Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2 January | ITV announces that it will move its Sunday episodes of Emmerdale and Coronation Street. From the week beginning 12 January Coronation Street will have an additional Friday episode while Emmerdale will air for an hour on Tuesdays. |
| 11 January | ITV News at 10.30 is shown for the last time. News at Ten then replaces it from Mondays to Thursdays and ITV Late News on Fridays. |
| 14 January | News at Ten returns to ITV with Sir Trevor McDonald again at helm having retired in 2005. |
| 22 January | BBC Three has its identity relaunched, showcasing new shows such as Lily Allen and Friends. |
| 23 January | Konnie Huq presents her last episode of Blue Peter after over ten years, having become the longest-running female presenter and third longest-running overall in the shows' 50 year history. |
| 31 January | "Pretty Baby....", a unique episode of the soap opera EastEnders is broadcast, consisting of just one character (Dot Branning) with a single monologue in the form of a taped message to her husband. This 'one-hander' is a first in UK soap history. |
| All the UKTV network channels such as UKTV Gold switch to widescreen. | |
| 6 February | BBC announces that children's drama Grange Hill is to be axed after exactly 30 years on air. |
| 8 February | After 22 years Neighbours is shown on BBC One for the last time. |
| 11 February | Australian soap opera Neighbours debuts in its new home on Five. |
| 12 February | The BBC Three "Blobs" are played out for the last time at 4am. A new set of idents debuted the same day, this is the channels first ever rebrand since launching in early 2003. |
| 20 February | It is announced that music video channel The Hits will be replaced by 4Music later in the year. |
| 27 February | Launch of the black entertainment channel BET International. |
| 19 March | BBC Four attracts its highest ever ratings after broadcasting the one-off drama The Curse of Steptoe, with 1.41 million viewers. |
| 21 March | Dirty Sexy Money makes its debut airing in the UK and proves to be a popular hit for Channel 4 |
| 24 March (Easter Monday) |
BBC Four broadcasts a revived, special two-hour long episode of the 1960s satire The Frost Report. |
| 26 March | American Hit Dramedy, Desperate Housewives finally makes it's Fourth season debut. The show was due to start in the first two weeks of January, but this was shelved due to the WGA Strike. |
| 21 April | BBC News has a major relaunch with BBC News 24 becoming BBC News and BBC World becoming BBC World News. All the news programmes on BBC One and BBC Two have also had new looks including all regional news programmes. |
| 28 April | Five Life is renamed to Fiver. |
| 6 May | Freesat officially launches. ITV HD launches its full service. |
| 22 May | Scotsport airs for the last time on Scottish television. By the time it ended it was recognised as the world's longest running sports television magazine. |
| 29 May | It is announced that What the Papers Say, the second longest running programme on British television after Panorama, is to be axed by the BBC. |
| 3 June | All Virgin Media channels including Bravo (also Bravo 2), Living (also Living2), Challenge, Trouble and Virgin 1 switch to widescreen. |
| 4 June | MTV UK and several other MTV Networks Europe channels are fined £255,000 by Ofcom for "widespread and persistent" breaches of the broadcasting code, including breaking the pre-watershed content ban. |
| 5 June | The Big Brother 9 launch night proves to be not as good as Channel 4 had hoped with the loss of around 1 million viewers who had watched the previous year's launch night |
| 6 June | Sharon Osbourne quits as a judge on the ITV series The X Factor shortly before filming is due to begin on a new series. |
| 7 – 29 June | Euro 2008 are held in Austria and Switzerland. |
| 10 June | Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole is revealed as Sharon Osbourne's replacement as a judge on The X Factor. |
| 17 June | Comedian Joan Rivers is asked to leave the ITV afternoon talk show Loose Women after swearing live on air. She was removed during the commercial break, and said that she didn't realise the show was going out live and thought her comments would be bleeped. |
| 5 July | The finale of the fourth series of Doctor Who is watched by 9.4 million viewers, this is the first time since the series' revival in 2005 that Doctor Who has the largest audience share in its timeslot. |
| 23 July | Des O'Connor announces that he will step down as presenter of Countdown. |
| 25 July | Carol Vorderman announces that she will quit as host of Countdown, two days after Des O'Connor announced his intention to leave the programme. Vorderman's manager said that she did not think she could go through the process of bonding with another co-presenter. |
| 8 – 24 August | 2008 Summer Olympics are held in China. |
