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2007 in British television

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This is a summary of the year 2007 in British television.

Events

[edit]

January

[edit]
Date Event
2 January This Life returns for a ten-year reunion special.
Des O'Connor takes over from Des Lynam as co-presenter (with Carol Vorderman) of Channel 4's long-running quiz show Countdown.
3 January Celebrity Big Brother 5 is launched on Channel 4, with celebrities such as Jermaine Jackson, Dirk Benedict and Leo Sayer.[1]
The Bill airs a new set of opening titles, paying homage to the original 1984 opening titles. The titles also include shots of London, interspersed with police work and shots of Sun Hill Police Station. The break bumpers and music are also updated.
5 January Leslie Ash officially opens the Centre for Healthcare Associated Infections (CHIA), a national facility at the University of Nottingham dedicated to conducting research into superbug infections. Ash is also the Centre's patron.[2]
Former Big Brother contestant Jade Goody returns to the Big Brother House to take part in the fifth series of Celebrity Big Brother. On the same evening musician Donny Tourette walks off the show after just 48 hours.[3]
7 January Laura Pearce, a 24-year-old civilian employee of Gloucestershire Constabulary, becomes the first contestant to win the £250,000 on the British version of Deal or No Deal.[4]
Hannah Waterman and Marti Pellow win the second series of BBC One's Just the Two of Us.[5]
Film director Ken Russell becomes the second contestant to leave Celebrity Big Brother in two days, following a row with Jade Goody.[3]
8 January Michael Grade takes over as chief executive of ITV plc.[6]
The Calendar East and Calendar South regions are merged to form a new Calendar South region covering central and east Lincolnshire, east and south east Yorkshire, east Nottinghamshire and north Norfolk. The Calendar North region, broadcasting from the Emley Moor transmitter continues as before.
STV launches separate news services for the East and West of the STV Central region, initially as a five-minute opt out within the 6:00 pm edition of Scotland Today on weeknights.
9 January Sky News hires Meridian Tonight presenter Charlotte Hawkins to co-present Sunrise alongside Eamonn Holmes; she makes her debut on 15 January.[7]
12 January Singer Leo Sayer becomes the third person to leave Celebrity Big Brother 5 after walking out of the show.[8]
13 January Coronation Street actor Antony Cotton wins the second series of ITV's Soapstar Superstar.[9]
ITV1 airs the British terrestrial television premiere of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The film achieves the highest audience of the day, with overnight figures indicating an audience of eight million.[10]
17 January Protests are held in India and the UK against Celebrity Big Brother after Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara are alleged to be racially abusive to Bollywood star, Shilpa Shetty. The programme has also attracted several thousand complaints from viewers to Ofcom, Channel 4 and the police, and is criticised by senior politicians both in the UK and India.[11][12][13]
19 January Jade Goody is evicted from Celebrity Big Brother following the racism row. Goody and Shilpa Shetty had both faced eviction, with Goody receiving 82% of the public vote. During a post-eviction interview, from which the wider public is banned, Goody says that she is "embarrassed and disgusted" by her behaviour. She had also apologised to Shetty before leaving the Big Brother house.[14]
22 January BBC News 24 is re-branded with new titles and on-screen graphics.
26 January Jo O'Meara is evicted from Celebrity Big Brother. Viewing clips of her behaviour in the Big Brother house during a post-eviction interview, she says that it looks "very bad", but says she is not a racist.[15]
28 January The final edition of Grandstand, the flagship BBC sports programme, is aired after nearly 50 years on television screens.[16]
Shilpa Shetty wins the fifth series of Celebrity Big Brother. During the live final, Danielle Lloyd apologises for her behaviour toward the actress during the series.[17]

