This is a list of British television-related events in 2005.
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January
- 1 January
- 5 January – Desperate Housewives makes its initial UK debut, at 10:00pm on Channel 4. Overnight figures indicate it achieves an audience of 4.4 million viewers, becoming the second highest rating debut for an American series in the channel's history, behind ER in 1995.[2][3]
- 8 January – Jerry Springer: The Opera, featuring Jesus, Mary and God as guests on The Jerry Springer Show, airs on BBC Two, despite protests from Christian Voice and other groups.[4]
- 10 January
- Christian Voice confirms plans to launch a private blasphemy prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer: The Opera.[5] The group subsequently attempts to prosecute BBC Director-General Mark Thompson, but their bid is rejected by the High Court. An attempt to overrule that decision is also rejected in December 2007.[6]
- Vote for Me, a contest to find an independent Parliamentary candidate, makes its debut on ITV.[7]
- 11 January – Debut of the six-part BBC Two documentary series Auschwitz: The Nazis and 'The Final Solution' which tells the story of Auschwitz concentration camp.[8] The final part is aired on 15 February.[9]
- 14 January – ITV's Vote for Me contest is won by former lawyer and convicted fraudster Rodney Hylton-Potts, who presents a "cabbies manifesto" that includes halting immigration, scrapping the Human Rights Act and legalising all drugs. However, the programme is soon caught up in controversy because of the winning candidate's extreme political views.[10][11] Hylton-Potts goes on to stand against Conservative leader Michael Howard as a candidate for Folkestone and Hythe at the general election, but comes in seventh place and loses his deposit.[7]
- 21 January – The auction channel bid-up.tv is rebranded as bid.tv.
- 23 January – Happy Mondays dancer Mark Berry, known professionally as Bez wins the third series of Celebrity Big Brother.[12]
- 26 January – Debut of The Rotters' Club on BBC Two, a three-part adaptation of Jonathan Coe's novel of the same name about growing up in 1970s Birmingham, scripted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.[13][14]
- 27 January – Holocaust Memorial Day and the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp are observed in the UK. BBC Two and BBC News 24 air Auschwitz Remembered, a special news programme providing coverage of memorial events.[15]
February
- 3 February – An audience member on the evening's edition of Question Time uses the show's final question to propose to his girlfriend, who says yes. It is the first time a marriage proposal has occurred on the programme in its 25-year history.[16]
- 8 February – Teachers' TV, run by the Department for Education and Skills, launches on Sky Digital (channel 686) and Freeview.[17][18]
- 9 February – The Africa-based BBC journalist and producer Kate Peyton is killed in a shooting incident in Mogadishu, Somalia while reporting on that country's nascent peace process.[19]
- 16 February – The first series of the UK version of The Apprentice debuts on BBC Two.[20][21]
- 18 February – Adele Silva will reprise her role as Emmerdale temptress Kelly Windsor five years after leaving the series, it is reported.[22]
- 19 February – EastEnders celebrates its 20th anniversary on the air, airing a special episode in which Dirty Den Watts is killed by his new wife Chrissie. 14.34 million watch the episode (shown on 18 February).[23] It is the UK's second highest rated programme of 2005 (the first is an episode of Coronation Street three days later).[24]
- 21 February – MasterChef relaunches as MasterChef Goes Large.
- 22 February – Eamonn Holmes announces he will step down from his role as a GMTV presenter after twelve years.[25]
- 23 February – UKTV Style Gardens, a channel dedicated to gardening programmes, launches.
- 24 February – ITV airs another episode of its police drama The Bill to feature a storyline in which characters are killed off in a fire at Sun Hill police station. Computer generated imagery is used because producing a real explosion and fireball ripping through the station corridors is not possible.[26]
- 26 February – Sound TV, known pre-launch as The Great British Television Channel, launches on Sky Digital (588). It closes in the Autumn.
