3 January – ITV Granada exclusively begins showing the American cartoon series Spider-Man long before any other ITV regions.
4 January – Guitarist Jimi Hendrix causes complaints of arrogance from television producers after playing an impromptu version of "Sunshine Of Your Love" past his allotted timeslot on the BBC1 show Happening for Lulu.
February
28 February – ITV begin showing the highly popular sitcom On the Buses, starring Reg Varney as bus driver Stan Butler and Stephen Lewis as the antagonistic inspector Blakey.
Historical drama The Flashing Blade, adapted from the French original, airs on BBC1 children's television for the first time, transmitted in black and white.
April
11 April – Granada's 8-part crime thriller serial Big Breadwinner Hog launches on the ITV network at 9.00pm. Because of complaints, the violence is toned down in later episodes, but from episode 5 some ITV regions move transmission to a later timeslot while Southern and Anglia stop transmission of the serial altogether.[1]
14 April – The hugely popular and long-running comedy series The Liver Birds debuts on BBC1. The Liverpool-set series was created by Carla Lane; it will run for over a decade with a brief revival in 1996.
The documentaryRoyal Family, commissioned by the Crown and made jointly by the BBC and ITV is broadcast, initially on BBC1, and attracts more than 30.6 million UK viewers (three-quarters of the British public at this time),[2] an all-time British record for a non-current-event programme.[3] It is scripted by Antony Jay.
June – Anglia Television and Yorkshire Television begin talks regarding a cost-cutting exercise which would involve sharing equipment and facilities. Neither company plans joint productions or a merger. The reason to form an association is purely down to the costs of the increased levy on the companies' advertising revenue by the government and the cost of colour TV. The ITA states there is no reason why the companies should not have talks about sensible economies that could be made, but would examine all details before any association were to be implemented.[4]
July
3 July – Lulu the elephant runs amok on Blue Peter. The clip is subsequently repeated many times, becoming the archetypal British TV blooper.
12 July – The US sci-fi TV series Star Trek makes its debut on BBC1 beginning with the episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (filmed as the second pilot and first aired in 1966 as the third episode).[5]
20–21 July – Live transmission from the Moon with the landing of Apollo 11; at 03:56 BST on 21 July, Neil Armstrong steps onto the surface.[6] BBC television makes its first overnight broadcast to provide coverage. Footage of the event is reported to have been seen by 22 million UK viewers on 21 July (720 million worldwide).[6][7]
23 September – BBC2 show the TV movie Prescription: Murder, which sees the first appearance of the American detective Columbo, played by Peter Falk.
28 September – Debut of the American police drama Hawaii Five-O on ITV Yorkshire. ITV Midlands and London regions broadcast the first episode a few days later on 3 October.
October
4 October – The ITV Seven, a programme which shows live coverage of horse racing from racecourses around the UK, is first aired. The programme is an essential part of ITV's Saturday afternoon World of Sport show and continues until a few weeks before World of Sport ends in 1985.
6 October – Chigley becomes the third and final programme of The Trumptonshire Trilogy on BBC1 to be shot in colour before the introduction of regular colour broadcasting on 15 November. Chigley also becomes the first programme on the BBC to feature the copyright year in roman numerals in the credits (MCMLXIX) prior to other regular BBC programmes from 1976 (MCMLXXVI) to the present day.
3 November – ITV airs the first edition of Coronation Street to be videotaped in colour, though it includes black-and-white inserts and titles, because colour transmissions have not yet officially begun (except for testing), most viewers will see it only in black-and-white. The 29 October episode, featuring a coach trip to the Lake District, had been scheduled for colour shooting, but suitable colour film stock could not be found so it was filmed in black-and-white.
15 November – National colour broadcasting commences on both BBC1 and ITV (following BBC2, who carried out the first UK colour broadcast on 1 July 1967). BBC1 launches their colour programmes with a concert by Petula Clark from the Royal Albert Hall at midnight on 14–15 November. Also, the first colour television advert, on ATV (Midlands), is for Birds Eye Peas, who paid £23 for the 30-second advert.[10]
16 November – The first episode of Clangers, a stop-motion animated programme for children, is broadcast on BBC1.
19 November – A new series of The Benny Hill Show premieres on ITV. Produced by Thames Television it becomes one of the most watched programmes on British television and runs until 1986. At its peak (in 1979) it reaches an audience of over 20 million viewers.[11]
20 November – The first episode of BBC sitcom Dad's Army to be broadcast in colour is "Branded", the favourite of co-writer Jimmy Perry.[12]
21 November – The controversial London Weekend Television comedy Curry and Chips, starring Spike Milligan, begins airing. The programme is the first LWT comedy to have been broadcast in colour. It is pulled off air after six episodes following a ruling by the ITA that it is racist.[13]
24 November – Coronation Street is first officially transmitted in colour, according to its archivist Daran Little, but the 17 November episode may have been the first.
There is no televised Royal Christmas Message due to BBC1 and BBC2 simultaneously repeating the Royal Family film, avoiding the possibility of over-exposure; a statement assures return to tradition in the following year.
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