1991 in British television

Events

January

  • 1 January –
  • 3 January –
  • 7 January – BBC 1 launches the local news programme, East Midlands Today for the East Midlands region. News coverage for the area had previously been provided by a seven-minute opt out from the Birmingham-based Midlands Today.[2]
  • 8 January – The opening episode of season two of Twin Peaks makes its UK television debut on BBC2.[3]
  • 14 January – American television sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is broadcast in the United Kingdom for the first time, making its debut on BBC2 as part of the DEF II programming strand.[4]
  • 17 January – Regular programming is abandoned to bring live coverage of the Gulf War after Allied Forces launch Operation Desert Storm against Iraq. Over the coming weeks there is extended coverage of events in the Persian Gulf. ITV also broadcasts news and discussion programmes about the war throughout the night. Some broadcasting, particularly in the earlier part of the war, comes from CNN.
  • 18 January – BBC2 airs a special edition of Arena in which playwright Arthur Miller meets ANC leader Nelson Mandela. In the film Mandela talks for the first time about his life and experiences from a personal standpoint.[5]
  • 19 January – The 17 January edition of Top of the Pops is broadcast, having been postponed from that date due to extended news coverage of the Gulf War.
  • 28 January – Oliver Reed appears on an edition of the late night discussion programme After Dark discussing militarism, masculine stereotypes and violence to women. Reed drinks alcohol during the broadcast, leading him to become drunk, aggressive and incoherent.[6] He refers to another member of the panel, who has a moustache, as 'tache' and uses offensive language. After one hour Reed returns from the toilet and, getting more to drink, rolls on top of the noted feminist author Kate Millett. The show is briefly taken off air following a hoax call to the station claiming that Channel 4 boss Michael Grade is furious.

February

  • 12 February – A year after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, BBC2 airs an edition of its Assignment documentary strand in which journalist Donald Woods returns to South Africa to give his personal assessment of that country's future.[7]
  • 15 February – The COW ident is seen for the final time on BBC1, after six years in use, and the BBC2 'TWO' ident is also seen for the final time after five years in use.
  • 16 February –
    • BBC1 and BBC2 receive new idents, both generated from laserdisc and featuring the BBC corporate logo introduced in 1986. BBC1 features a numeral '1' encased in a globe, and BBC2 features eleven idents based around a numeral '2'.
    • Matthew Kelly succeeds Bruce Forsyth as presenter of ITV's You Bet!.
  • 25 February – BBC1 transmits a new television series for children featuring live action and puppetry called Radio Roo starring actor, former Play School presenter and veteran children's television scriptwriter Wayne Jackman.[8]
  • 26 February – Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein announces the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. As the war comes to its conclusion, television programming begins to return to regular broadcasting.

March

  • March – Following the conclusion of the Gulf War, the ITN Early Morning News is halved in length and now goes on air at 5.30. From this point, the ITN World News is no longer broadcast as part of the bulletin.
  • 1 March – The monopoly on listings magazines ends with the deregulation of TV listings. Before today, the Radio Times published only BBC listings and TVTimes published ITV and from 1982, Channel 4 (including S4C in a pull-out supplement Sbec) listings. However, from today they can carry listings for all channels. Newspapers are also allowed to publish 7-day listings for the first time, having previously only been able to publish the present day's (and two days on Saturdays). A raft of listings magazines start up in the wake of the changes.[9]
  • 9 March – While a guest on the ITV chat show Aspel & Company, singer Rod Stewart takes off his shoes and tosses them into the audience.
  • 15 March – BBC1 airs Comic Relief 1991.[10]
  • 18 March – ITV broadcasts World in Action Special: The Birmingham Six – Their Own Story, a documentary aired four days after the release of the Birmingham Six.[11] It is later nominated for a BAFTA award.[12]
  • 30 March – Frederick Wiseman's six and a half-hour documentary Near Death on life in a Boston intensive care unit is broadcast in full by Channel 4.[13]

April

  • 1 April – Sue Lawley interviews Prime Minister John Major for ITV.[14]
  • 7 April – ITV airs the first Prime Suspect serial, starring Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison. On the same day, The Darling Buds of May premieres on ITV.
  • 8 April –
  • 9 April – British actor Derek Nimmo makes a cameo appearance in Australian soap Neighbours as an eccentric English aristocrat, the episode having debuted in Australia on 26 February 1990.[17]
  • 15 April — BSB's films channel The Movie Channel launches on the Astra 1B satellite.
  • 16 April – British television premiere of Monty Python's Life of Brian as part of Channel 4's Banned season.
  • 20 April – The Sports Channel is rebranded as Sky Sports.
  • 29 April – On an edition of Terry Wogan's evening chat show Wogan and amid howls of laughter from the studio audience, public speaker David Icke claims that he is "the son of God", and that Britain will be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes.[18] He later said that he had been misinterpreted, and that he had used the term "the son of God" to mean an "aspect" of the Infinite consciousness.[19] The interview proved devastating for him. The BBC was later criticised for allowing the interview to go ahead, Des Christy in The Guardian calling it a "media crucifixion."[20]

May

June

July

August

  • 3 August – First showing on network television of Spies, Lies and Naked Thighs, a comedy thriller starring Ed Begley Jr, which airs on BBC1.[38]
  • 14 August – BBC1 airs Mozart in London, the first of a three-part series marking the bicentenary of Mozart's death, and in which his earliest pieces are performed by children of about the same age as he was when he wrote them. It is the first time this has been done on British television.[39]
  • 26 August – BBC2 airs a day of programmes paying tribute to the Lime Grove Studios, which includes a remake of the 1950s soap opera The Grove Family featuring actors from the present day. The day also includes a repeat of "An Unearthly Child", the first-ever episode of Doctor Who from 1963.[40]
  • 29 August – Top of the Pops is simulcast on Radio 1 for the last time, the programme introduced by Jakki Brambles.[41]
  • 31 August – NICAM stereo sound introduced on BBC Television.