March
- 3 March – Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern opens RTÉ's new studios in London, based at Millbank opposite the Houses of Parliament.[27]
- 4 March – Channel 4 signs a £1m deal with Appletiser to sponsor repeat episodes of Friends during 2005.[28]
- 5 March – Cat Deeley presents her final edition of CD:UK, after 6 years.[29]
- 10 March – BBC One airs an edition of Question Time from Changhai, China, as part of the BBC's China Week.[30]
- 11 March – BBC One airs the tenth Comic Relief fundraiser. Highlights include a crossover between Antiques Roadshow and The Vicar of Dibley, as well as specials of Little Britain and Blind Date.[31]
- 17 March – ITV signs up Jerry Springer to present a daytime talk show to replace Trisha.[32][33]
- 19 March – Ahead of the return of Doctor Who later in the month, BBC Two airs a "Doctor Who Night", with three programmes celebrating the series. The Story of Doctor Who features cast and crew, including Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy discussing the original series. Some Things You Need to Know About Doctor Who provides a bitesize guide to the programme. Finally John Humphrys presents a Doctor Who special of Mastermind in which fans answer questions about the series.[34]
- 20 March
- 23 March – Five announce plans to move its Trisha Goddard show to a morning slot from April to rival ITV's forthcoming The Springer Show.[37]
- 26 March –
- Nine years after its last new episode and sixteen years since its last regular run, Doctor Who returns to BBC One for a new series, the twenty-seventh in total since 1963. Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper star. An average 10.81 million viewers, over 40% of the watching audience, tune in, winning its timeslot and making it No. 3 BBC show and No. 7 across all channels for the week. The premiere episode of the revival, "Rose", written by Russell T Davies, goes on to become the UK's seventh highest rated programme of 2005.
- Gordon Hendricks, performing as Elvis Presley wins the sixteenth and final series of Stars in Their Eyes. He is the second Elvis impersonator to win the contest. Stars in Their Eyes continues until the following year, with a final junior series and a number of celebrity specials.
- 30 March
April
- 1 April – Thomasina Miers wins the 2005 series of MasterChef Goes Large.
- 2 April – Digital channel BBC Four broadcasts a live re-make of the famous 1953 science-fiction drama The Quatermass Experiment. The production is the first live drama broadcast by the BBC for over twenty years, and draws BBC Four's second highest audience to date, with an average of 482,000 viewers.
- 4 April – BBC Four airs Speak No Evil – The Story of the Broadcast Ban, a documentary recalling the 1988 broadcasting restrictions imposed by the Government of Margaret Thatcher on organisations in Northern Ireland believed to support terrorism.[40]
- 5 April – It is reported that Ofcom may fine ITV Central for broadcasting a pre-recorded late Central News bulletin for the East Midlands.[41]
- 8 April – 13.03 million viewers watch Ken Barlow tie the knot with Deirdre Rachid on Coronation Street, one day before the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker Bowles (7.36 million viewers watch). The scheduling move echoes Ken and Deirdre's first wedding, which occurred two days before Charles's wedding to Diana in 1981, and which also beat the Royal wedding in the television ratings.
- 11 April – ITV1 refreshes its daytime schedule under the brand name ITV Day, which features established programmes such as This Morning and Loose Women joined by a whole host of new shows over the coming months. The ITV Lunchtime News is also extended to an hour as part of the schedule refresh.[42]
- 14 April – The BBC removes advice from its website warning that Doctor Who is too scary to be watched by children under the age of eight, describing the statement as "a mistake".[43]
- 16 April – David Tennant is announced as the Tenth Doctor.[44]
- 18 April – Launch of the teleshopping channel iBuy.
- 27 April – Eamonn Holmes presents his final edition of GMTV after twelve years with the broadcaster.[45]
- 28 April – BBC One airs a special election edition of Question Time, featuring the leaders of the three main political parties. Tony Blair (Labour), Michael Howard (Conservative) and Charles Kennedy (Liberal Democrats) are each questioned for 30 minutes by the audience.[30]
May
- 3 May – The Sun reports that Labour Party chiefs are concerned that the 5 May episode of EastEnders in which Dot Cotton learns to drive could distract viewers from voting.[46]
- 4 May – Tim Campbell, a 27-year-old transport manager with London Underground, wins the first series of The Apprentice. His prize is a £100,000 job with Sugar's firm, Amstrad.[47]
- 5–6 May – Coverage of the 2005 general election is shown on British television. The Labour Party attains a third successive general election victory.
- 7 May – Family Affairs wins Best Storyline at the British Soap Awards for a story in which a couple discover a family friend has been abusing their daughter.[48]
- 9 May – Corpus Christi College, Oxford wins the 2004–05 series of University Challenge, beating University College London 250–140.
- 13 May – To celebrate the 80th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II in 2006, Rolf Harris is to create an oil portrait of her as part of a special edition of his BBC One show Rolf on Art, it is announced.[49] The programme airs on New Year's Day 2006.[50]
- 16 May –
- 19 May – Eamonn Holmes has signed a deal with Sky News to present their early morning programme Sky News Sunrise, it is reported.[52]
- 21 May – Greece's Helena Paparizou wins the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest (staged in Kyiv) with "My Number One".