| 15 August | The music video channel The Hits closes and is replaced by 4Music later the same day. |
| Griff Rhys Jones announced as the new presenter of It'll Be Alright on the Night for the first time since Denis Norden's retirement from the show in 2006 after almost 30 years. | |
| 22 August | After seven years with Channel 4, Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan present their last edition of Richard & Judy. They move to new subscription channel Watch in the Autumn. |
| 31 August | Sky One, Sky Two and Sky Three rebrands to Sky1, Sky2 and Sky3 respectively. |
| 18 September | BBC One screens its controversial documentary The Undercover Soldier. |
| 19 September | BBC Alba, a Scottish Gaelic language digital television channel, is launched through a partnership between the BBC and MG ALBA. |
| 6 October | Five has its first major rebrand since 2002. |
| 7 October | UKTV launches a new general entertainment channel called Watch and UKTV Gold was relaunched as a comedy channel G.O.L.D. (Go On Laugh Daily) and UKTV Drama was relaunched as a crime drama channel Alibi. |
| Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan begin presenting a new show Richard and Judy's New Position on Watch. | |
| 18 October | Longest-running children's television programme Blue Peter celebrates its 50th birthday. |
| 29 October | During the live broadcast of the 2008 National Television Awards, David Tennant announces that he is leaving Doctor Who at the end of 2009. |
| 30 October | Following his involvement in the Russell Brand Show prank telephone calls row, Jonathan Ross is suspended for 12 weeks without pay from all BBC shows, including his television programmes such as Friday Night With Jonathan Ross. He also decided not to host the 2008 British Comedy Awards, broadcast on ITV. |
| 4 November | It is announced that an agreement has been struck for Sky's Basic channels – including Sky1, Sky2, Sky3, Sky News, Sky Sports News, Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2, Sky Real Lives and Sky Real Lives 2 - to return to Virgin Media from 13 November 2008 until 12 June 2011. In exchange Sky will be provide continued carriage of Virgin Media Television's channels – Living, Living2, Bravo, Bravo +1, Trouble, Challenge and Virgin1 for the same period. However, Trouble closed down on April 2009 and Sky brought Virgin Media Television (later Living TV Group) two years later. Bravo, Bravo 2, Challenge Jackpot and Channel One closed down on 1 January and 1 February 2011 respectively, alongside with the rebrandings of Living (now Sky Living), Livingit (then Livingit, now Sky Livingit), Living Loves (now Sky Living Loves) and Challenge's new slot on Freeview on 1 February 2011, which finally ended Living TV Group and extended the agreement as a permanent deal. |
| 6 November | The digital switchover continues when the Scottish Borders region's analogue service is switched off. People served by the Selkirk transmitter will be the first substantial area to go fully digital. |
| 13 November | BSkyB basic channels such as Sky1 and Sky News return to Virgin Media TV. |
| 14 November | Children in Need 2008 is broadcast on BBC One, hosted by Terry Wogan, Tess Daly and Fearne Cotton. Raising £20,991,216 by the end of the broadcast. |
| 20 November | Sir Trevor McDonald presents his last News at Ten after only 11 months at helm. Mark Austin takes over as head anchor. |
| QI broadcasts its last episode to be originally shown on BBC Two, as part of Children in Need. The series moves to BBC One during Christmas. | |
| 21 November | It is announced that Sky Sports presenter Jeff Stelling and Oxford graduate Rachel Riley will replace Des O'Connor and Carol Vorderman as hosts of the next series of Countdown. Riley beat 1,000 applicants to win the role. |
| The BBC Trust criticises another incident involving Jonathan Ross and bad language. The Trust rules that a remark made by Ross on an edition of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross aired in May in which he told the actress Gwyneth Paltrow he "would fuck her" was "gratuitous and unnecessarily offensive". | |
| November | STV announces its intention to opt-out of ITV programmes they claim are not performing well in their broadcast region. These include series such as Sharpe's Peril, Al Murray's Happy Hour, Moving Wallpaper, Benidorm and The Alan Titchmarsh Show. ITV's coverage of the FA Cup is also dropped. |
| 12 December | Des O'Connor presents his last Countdown episode after over a year of presenting and Carol Vorderman also presents her last Countdown episode after 26 years of co-presenting. |
| 30 December | Shooting Stars returns with a Christmas special and a clip show, the first new episodes since 2002 and Rab C. Nesbitt returns with a Christmas special, the another new episode since 1999. |
Read more about this topic: 2008 In British Television
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.”
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