1986 in British television

Events

January

February
  • 19 February –
  • February – For the first (and only) time, animated graphics are seen during teletext transmissions. They are broadcast on Channel 4. This is made possible by transmitting 4-Tel On View from a disc rather than live.

March
  • 5 March – BBC1 airs season 9 of the US drama series Dallas beginning with a feature-length episode.
  • 10 March – The first advert for a sanitary towel is broadcast on British television, on Channel 4.[7]
  • 23 March – The television play "Shergar"—telling the story of the theft of the racehorse Shergar—is aired as part of BBC2's Screen Two anthology series. The film stars Stephen Rea and Gary Waldhorn.[8]
  • 26 March – The series one finale of The ChuckleHounds airs on BBC1 with "Birthday Bother".
  • 30 March – BBC2 airs the TWO ident, which is used until 1991.
  • 31 March – British television premiere of An Officer and a Gentleman on ITV.

April

May

June
  • 3 June – BBC1 begins airing a three-part dramatisation of the Jeffrey Archer novel Kane and Abel.[15] Part Two is shown on 5 June,[16] and Part Three on 6 June.[17]
  • 8 June – Brian Walden presents his final edition of London Weekend Television's political programme, Weekend World after nine years in the role.
  • 9 June – The first Parliamentary review programme is broadcast on BBC Television when the first edition of The Lords This Week is broadcast at 9.20am on BBC2.
  • 15 June – Singer Helen Shapiro joins Granada's Albion Market as hairdresser Viv Harker.
  • 18 June – In Coronation Street the Rovers Return pub is gutted by fire with landlady Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear) trapped inside.
  • 26 June – Britain's most popular long running science fiction series Doctor Who begins its very first screening in the Bahamas on ZNS-TV.

July

August

September
  • 1 September – The very first episode of long running sitcom Brush Strokes goes on the air on BBC1.
  • 2 September – Ahead of the launch of all-day television on BBC1, the weekly magazine programme for Asian women, Gharbar, transfers back to BBC2. The programme moves to a new day and new slot – 9 am on Tuesdays.
  • 6 September –
  • 9 September – The last ever non-stop all-day BBC2 Ceefax transmission takes place.
  • 14 September – Matthew Parris succeeds Brian Walden as presenter of Weekend World.
  • 19 September –
    • Central TV revives New Faces, a 1970s talent show produced by its predecessor, ATV. Styled as New Faces of '86, it is presented by Marti Caine, a winner from the previous version.
    • From today, Channel 4 shows a red triangle at the start of, and during, films with adult themes. The first use of the warning is for the film Themroc, aired at 11:30 pm. After lobbying from newspapers and pressure groups this method of identifying such material was phased out within a year.
  • 20 September – British television premiere of Gordon Carroll's action thriller Blue Thunder on BBC1.[30]
  • 20–21 September – For the third and final time, BBC2 goes Rock Around the Clock.[31]
  • 24 September – Children's television series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends returns for a brand new series on ITV with Ringo Starr returning as narrator once again. The upcoming episodes will also introduce new characters including Trevor, Bill and Ben, Donald and Douglas, Daisy, Diesel, Duck, Boco and Harold.
  • 27 September – BBC1 airs the British television premiere of Jay Sandrich's adventure Seems Like Old Times.[32]

October
  • 4 October – BBC1 airs the British television premiere of Dick Lowry's adventure film Wet Gold.[33]
  • 11 October – British television premiere of Roger Spottiswoode's crime thriller The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper on BBC1.[34]
  • 12 October – "Every Loser Wins" performed by the actor Nick Berry begins a three-week run at the top of the UK Singles Chart after featuring in recent episodes of EastEnders. The song was an instant hit on release and went on to win its writers an Ivor Novello Award.
  • 14 October – BBC2 begins regular late afternoon programming by showing a film during the second half of the gap between the end of Daytime on Two and the start of the evening's programmes.
  • 16 October – The first two-hander episode of EastEnders, featuring Den and Angie Watts (Leslie Grantham and Anita Dobson), is aired by BBC1. The episode, in which Angie tells Den she has six months to live after he tells her he wants a divorce, was an experiment as the two-hander format had not been tried in a British soap before, but received well by viewers and critics.
  • 17 October – BBC2 broadcasts a teatime news summary with subtitles for the last time. For the past three years this bulletin, which had been broadcast at around 5:25 pm, had been the first programme of the day (apart from educational programmes and sports coverage).
  • 18 October –
    • Channel 4 starts weekend morning broadcasting with weekend transmissions now beginning at around 9:25 am. Programming had previously started at 1:00 pm.[7]
    • BBC1 airs the British television premiere of Peter Weir's romantic drama The Year of Living Dangerously.[35]
  • 20 October – Following considerable criticism, including from the Independent Broadcasting Authority, Scottish Television reverses its 1984 changes to Scotland Today, and the programme once again becomes a news broadcast with the feature elements transferred to a new lunchtime programme called Live at One Thirty.
  • 22 October – BBC1 airs season 10 of the US drama series Dallas beginning with a feature-length episode.
  • 24 October –
    • Ahead of the launch of the BBC's new daytime service, News After Noon is broadcast for the final time. The bulletin is replaced by a revamped lunchtime news programme One O'Clock News.
    • The weekday mid-afternoon regional news summary is broadcast on BBC1 for the final time. From Monday 27 October it is broadcast on BBC2.
  • 27 October –
    • BBC One starts a full daytime television service. Before today, excluding special events coverage, BBC One had closed down at times during weekday mornings and afternoons, broadcasting trade test transmissions and, from May 1983, Pages From Ceefax. BBC Two also expands its programming hours, providing a full afternoon service for the first time but it wasn't until the end of the decade that BBC Two was on air all day every day.
    • As part of the new service, Australian soap Neighbours makes its British television debut on BBC1, a year after it was first aired in its homeland.
  • 29 October – The Equalizer, a US crime drama series starring Edward Woodward makes its British television debut on ITV.