- 23 May – Over one-third of BBC staff join a strike in response to proposed job cuts at the corporation.[53]
- 26 May – BBC One airs a special edition of Question Time from Paris, France, ahead of the French referendum on the European Constitution.[30]
- 29 May – BBC One airs the final edition of Breakfast with Frost after a twelve-year run.[54]
- 30 May –
- 31 May – David Easter, who plays villain Pete Callan in Family Affairs, is to leave the series in September, it is announced.[55]
August
- 1 August – BBC Broadcast, formerly Broadcasting & Presentation, and responsible for the playout and branding of all BBC Channels, is sold to Creative Broadcast Services, owned by the Macquarie Capital Alliance Group and Macquarie Bank. It is renamed Red Bee Media on 31 October.
- 2 August – Five announces its soap, Family Affairs will be axed at the end of the year.[65]
- 4 August – BBC One airs Sinatra: Dark Star, a documentary investigating rumours of Frank Sinatra's links to organised crime.[66]
- 10 August - Lost premieres on Channel 4, garnering an audience of 6 million viewers, overtaking ER as the highest rated debut for a US series in the channel's history.[67]
- 12 August – Anthony Hutton wins series six of Big Brother.[68]
- 17 August – ITV announces plans to launch a children's channel to rival CBBC.[69]
- 22 August – Peppa Pig makes its debut in the United States, on Cartoon Network's Tickle U programming block, re-dubbed with American voice actors. This turns out to be a flop, so Nick Jr airs the original British version.
September
- 3 September – After several revamps and presenting changes, BBC One airs the final edition of its children's entertainment series The Saturday Show.[70]
- 5 September – Pitt & Kantrop debuts on BBC1
- 7 September –
- 8 September – Faze TV, a British digital channel aimed at gay men, cancels its launch after failing to secure sufficient funding to deliver "sufficient quality."[73]
- 11 September – BBC One launches Sunday AM, a Sunday morning current affairs programme presented by Andrew Marr.[74]
- 12 September – In an interview with The Guardian, the BBC Director of News and Current Affairs Helen Boaden defends the broadcaster's decision to stick with initial reports of a power surge on the London Underground on the morning of 7 July until actual events could be corroborated, saying it was the right thing to do. "Some of our competitors talked immediately of 90 dead. They talked about three bus bombs. That was off a range of various wire services and it was complete speculation and we wouldn't go with that. We would be careful – we would try to check things out."[75]
- 19 September – The most famous children's classic television character Muffin the Mule (who disappeared from TV screens in the mid-1950s) is back with a brand new 2D animated series on BBC Two.
- 20 September
- After seven and a half years, Emmerdale sees a new sequence to the opening titles of the series, with the same 1998 theme music alongside another helicopter montage, this time marginally slower and without the actors and the closing credits are generic ITV Network style credits over a continuous shot of the village, again from a helicopter, but filmed from a different angle.
- BBC One airs Derailed, a docudrama dealing with the 1999 Ladbroke Grove rail crash.[76]
- 22 September – ITV airs a second live episode of The Bill to mark the broadcaster's 50th year on air.
- 23 September – It is announced that Des Lynam will succeed Richard Whiteley as presenter of Channel 4's Countdown, with his first episode airing on 31 October.[77]
- 25 September
- 26 September – The BBC is censured by Ofcom for its coverage of the London bombings on 7 July. Of particular concern to them was an incident in which footage of a man being carried by stretcher into the Royal London Hospital was shown as a BBC News 24 presenter commentated "Let's just take a look at some of the pictures coming from the Royal London." Ofcom concludes that "the pictures were used generically and the commentary did not reflect the seriousness of the images being transmitted". Channel 4 News is also criticised for not "fully reflecting the enormity of the images being reflected", although it had not breached the Ofcom regulations as the images were not used casually. ITV News is not criticised, however, because it provided a "clear narrative context [with] sensitive accompanying reporting".[78]
- 26–27 September – No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese's documentary on Bob Dylan, receives its broadcast premiere on BBC Two in the UK, under the Arena banner.[79][80]
- 30 September – CBBC identity relaunched, with its second marketing campaign since the launch of the CBBC Channel.
- September – ITV celebrates its 50th anniversary with a collection of special programmes, under the name ITV 50.
December
- 2 December – BBC Three's weeknight news bulletin The 7 O'Clock News is broadcast for the final time. It is axed following a report into the BBC's digital output[98] which claims that the show "achieves nothing and attracts tiny audiences".
- 3 December – ITV1 screens the British terrestrial television premiere of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second film in the Harry Potter series. Overnight viewing figures indicate it is watched by an audience of eight million (a 37% audience share). The evening's edition of The X Factor, screened after Chamber of Secrets, is watched by 9.7 million viewers (a 42% audience share), giving ITV1 its best ratings since February 2002.[99]
- 5 December – Carol Thatcher wins the fifth series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!.[100]
- 7–16 December – Space Cadets is shown on Channel 4, a hoax reality TV show where the contestants believe they are in a Space Shuttle orbiting Earth, when in fact they are in a set in a disused aircraft hangar in Suffolk.