February

[edit]
Date Event
2 February Plans by Channel 4 to air a series of documentaries about masturbation in March are postponed after the event has attracted controversy and criticism from senior television figures. The programmes are to be shown separately at a later date and not as part of a season.[18]
Five airs the final episode of In the Grid.
9 February Paul Merton presents his last edition of Room 101.
14 February BBC One airs the biopic Veronica Guerin, starring Cate Blanchett in the title role of Irish journalist Veronica Guerin.[19]
Samuel Preston walks off live on an episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks after insults about his wife Chantelle Houghton. Team captain Bill Bailey replaces him with a member of the audience, Ed Seymour.[20]
15 February Michael Starke, who played Sinbad in Brookside, is to join the cast of Coronation Street as take-away owner Jerry Morton. He will be seen onscreen from 18 March.[21]
18 February BBC Two launches 14 new idents designed by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO and produced by Red Bee Media, with the "2" becoming a "Windows of the World" a portal through which the world is seen differently.
Richard & Judy is scrutinised when it is claimed that the winners were already chosen for its premium-rate phone-in quiz, "You Say, We Pay". This results in the start of the phone-in scandal.
20 February The newly launched Virgin Media launches its new on-demand channel Virgin Central.[22]
February UTV in Northern Ireland splits UTV Live and UTV Life into separate programmes and all bulletins outside of the main early evening programme are retitled UTV News. This continues until April 2009.

March

[edit]
Date Event
1 March A channel agreement between Virgin Media and BSkyB for Virgin to broadcast non-premium Sky channels ends at midnight. Virgin Media and Sky have failed to reach agreement on the issue and subsequently Sky One, Sky Two, Sky Travel, Sky Travel Extra, Sky Sports News and Sky News are removed from the Virgin line-up.
2 March The Attorney General for England and Wales, Lord Goldsmith, obtains an injunction from the High Court preventing the BBC from broadcasting an item about investigations into the alleged cash for honours political scandal.
5 March ITV's quiz channel ITV Play is implicated in the phone-in scandal. As a result, ITV allow independent auditor Deloitte to review programmes with phone-ins that generate revenue such as Dancing on Ice and The X Factor.
Shaun the Sheep first airs.
7 March The BBC's correspondent in the Gaza Strip, Alan Johnston, who is the only foreign reporter from a major media organisation based in Gaza, is kidnapped. All the main Palestinian militant groups call for his release.
Louise Redknapp presents the controversial ITV documentary The Truth About Size Zero in which she attempts to drop to a size zero in 30 days by following a strict weight loss regimen in order to highlight eating disorder issues.[23][24][25]
Five's game show BrainTeaser is suddenly axed by the channel after five years. It is later revealed the sudden axing was in relation to the phone-in scandal, as the show's production company Endemol had faked on-air winners by posing production team members as such. Five is fined a record £300,000 by Ofcom over the incidents.
9 March The BBC's Castaway returns for a second, but shorter, series.[26]
13 March ITV Play is shut down permanently due to the phone-in scandal.
14 March BBC children's programme Blue Peter is now involved with the phone-in scandal, after it is discovered they used a girl who was visiting the studio to pose as a caller live on the show.
15 March Steven Wallis wins the 2007 series of MasterChef Goes Large.
16 March During Comic Relief night, the last ever episode of The Vicar of Dibley is broadcast. BBC One's Red Nose Day 2007 also includes a special episode of Mr. Bean, a celebrity edition of The Apprentice, and a Catherine Tate sketch in which Lauren Cooper meets Tony Blair while on work experience at 10 Downing Street.[27][28]
17 March Rugby player Kyran Bracken and skating partner Melanie Lambert win the second series of Dancing on Ice.[29]
18 March After 10 years, Formula One on ITV goes 16:9 widescreen, with the opening race, the Australian Grand Prix, watched by 600 million viewers.
19 March In the Night Garden... premieres on BBC Two in the same month as the Teletubbies 10th anniversary.
20 March Dancing on Ice reveals they lost 11,500 phone calls, as they were not delivered to Vodafone until next Monday morning (26 March)
22 March Four years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a special edition of BBC One's Question Time debates the war's legacy.[30]
26 March Singer Katherine Jenkins will make a cameo appearance in Emmerdale, the soap's producers confirm. Her appearance will be in May, and coincide with the resolution of the Tom King murder storyline.[31]
27 March Moira Stuart is replaced as presenter of the news bulletin during Sunday AM, leaving her without a regular news slot.[32] The decision to remove her from the programme prompts media allegations of ageism at the BBC, something which is rejected by Director-General Mark Thompson, who in April tells the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee that Stuart was replaced because of the changing role of television news presenting, which is moving towards television journalism rather than traditional news presenting.[33] Stuart continues to present for the broadcaster, but on 3 October, it is confirmed that she will leave BBC News.[34]
The teleshopping channel iBuy closes after just under two years on air.
30 March ITV announces that Dermot O'Leary will replace Kate Thornton as host of The X Factor after Thornton was sacked from the programme after presenting three (and one celebrity) series.[35]
Five celebrates ten years of its launch.
31 March Freema Agyeman makes her debut as Doctor Who assistant Martha Jones as the science fiction drama returns for a third series. Any Dream Will Do, a search for someone to play Joseph in the Lloyd Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat also debuts on BBC One.[36]
The Teletubbies celebrate their 10th anniversary.