November
  • 2 November – To mark the 50th anniversary of the start of television broadcasting, broadcasts TV50 in which BBC2's entire evening output for the next week is used to show programmes from the BBC's archives.
  • 10 November – Breakfast Time is relaunched with a more formal news and current affairs format.
  • 13 November – Self-employed hod carrier Michael Lush is killed during his first rehearsal for a live stunt planned for BBC1's The Late, Late Breakfast Show. The stunt, called "Hang 'em High", involved bungee jumping from an exploding box suspended from a 120 ft-high crane. The carabiner clip attaching his bungee rope to the crane sprang loose from its eyebolt during the jump, and he died instantly of multiple injuries. The 15 November edition of Breakfast Show is cancelled after presenter Noel Edmonds resigns, saying he does not "have the heart to carry on".[36]
  • 15 November – British television premiere of Michael Crichton's science fiction crime drama Looker on BBC1.[37]
  • 16 November – Dennis Potter's critically acclaimed television serial The Singing Detective makes its debut on BBC1.[38]
  • 23 November – Channel 4 airs the speculative film The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald.[7]

December
  • 6 December –
    • Doctor Who concludes its The Trial of a Time Lord story arc with part 2 of "The Ultimate Foe".[39] This would mark the final televised appearance of Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor before he was abruptly fired from the role.
    • British television premiere of Jack Smight's romantic comedy Loving Couples on BBC1.[40]
  • 7 December – Jack Rosenthal's original two-hour TV movie of London's Burning, directed by Les Blair is broadcast on ITV. It returns for a full series in February 1988.
  • 8 December – Six weeks after launching its daytime service, BBC TV starts broadcasting hourly news summaries. Morning bulletins are shown on BBC1 and early afternoon bulletins (at 2 pm, 3 pm and 3:50 pm) are shown on BBC2. Each bulletin is followed by a weather forecast.
  • 11 December – The IBA announces that BSB has been awarded a fifteen-year franchise to operate a satellite television service in the UK.[41]
  • 13 December –
  • 15 December – Channel 4 airs Soap Aid in which cast members of Coronation Street and Brookside raise funds to help those affected by the famine in Ethiopia.[7]
  • 17 December – Ringo Starr narrates his last ever Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends episode, the second series finale, "Thomas & the Missing Christmas Tree".
  • 25 December –
    • A record 30 million viewers watch the two episodes of EastEnders in which Den Watts served his wife Angie divorce papers.
    • ITV screens the British terrestrial television premiere of Never Say Never Again.[43]
  • 26 December – The Rainbow 30 minute Christmas special, Rainbow Christmas Show (aka The Colours of the Rainbow) is the highest ever rating episode of the show. It was thought that Rainbow would end following this episode, but Thames Television renewed the contract after good ratings.
  • 27 December – ITV airs the British television premieres of the 1984 romantic fantasy Splash and the 1983 dance drama Flashdance.
  • 28 December – BBC1 begins a season of films starring Dustin Hoffman, starting with the British television premiere of Tootsie.[44]
  • 31 December – New Year's Eve highlights on BBC1 include the British television premiere of the 1984 Australian animated film The Camel Boy, and Day After the Fair, a screenplay starring Hannah Gordon, Kenneth Haigh, Anna Massey and Martyn Stanbridge. Terry Wogan welcomes in the New Year from the BBC Television Theatre.[45]

Unknown
  • The Peacock Report recommends that Channel 4 should be given the option to sell its own airtime.[46]
  • Viewers' campaigner Mary Whitehouse lobbies advertisers to boycott Channel 4, with some success.[46]
  • Channel Television switches its feed of the ITV network from TSW to TVS.