September

October

  • October – Cigar and pipe tobacco adverts are banned from UK television.
  • 1 October – The Comedy Channel launches.
  • 2 October – Channel 4 airs the 1000th episode of Brookside.[49]
  • 3 October – 2 November – ITV airs coverage of the 1991 Rugby World Cup. The competition is hosted by England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France.
  • 4 October – British television premiere of US animated series The Legend of Prince Valiant on BBC1.
  • 6 October – BBC1 airs "Conundrum", the final episode of the original run of Dallas. The feature-length episode imagines a world in which the soap's central character, J. R. Ewing had not existed.[50]
  • 9 October – The 1000th episode of Brookside is broadcast on Channel 4.
  • 14 October – BBC World Service TV launches its Asian service.
  • 16 October – The ITV franchise auction results are announced and take effect starting midnight GMT on 1 January 1993. It will see many notable names going off air after losing their franchises, including Thames Television, TVS, Television South West, TV-am and ORACLE Teletext.
  • 19 October – The final edition of Channel Television's TV listings magazine, CTV Times is published. It had remained on sale long after the other ITV regions had replaced their listings magazine with the TVTimes in the South of England edition along with TVS as it was feared that Channel Television might cease trading without the revenue from its own magazine.
  • October – Scottish Television rebrands its overnight service as Scottish Night Time, and removed the overnight in-vision continuity.[51]

November

December

Debuts

BBC1

BBC2

ITV

BBC Scotland

Channel 4

Sky One

Channels

New channels

Date Channel
3 November The Comedy Channel

Defunct channels

Date Channel
8 April The Power Station

Rebranded channels

Date Old Name New Name
20 April The Sports Channel Sky Sports

Television shows

Changes of network affiliation

Shows Moved from Moved to
The Mysterious Cities of Gold BBC1 The Children's Channel
Widget ITV
V Sky One
Robin of Sherwood
Thunderbirds BBC2
MacGyver BBC1 ITV
Eureeka's Castle Galaxy Channel 4

Returning this year after a break of one year or longer

  • 16 January – Van der Valk (1972–1973, 1977, 1991–1992, 2020)
  • 10 April – The Two Ronnies for a 20th Anniversary special (1971–1987, 1991, 1996, 2005)
  • 16 September – Postman Pat (1981, 1991–1994, 1996, 2004–2008)
  • 14 December – Up Pompeii! (1969–1975, 1991–1992)

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

1990s

Ending this year

Births

Deaths

DateNameAgeCinematic Credibility
24 March Maudie Edwards 84 actress and singer
27 March Ralph Bates 51 actor (Dear John)
4 May Bernie Winters 58 comedian
18 May Betty Alberge 69 actress (Coronation Street, Brookside)
14 June Dame Peggy Ashcroft 83 actress
Bernard Miles character actor, writer and director
6 August Arthur Pentelow 67 actor (Emmerdale)
19 December Paul Maxwell 70 Canadian actor (Coronation Street)

See also

References

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  2. "BBC East Midlands News". TVARK. Archived from the original on 21 May 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  3. "Twin Peaks – BBC Two England – 8 January 1991 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  4. "DEFII The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – BBC Two England – 14 January 1991". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
  5. "Arena: Miller Meets Mandela – BBC Two England – 18 January 1991 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  6. OliverReed.net. "Ollie's TV shame". Archived from the original on 10 May 2009. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
  7. "Assignment – BBC Two England – 12 February 1991 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
  8. "Radio Roo – BBC One London – 25 February 1991 – BBC Genome". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
  9. Carnody, Robin (July 2000). "The Good New Times ... The Bradshaw of Broadcasting: 1980s – 2000: Robin Carmody on Radio and TV Times". Off The Telly. Archived from the original on 10 May 2009. Retrieved 7 May 2009.
  10. "Comic Relief 1991 – BBC One London – 15 March 1991". BBC Genome. BBC. Retrieved 12 November 2016.
  11. "Public Issue Television: World in Action 1963–98" p. 106
  12. bafta.org'' 1992 awards
  13. "1991 : Off The Telly". Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  14. "Television". The Spectator. 5 April 1991. p. 40. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  15. "Channel 4 timeline". Channel 4. Retrieved 30 April 2009.
  16. "Channel 4 at 25: 1991 compiled by Steve Williams, Ian Jones and Jack Kibble-White". Archived from the original on 10 May 2009. Retrieved 30 April 2009.
  17. "Neighbours Episode Guide: 1126–1150". Ramsay-street.co.uk. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  18. Wogan, Terry (2006). "David Icke interviewed by Terry Wogan". BBC. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
  19. Icke, David (2003). Tales From The Time Loop.
  20. Christy, Des (6 May 1991). "Crucifixion, courtesy of the BBC". The Guardian.
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  22. "Commission Decision of 19 February 1991 relating to a proceeding pursuant to Article 85 of the EEC Treaty (IV/32.524 – Screensport/EBU members)". Eur-lex.europa.eu. Retrieved 15 January 2010.
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