April

[edit]
Date Event
1 April The Sky at Night celebrates 50 years with a special anniversary edition.
4 April Sky Movies rebrands with each channel having its own genre.
5 April ITV News announces the award of a new six-year contract from ITV, worth £250 million.
7 April Debut of ITV's Grease is the Word which will search for two actors to play Danny and Sandy in a new stage production of Grease.[37]
10 April BBC One airs the concluding episode of the second and final series of Life on Mars.[38]
13 April Have I Got News for You starts to produce a video podcast featuring unbroadcast material.
16 April The University of Warwick wins the 2006–07 series of University Challenge, beating the University of Manchester 170–140.
21 April BBC sports journalist Jacqui Oatley becomes the first female commentator to appear on Match of the Day.[39]
23 April A BBC Panorama discloses that callers to GMTV's phone-in competitions may have been defrauded out of millions of pounds, because the telephone system operator, Opera Interactive Technology, had determined the winners before the phone lines had closed. GMTV responded by suspending the phone-in quizzes, but claims that "it was confident it had not breached regulators' codes". Opera Interactive also denies any wrongdoing.
24 April It is announced that the BBC celebrity singing contest Just the Two of Us will not return for a third series.
30 April Channel 4 airs the Cutting Edge documentary Blind Young Things, a programme about students at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. The film won a Royal Television Society award for Channel 4 and the Cutting Edge team in 2008.[40]

May

[edit]
Date Event
12 May Serbia's Marija Šerifović wins the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest with "Molitva".
14 May BBC One broadcasts "Scientology and Me" a Panorama investigation into Scientology by journalist John Sweeney. A clip from the programme of Sweeney losing his temper and shouting at a disruptive scientologist representative is widely released on the internet and by DVD by scientologists prior to airing.
16 May Launch of Freesat, a free-to-air digital satellite television joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc.
17 May In Emmerdale, the Tom King whodunit storyline reaches its conclusion as the identity of the killer is revealed.[41] The killer is Tom's son, Carl King (Tom Lister).[42] The episode also features a cameo appearance by singer Katherine Jenkins, who plays herself attending a village pageant as its guest of honour.[43]
24 May Ofcom rules that Celebrity Big Brother breached its code of conduct during the last series, and that Channel 4 made "serious editorial misjudgements" in the way it dealt with some of the incidents that sparked the racism row.[44]
29 May ITV axes its celebrity singing contest, Soapstar Superstar after two series, believing it to be too similar in format to The X Factor.[45]
31 May The BBC Trust approves plans for several BBC departments, including BBC Sport, to be moved to a new development in Salford.[46]

June

[edit]
Date Event
4 June It is announced that Dannii Minogue will replace Louis Walsh as a judge on the forthcoming series of The X Factor,[47] joining Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne. Walsh had intended to leave the show, but later decides to return after being invited back.[48]
7 June Following the Celebrity Big Brother racism controversy earlier in the year, a contestant on the eighth series of Big Brother is removed from the show after her use of the word "nigger" during a conversation with another contestant.[49]
8 June Adele Adkins, a 19-year-old singer from London makes her television debut on BBC Two's Later... with Jools Holland, performing her song "Daydreamer", becoming one of the first artists to appear on the show without having released a record because producer Alison Howe booked her after hearing a demo tape. Adele's debut album, 19, is released in January 2008.[50][51][52]
9 June Lee Mead wins BBC One's Any Dream Will Do and will take the lead role of Joseph in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at the Adelphi Theatre from 17 July. ITV's Grease is the Word is won by Danny Bayne and Susan McFadden, who will play Danny and Sandy in a forthcoming production of Grease beginning at the Piccadilly Theatre on 8 August.[53]
Debut of Britain's Got Talent, a co-production between Talkback Thames and Simon Cowell's SyCo for ITV. The series is a search for a variety act to perform at this year's Royal Variety Performance. The winner will also receive a prize of £100,000.[54]
11 June The Mirror reports that Emmerdale actress Adele Silva is to quit her role as Kelly Windsor.[55]
13 June Simon Ambrose wins the third series of The Apprentice.[56]
15 June A contestant on Britain's Got Talent is withdrawn from the contest after police contact the series to alert producers that he is on the Sex Offenders Register.[57]
Nadia Sawalha wins the 2007 series of Celebrity MasterChef.
17 June Opera singer Paul Potts wins the first series of Britain's Got Talent.[58]
19 June Nick Ross announces he is leaving Crimewatch, with July's edition of the show being the final one he will present.[59] The announcement renews media speculation that the BBC has an ageist policy towards its presenters.[60][61]
25 June–8 July Live coverage of Wimbledon 2007 is aired by the BBC with the last Wimbledon season to be shot in 4:3 fullscreen and the second season to be shot in 16:9 widescreen.