Debuts

BBC1

BBC2

ITV

Channel 4
  • 19 February – Prospects (1986)
  • 2 March – Mr Pye (1986)
  • 11 April – The Chart Show (1986–1998, 2008–2009)
  • 31 July – Equinox (1986–2006)
  • 4 August – The Golden Girls (1985–1992)
  • 24 December – Max Headroom's Giant Christmas Turkey (1986)
  • 29 December – Fox Tales (1986–1988)

Sky Channel

The Children’s Channel

Television shows

Changes of network affiliation
Shows Moved from Moved to
Opportunity Knocks ITV BBC1
Heathcliff and the Catillac Cats The Children's Channel

Returning this year after a break of one year or longer
  • 11 September – This Week (1956–1978, 1986–1992)
  • 19 September – New Faces (1973–1978, 1986–1988)

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
3 January Dustin Gee 43 comedian
6 February Dandy Nichols 78 actress (Till Death Us Do Part)
10 March Ray Milland 79 actor
1 May Hylda Baker 81 actress and comedienne (Nearest and Dearest)
17 September Pat Phoenix 62 actress (Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street)
22 September Janet Davies 59 actress (Dad's Army)
28 October Ian Marter 42 actor and writer
Eddie Waring 76 rugby commentator and presenter
21 December Bill Simpson 55 actor (Dr. Finlay's Casebook)

See also

References
  1. "BBC One London – 1 January 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
  2. "Tomorrow's World – BBC One London – 2 January 1986". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
  3. "Dynasty – BBC One London – 17 January 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
  4. "Screen Two: The Silent Twins". BBC Genome. BBC. 19 January 1986. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  5. "Dynasty II: The Colbys – BBC One London – 24 January 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
  6. Round Britain Whizz at IMDb
  7. "1986 : Off The Telly". Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  8. "Screen Two: Shergar – BBC Two – 23 March 1986". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  9. "It's Not Just Zammo – BBC One London – 1 April 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  10. Malvern, Jack (December 12, 2003). "Just say no". The Daily Summit. British Council.
  11. Saner, Emine (7 March 2016). "Just say no! What really happened when Grange Hill met Nancy Reagan at the White House". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  12. "Video Jukebox – BBC One London – 9 May 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  13. "Official Chart History – Spitting Image – The Chicken Song". Retrieved 3 October 2018.
  14. "A Very Peculiar Practice: 1: A Very Long Way from Anywhere – BBC Two England – 21 May 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  15. "Kane and Abel – BBC One London – 3 June 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  16. "Kane and Abel – BBC One London – 5 June 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  17. "Kane and Abel – BBC One London – 6 June 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  18. ""1986: Prince Andrew weds Sarah Ferguson", BBC News". 23 July 1986. Retrieved 22 April 2009.
  19. "Top of the Pops – BBC One London – 23 July 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  20. "XIII Commonwealth Games: The Opening Ceremony – BBC One London – 24 July 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  21. Ident Central: LWT 1986–1989
  22. "* pm Saturday Night at the Movies: Taps – BBC One London – 30 August 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  23. "Sunday Premiere: The Monocled Mutineer – BBC One London – 31 August 1986". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 19 November 2016.
  24. Badsey, Stephen (2000). The Media and International Security. Routledge. pp. 83–84. ISBN 0-7146-4848-5.
  25. "James Bond On TV – Movies". MI6 – The Home Of James Bond 007. 5 April 2011. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  26. "Doctor Who – BBC One London – 6 September 1986". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 19 November 2016.
  27. "Casualty – BBC One London – 6 September 1986". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 19 November 2016.
  28. Tristram Fane Saunders (7 June 2016). "Duffy returning to Casualty for 1,000th episode". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  29. "Saturday Night at the Movies: Saturn 3 – BBC One London – 6 September 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  30. "Saturday Night at the Movies: Blue Thunder – BBC One London – 20 September 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  31. "BBC Two England – 20 September 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  32. "Saturday Night at the Movies: Seems Like Old Times – BBC One London – 27 September 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  33. "Saturday Night at the Movies: Wet Gold – BBC One London – 4 October 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  34. "Saturday Night at the Movies: The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper – BBC One London – 11 October 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  35. "Saturday Night at the Movies: The Year of Living Dangerously – BBC One London – 18 October 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  36. Sapsted, David (17 November 1986). "Family to delay legal action decision". The Times.
  37. "Saturday Night at the Movies: Looker – BBC One London – 15 November 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  38. "The Singing Detective – BBC One London – 16 November 1986". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  39. "Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord: Part 14 – BBC One London – 6 December 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  40. "Saturday Night at the Movies: Loving Couples – BBC One London – 6 December 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  41. Transdiffusion Broadcasting System (2 June 2012). "BSB contract award – December 1986" – via YouTube.
  42. "Saturday Night at the Movies: The Beastmaster – BBC One London – 13 December 1986 – BBC Genome". Genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  43. "Christmas 1986 – TV Cream". TV Cream. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
  44. "Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie – BBC One London – 28 December 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  45. "BBC One London – 31 December 1986 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  46. "Channel 4's 25 year Anniversary" (PDF). Channel 4. 2007. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
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