
  • 10 August – The whole of the ITV network, except Channel Television, is affected by a technicians strike for eleven weeks.
  • 25 August – BBC1 show the 1966 Batman movie. This is the first UK wide broadcast after previously being shown on only a select few ITV regions.
  • 27 August – Lord Mountbatten of Burma is murdered by a Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb. His death sets a record audience for a news bulletin as 26 million viewers watch the coverage on BBC1. Strike action at ITN has led to the record viewing figures.

September

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October

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November

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  • 16 November – The Japanese martial arts fantasy series Monkey makes its debut on BBC2 with dubbed English dialogue.

December

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Unknown

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Debuts

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BBC1

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BBC2

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BBC Scotland

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Television shows

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Changes of network affiliation

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Shows Moved from Moved to
Noggin the Nog BBC One BBC Two

Returning this year after a break of one year or longer

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Continuing television shows

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1920s

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

1930s

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  • Trooping the Colour (1937–1939, 1946–2019, 2023–present)
  • The Boat Race (1938–1939, 1946–2019, 2021–present)
  • BBC Cricket (1939, 1946–1999, 2020–2024)

1940s

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1950s

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1960s

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1970s

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Ending this year

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Births

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Deaths

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Date Name Age Cinematic Credibility
16 January Peter Butterworth 63 actor (Carry On, Doctor Who)
28 February Jane Hylton 51 actress (The Adventures of Sir Lancelot)
6 March John Robinson 70 actor (Quatermass II)
19 March Richard Beckinsale 31 actor
24 March Yvonne Mitchell 63 actress (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
30 May Jack Raine 82 actor
4 July Marjorie Rhodes 82 actress
6 July Malcolm Hulke[9] 54 screenwriter (Doctor Who)
7 July Ian Mackintosh[10] 39 TV writer (air crash; disappeared, presumed dead)
24 July Archie Duncan 65 actor (Little John in The Adventures of Robin Hood)
23 August Richard Hearne 71 comic performer ("Mr Pastry")
7 September Alan Browning 53 actor (Coronation Street)
23 September Catherine Lacey[11] 75 actress
20 November Michael Darbyshire 62 actor (Rentaghost)
30 November Joyce Grenfell 69 actress, comedian and singer-songwriter

See also

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References

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  1. ^ ""Election victory for Margaret Thatcher" BBC On This Day". BBC News. 1979-05-04. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
  2. ^ Hastings, David (18 November 2007). "Launch of a Revolution – C4/S4C". Transdiffusion Broadcasting System. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
  3. ^ a b Hancock, Dafydd. "A channel for Wales". EMC Seefour. Transdiffusion Broadcasting System. Archived from the original on 4 March 2009.
  4. ^ Aylett, Glenn. "Talk of Thames: Strike Out". Transdiffusion Broadcasting System. Archived from the original on 2009-08-04. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
  5. ^ "Britain's Most Watched TV – the 1980s". British Film Institute. 2006-09-04. Archived from the original on 2005-11-22. Retrieved 2011-12-23.
  6. ^ "Channel 4's 25 year Anniversary" (PDF). Channel 4. 2007. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
  7. ^ "The Tuesday Film: Gawain and the Green Knight – BBC One London – 18 December 1979 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
  8. ^ "What the Papers Say in pictures". The Guardian. 29 May 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2022.
  9. ^ "Malcolm Hulke". randomhouse.co.uk. Archived from the original on 10 December 2015. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  10. ^ "Did spy writer's disappearance mirror his fiction?", John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier, 3 January 2013 Archived 15 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 2 April 2015
  11. ^ John Parker (ed), Who's Who in the Theatre 15th edition, Pitman Publishing 1972.
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