July

[edit]
Date Event
1 July BBC One airs the Concert for Diana on what would have been the 46th birthday of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.[62]
2 July Nick Ross presents his final episode of Crimewatch after 23 years at the helm. He had been on the programme since it began in 1984.[63]
Launch of Press TV, an English-language global news channel owned by the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.[64]
11 July BBC Two debuts The Alastair Campbell Diaries, a series in which Campbell reads extracts from his memoirs over footage of key moments in the recently ended Blair government.[65] The three part series is aired over three nights, concluding on 13 July.[66]
15 July The 28th series of Last of the Summer Wine begins on BBC One.
18 July Six BBC programmes, Children in Need, Comic Relief, Sport Relief, TMi and two radio programmes (The Liz Kershaw Show and White Label) have been discovered to have been involved in the phone in scandals.
23 July All music channels have permanently suspended their viewer selection aspects due to the ongoing premium rate phone-in scandals.
25 July The acclaimed US science fiction series Heroes makes its debut on BBC Two.[67]
26 July The 2005 British Comedy Awards broadcast on ITV now become involved with the phone-in scandal, when it is discovered that people phoning in to vote for the People's Choice Award called when the programme was not being broadcast live, and the last half-hour of the show had been recorded when ITV showed a news broadcast.

August

[edit]
Date Event
2 August 2007 sees the BBC celebrating their 75-year service in television (85 years for radio). The first BBC Television Service began on 2 August 1932.
8 August Former Peak Practice actor Gray O'Brien joins the cast of Coronation Street as catalogue salesman Tony Gordon.[68]
9 August The success of Australian soaps such as Neighbours on British television has led to the wide use of phrases such as "no worries" in British English since the late 1980s, a report on Australia's Nine News suggests.[69]
26 August The last episode of the BBC children's television series Smile is broadcast presented by Barney Harwood and Kirsten O'Brien, from 7:30 until 10:00 on BBC Two.
31 August Brian Belo wins series eight of Big Brother.[70]

September

[edit]
Date Event
3 September CBBC identity relaunched, with its third marketing campaign since the launch of the CBBC channel.
Lauren McAvoy wins Cycle 3 of Britain's Next Top Model.
4 September BBC One airs the 2004 romantic comedy Raising Helen, starring Kate Hudson.[71]
5 September The BBC scraps plans for Planet Relief, a programme like Comic Relief and Sport Relief for fear of bias against critics of climate change and that people would prefer more factual programmes on the subject.
ITV1 airs the British terrestrial television premiere of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives.
7 September–20 October ITV provides coverage of the 2007 Rugby World Cup, hosted by France.
9 September In an advertising first, eBay begin showing live auction adverts between programmes, showing an auction with picture, current bid, time auction ends, and postage and packaging charges
The BBC One Sunday morning political programme Sunday AM is renamed The Andrew Marr Show when it returns after its summer break.[72][73]
10 September ITV and Trevor McDonald are cleared of racism by Ofcom over remarks made on McDonald's News Knight show. The remarks concerned comedian Bernard Manning, who had died a few months previously, with McDonald referring to Manning as a 'fat, white bastard'.[74]
13 September The BBC signs a two-year deal to provide coverage of the Super Bowl, the first time the event will be aired by the BBC. Super Bowl XLII will air in 2008, and Super Bowl XLIII in 2009.[75]
17 September Children's show Mister Maker is first aired on CBeebies.
18 September It is announced that E.ON is to end its sponsorship of ITV Weather after 16 years.[76] The sponsorship deal was the longest on UK terrestrial TV to date, beginning on 22 September 1991 (when sponsorship of ITV programmes was first allowed). Until June 2007, ITV Weather was sponsored by the energy supplier Powergen, and since then by Powergen's parent company E.ON.
Dame Kelly Holmes presents the weekly round-up of sports news on BBC London News as an apparent substitute for regular presenter Mark Bright; she is introduced by anchorwoman Riz Lateef without explanation.
21 September ITV postpone broadcasting the 2007 British Comedy Awards due to the phone-in scandals.
26 September ABC1 ceases broadcasting.
The Bionic Woman returns after a break of nearly 30 years but is axed again 2 months later.
28 September Trapped! appears as CBBC's first ever Halloween-themed game show since CITV's Terror Towers.
29 September Date on which the BBC finally airs an unedited version of the 1990 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The High Ground", which caused controversy at the time when one of the characters made reference to an Irish reunification occurring in 2024.[77]

October

[edit]
Date Event
1 October Virgin1 launches at 9 pm, replacing Ftn.
The BBC announces that former 5 News presenter Kirsty Young will replace Fiona Bruce as presenter on Crimewatch from January 2008. Bruce is to take over as presenter of The Antiques Roadshow from Michael Aspel, who plans to retire.[60][61]
4 October It is announced that ITV News and the ITV regional newsrooms are to switch from the traditional 4:3 format to 16:9 widescreen on 2 December.
5 October BBC newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky is to leave the broadcaster to present Five News, it is reported. She will take up the new presenting role in the New Year.[78]
8 October Five has bought the rights to 8 Simple Rules starting on 21 October.
9 October Sky One apologises to viewers after a "technical fault" during a public vote on the 7 October edition of its show, Cirque de Celebrite, meant some of the votes were not registered.[79]
14 October UKTV Bright Ideas ceases broadcasting to be replaced on Freeview by Dave.
15 October UKTV G2 is rebranded as Dave and becomes a free-to-air channel replacing newly defunct UKTV Bright Ideas.[80] The name for the channel, aimed at a young male audience, was chosen by UKTV because "everyone knows a bloke called Dave".[81]
17 October – 14 November The town of Whitehaven in Cumbria becomes the first place in the UK to lose their analogue television signals and start the digital switchover, starting with BBC Two. The other four channels were switched off on 14 November.
20 October The BBC Switch teenage block of shows is launched to cater for the underserved 12- to 16-year-olds.
29 October Sky News issues an apology after an aside from presenter Julie Etchingham was accidentally broadcast during live coverage of a speech by Conservative Party leader David Cameron when Etchingham's microphone was accidentally left switched on.[82]
The BBC announce that Patsy Palmer will return to EastEnders to reprise her role as Bianca Jackson.[83] The following day it is also confirmed that Sid Owen, who played her on-screen husband, Ricky Butcher, will also return to the series.[84]
31 October ITV confirms that Julie Etchingham will join the broadcaster to present a relaunched News at Ten alongside Sir Trevor McDonald from January 2008.[85][86]

November

[edit]
Date Event
2 November Emily Nakanda withdraws from The X Factor due to a "happy slapping" video she had been involved in at her university.
21 November Insurance firm esure is revealed as E.ON's successor as the sponsor of ITV's national weather bulletins. The two-year deal, rumoured to be worth £10 million, was negotiated by Carat Sponsorship and will take effect from 1 January 2008, with esure and Sheilas' Wheels as the sponsors, alternating between the two brands every two months.[87]
27 November The BBC announces that Billie Piper will reprise her role as Rose Tyler in the fourth series of Doctor Who after leaving at the end of the second series.[88][89][90]
29 November Kelly Brook is forced to withdraw from Strictly Come Dancing following the death of her father, Kenneth.
30 November Christopher Biggins wins the seventh series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!.[91]

December

[edit]
Date Event
1 December ITV News and the ITV regional newsrooms cease being broadcast in 4:3 aspect.

Freeview Channel in the UK also sees ITV News and the ITV regional newsrooms cease being cropped to 14:9 format.

2 December ITV News and the ITV regional newsrooms began using 16:9 widescreen.
3 December Jay Hunt is confirmed as the next Controller of BBC One, replacing Peter Fincham. She will take up the role in early 2008.[92][93]
9 December Boxer Joe Calzaghe is named as this year's BBC Sports Personality of the Year.[94]
15 December Leon Jackson wins the fourth series of The X Factor.[95]
22 December Singer Alesha Dixon and her dancing partner Matthew Cutler win the fifth series of Strictly Come Dancing.[96]
25 December BBC One gets its highest rated Christmas Day schedule in years, with "Voyage of the Damned", the Christmas special of Doctor Who, getting the shows' biggest audience since 1979 (13.31 million) and a special episode of EastEnders getting 14.38 million, that shows' biggest rating in three years and the highest rated show of 2007. Another success is a one-off special of To the Manor Born, returning after 26 years, with an audience of 10.25 million.
BBC iPlayer, an online service for watching previously aired shows, is launched.
27–28 December "Assault on Sun Hill", a two-part The Bill story, features an armed siege at the fictional police station that leaves several characters traumatised.
30 December Babe is aired on BBC One for the last time.

Debuts

[edit]

BBC One

[edit]
Date Debut
1 January The Sarah Jane Adventures
8 January M.I. High
12 January Lilies
After You've Gone
25 January Five Days
25 February Recovery
5 March Shaun the Sheep
16 March Celebrity Apprentice
23 March A Class Apart
25 March Play It Again
31 March Any Dream Will Do
8 April Inspector George Gently
13 April Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul
24 April Life Line
8 May HolbyBlue
25 May Ronni Ancona & Co
16 June Jekyll
Would I Lie to You?
4 August Empathy
6 August How to Live Longer
28 August Outnumbered
2 September Coming Down the Mountain
3 September Bear Behaving Badly
16 September Michael Palin's New Europe
28 September Trapped!
15 October Real Rescues
26 October The Armstrong & Miller Show
17 November The Omid Djalili Show
Who Dares Wins
4 November Joe's Palace
10 November A Real Summer
12 November Capturing Mary
18 November Cranford
19 November Animalia
18 December Oliver Twist
26 December Ballet Shoes
30 December The Shadow in the North

BBC Two

[edit]
Date Debut
2 January This Life + 10
11 January Bill Oddie Back in the USA
11 February The Verdict
22 February Fear, Stress & Anger
19 March In the Night Garden...
20 March The Underdog Show
12 April Roman's Empire
16 April Get 100
4 May Maxwell
25 July Heroes
30 July India with Sanjeev Bhaskar
29 August The Restaurant
23 September Stuart: A Life Backwards
4 October The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle
The Peter Serafinowicz Show
5 October The Tudors

BBC Three

[edit]
Date Debut
19 March Rush Hour
21 May Coming of Age
23 May Gavin & Stacey
27 September How Not To Live Your Life

BBC Four

[edit]
Date Debut
9 May Miss Marie Lloyd: Queen of the Music Hall
31 May World News Today
15 October Doctors to Be: 20 Years On
22 October Fanny Hill
30 October The History of the World Backwards

ITV (1/2/3/4/CITV)

[edit]
Date Debut
1 February Benidorm
10 February Primeval
19 February The Bad Mother's Handbook
26 February Instinct
11 March Fallen Angel
Atomic Betty
22 March The Yellow House
4 April City Lights
22 April Kingdom
10 June Talk to Me
11 June 24 Hours with...
18 June Golden Balls
The Time of Your Life
9 June Britain's Got Talent
24 June News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald
26 August The Man Who Lost His Head
3 September The Alan Titchmarsh Show
19 September Torn
27 September Secret Diary of a Call Girl
The Whistleblowers
8 October Emu
24 October Frankenstein
28 October Half Broken Things
4 November A Room with a View
11 November My Boy Jack

Channel 4

[edit]
3 January Embarrassing Bodies
5 January Ugly Betty
21 January Consent
25 January Skins
14 April Trick or Treat
30 May Big Brother 8
16 July Win My Wage
4 October Britz
5 October Other People
12 October Ladies and Gentlemen
19 October Plus One
2 November Free Agents
9 November The Kevin Bishop Show
26 November Boy A

Five

[edit]
Date Debut
28 February Kitchen
12 March The Beeps
9 April The Milkshake! Show
7 May Roary the Racing Car
3 September Big School

Other channels

[edit]
Date Debut Network
3 February The Replacements Disney Channel
5 March Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue! Boomerang
9 July Skunk Fu! CBBC
6 August Lola & Virginia Pop Girl
29 October Storm Hawks Cartoon Network

Changes of network affiliation

[edit]
Show Moved from Moved to
TNA Impact TWC Fight Bravo 2 [1]
The Apprentice BBC Two BBC One
Top of the Pops
American Dad! BBC Three
Prison Break Five Sky One
Robot Wars Challenge
8 Simple Rules ABC1 Five
Fraggle Rock CITV Cartoonito
  • ^1 It later moved to Bravo in early 2008

Channels

[edit]

New channels/streaming services

[edit]
Date Channel
1 March Discovery Turbo
24 May Cartoonito
20 July Film 24
6 August Pop Girl
9 August Ftn +1
20 August Channel 4 +1
1 October Virgin1
Virgin1 +1
7 November Sky Real Lives
Sky Real Lives +1
Sky Real Lives 2
10 December Channel 4 HD

Defunct channels

[edit]
Main article: List of former TV channels in the United Kingdom § 2007
Date Channel
28 February Discovery Kids
1 March Discovery Wings
13 March ITV Play
27 March iBuy
23 May Toonami
20 July Bonanza
26 September ABC1
1 October Ftn
Ftn +1
5 October Radio Music Shop
15 October UKTV Bright Ideas
7 November Sky Travel
Sky Travel +1
Sky Travel Extra

Rebranded channels

[edit]
Date Old name New name
13 March ITV Play ITV Bingo
15 October UKTV G2 Dave
UKTV G2 +1 Dave +1

Television shows

[edit]

Returning this year after a break of one year or longer

[edit]
Programme Date of original removal Original channel Date of return New channel(s)
Dale's Supermarket Sweep 6 September 2001 ITV 12 February 2007 N/A (Same channel as original)
Teletubbies 16 February 2001 CBBC (BBC Two) 31 March 2007 CBeebies
The Hoobs 13 June 2003 Channel 4 May 2007 N/A (Same channel as original)
The Bionic Woman 13 May 1978 ITV 26 September 2007
To the Manor Born 29 November 1981 BBC One 25 December 2007

Continuing television shows

[edit]

1920s

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

1930s

[edit]

1950s

[edit]

1960s

[edit]

1970s

[edit]

1980s

[edit]

1990s

[edit]

2000s

[edit]

Big Brother racism controversy

[edit]
Main article: Celebrity Big Brother racism controversy

2007 saw Channel 4 reality show Big Brother involved in two high-profile race-rows.

Celebrity Big Brother 5

[edit]

In January, Jade Goody, her mother Jackiey Budden and boyfriend Jack Tweed, along with Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara, were accused of racist bullying towards Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty. This resulted in protests in India and a record number of complaints to British TV regulator Ofcom and to Channel 4.

Big Brother 8

[edit]

At the end of May, Channel 4 broadcast an apology for not intervening in the bullying just moments before the eight non-celebrity series started; all housemates in this series were given strict warnings about racism before entering. Just one week after the launch, Emily Parr was removed from the house in the early hours of the morning for saying the word "nigger" to black housemate Charley Uchea just hours before. This incident was widely discussed in the media; viewers complained about Channel 4 broadcasting the word, however, other viewers complained that Emily had been treated unfairly, as she did not use the word in a spiteful context, instead possibly imitating rappers who use the word in their songs.

Ending this year

[edit]
Date Show Channel(s) Debut(s)
4 January Green Wing Channel 4 2004
CITV weekday afternoon block ITV 1983
The Holiday Programme BBC 1969
What Not to Wear 2001
7 January Just the Two of Us 2006
12 January The Price Is Right ITV 1984
13 January Soapstar Superstar 2006
19 January Airline 1998
28 January Grandstand BBC 1958
13 February Bill Oddie Back in the USA 2007
15 February The Verdict 2007
3 March PokerFace ITV 2006
7 March BrainTeaser Channel 5 2002
13 March Fallen Angel ITV 2007
16 March The Vicar of Dibley BBC 1994
10 April Life on Mars 2006
19 April Sea of Souls 2004
23 April Rush Hour 2007
31 May The Last Detective ITV 2003
13 July Art Attack 1990
14 July Popworld Channel 4 2001
21 July PointlessBlog BBC Two 2003
23 July The Time of Your Life ITV 2007
28 July Jekyll BBC
10 August Win My Wage Channel 4
26 August The Chase BBC 2006
31 August Dale's Supermarket Sweep ITV 1993 & 2007
1 September School's Out BBC 2006
13 September Born to Be Different Channel 4 2003 & 2006
3 October Torn ITV 2007
28 October Michael Palin's New Europe BBC
28 November The Bionic Woman ITV 1976 & 2007
16 December Cranford BBC 2007
22 December Oliver Twist
Parkinson ITV 1971

Top 10 highest rated shows of 2007

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Rank Show Rating
1 EastEnders 14.34 million
2 Doctor Who 13.31 million
3 Rugby World Cup 2007 13.10 million
4 Coronation Street 13.08 million
5 The Vicar of Dibley 13.08 million
6 X Factor results 12.23 million
7 Concert for Diana 12.22 million
8 Strictly Come Dancing 12.09 million
9 The X Factor 11.78
10 Britain's Got Talent 11.58 million

Deaths

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Date Name Age Broadcast credibility
7 January Magnus Magnusson 77 television presenter (Mastermind)
15 January Barbara Kelly 83 actress and panelist (What's My Line?)
22 January Anna Cropper 68 actress (The Jewel in the Crown, Midsomer Murders)
30 January Griffith Jones 97 actor
6 February Dick Allen 62 television film editor (Hotel du Lac, Portrait of a Marriage)
9 February Ian Richardson 72 Scottish actor (House of Cards)
20 February Derek Waring 79 actor (Z-Cars)
21 February Keith Kyle 81 television presenter (Tonight)
8 March John Inman 71 actor (Are You Being Served?)
14 March Gareth Hunt 65 actor (Upstairs, Downstairs, The New Avengers)
30 March Dave Martin 72 television scriptwriter (Doctor Who, Z-Cars)
2 April George Sewell 82 actor (Softly, Softly, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Manhunt, The Sweeney)
3 April Terry Hall 80 ventriloquist on television
27 April Al Hunter Ashton 49 actor and scriptwriter
26 May Aubrey Singer 80 television executive
18 June Bernard Manning 76 comedian
19 June Tommy Eytle 80 actor (Jules Tavernier in EastEnders)
27 June Hugh Johns 83 football commentator
9 July Penny Thomson 56 television producer
Peter Tuddenham 88 voice actor (Blake's 7)
13 July Frank Maher 78 television stuntman
20 July Ivor Emmanuel 79 actor
26 July John Normington 70 actor (Softly, Softly, Crown Court; Upstairs, Downstairs, My Family and Other Animals)
29 July Phil Drabble 93 television presenter, author and countryman (One Man and His Dog)
Mike Reid 67 comedian and actor (EastEnders, Runaround) aka Frank Butcher
5 August Peter Graham Scott 83 television producer and director
16 August Clive Exton 77 scriptwriter (Poirot, Jeeves and Wooster, Rosemary & Thyme)
30 August Michael Jackson 65 writer and television presenter (The Beer Hunter)
6 September Ronald Magill 87 actor (Emmerdale)
1 October Ronnie Hazlehurst 79 theme tune composer (Only Fools and Horses, Yes Minister, Are You Being Served?, The Two Ronnies)
Ned Sherrin 76 television producer (That Was The Week That Was, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life)
6 October Rodney Diak 86 actor
12 October Noel Coleman 87 actor (Doctor Who, Emergency – Ward 10, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Z-Cars, Dixon of Dock Green, The Avengers)
16 October Deborah Kerr 86 actress (A Woman of Substance)
21 October Peter Moffatt 85 television director (All Creatures Great and Small, Doctor Who)
27 October Moira Lister 84 South African-born actress (Danger Man, The Avengers)
6 November Hilda Braid 78 actress (Citizen Smith, Nana Moon in EastEnders)
9 November Trish Williamson 52 TV weather presenter, journalist, producer and director[99]
19 November Dick Wilson 91 actor
22 November Verity Lambert 71 TV producer (Doctor Who)
28 November Tony Holland 67 television writer (EastEnders)
1 December Anton Rodgers 74 actor (Fresh Fields, French Fields, May to December)
5 December Christine Finn 77 actress (Quatermass and the Pit)
Peter Orton 72 television producer
8 December Donald Burton 83 actor (Upstairs, Downstairs, Public Eye, Minder)
25 December Pat Kirkwood 86 actress

See also

[edit]

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[edit]
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[edit]
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