- 10 December – Westlife's version of "You Raise Me Up" is voted the 2005 Record of the Year by ITV viewers, the fourth time the Irish boy band have won the title.[101]
- 11 December – Cricketer Andrew Flintoff is named as this year's BBC Sports Personality of the Year.[102]
- 15 December – Sir Trevor McDonald makes his final ITN news broadcast after over 25 years. As a tribute, the closing theme tune for the News at Ten Thirty tonight is replaced with the News at Ten theme used from 1992 to 1999, McDonald having presented the show during that time.
- 17 December – Cricketer Darren Gough and dancing partner Lilia Kopylova win the third series of Strictly Come Dancing. Shayne Ward wins the second series of The X Factor on the same evening.[103]
- 19 December – Rolf Harris unveils his portrait of the Queen at Buckingham Palace.[104][105]
- 21 December – The BBC is to trial a three-month experiment in which its Saturday morning schedules for BBC One and BBC Two will be swapped. The changes, taking effect from January 2006, are being implemented because of frequent scheduling changes caused by big events and breaking news stories, and will mean children's programming will be absent from BBC One's Saturday morning lineup for the first time since 1968. This is not enough to save them and the Saturday morning children's programmes will be axed six months later.[106]
- 23 December
- 25 December
- BBC One airs:
- ITV1 airs the 2000 Christmas film The Grinch for a third time.
- 29 December – The last edition of Click Online broadcast under its original title before it is renamed Click.
- 30 December
More4
- 10 October – Launch of More4 News on new digital channel More4 (2005–2009).
New channels/streaming services
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Defunct channels
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Changes of network affiliation
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Returning this year after a break of one year or longer
- Muffin the Mule (1946–1955, 2005–2006)
- Doctor Who (1963–1989, 1996, 2005–present)
- Mr. Benn (1970–1972, 2005)
- Roobarb and Custard Too premieres (1974 BBC, 2005–2013 Channel 5)
- Willo the Wisp (1981–1984, 2005)
- Fireman Sam (1987–1994, 2005–2013)
- The Two Ronnies Sketchbook sequels to take over from The Two Ronnies (1971–1987, 1991, 1996, 2005)
- Family Guy (1999–2002, 2005–present)
1920s
- BBC Wimbledon (1927–1939, 1946–2019, 2021–present)
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Date | Name | Age | Cinematic Credibility |
2 January |
Cyril Fletcher |
91 |
British comedian (That's Life!) |
5 January |
Gabrielle Daye |
93 |
actress (Bless Me Father, Coronation Street) |
18 January |
Gabrielle Brune |
92 |
actress |
22 January |
Patsy Rowlands |
74 |
actress (Bless This House, Hallelujah!) |
9 February |
Sergei Hackel |
83 |
Russian Orthodox priest and broadcaster of BBC religious programmes |
Kate Peyton[19] |
39 |
BBC journalist and producer |
11 February |
Stan Richards |
74 |
actor (Seth Armstrong in Emmerdale) |
13 February |
Harry Baird |
73 |
actor (Danger Man, UFO) |
6 March |
Tommy Vance |
64 |
television presenter (Top of the Pops) |
9 March |
Sheila Gish |
62 |
actress (The First Churchills, Jewels, The Brighton Belles) |
10 March |
Dave Allen |
68 |
Irish comedian, host of solo shows on BBC1 and ITV. |
23 March |
David Kossoff |
85 |
actor (The Larkins) |
28 March |
Dave Freeman |
82 |
television scriptwriter |
2 April |
Betty Bolton |
99 |
actress |
11 April |
John Bennett |
76 |
actor (Doctor Who, Porridge, The Avengers, Bergerac) |
15 April |
Margaretta Scott |
93 |
actress (All Creatures Great and Small) |
21 April |
Jimmy Thompson |
79 |
actor (Pinky and Perky, The Benny Hill Show, George and Mildred) |
22 April |
Norman Bird |
80 |
actor (Worzel Gummidge, Fawlty Towers, Ever Decreasing Circles, Yes Minister) |
3 May |
David Batchelor |
63 |
television sound mixer |
14 May |
Mary Treadgold |
95 |
television producer |
1 June |
Geoffrey Toone |
94 |
actor (Doctor Who) |
3 June |
Michael Billington |
63 |
actor (UFO) |
13 June |
Jonathan Adams |
74 |
actor (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Yes Minister) |
16 June |
Alex McAvoy |
77 |
actor (The Vital Spark, The Bill, Dad's Army, Z-Cars) |
26 June |
Richard Whiteley |
61 |
presenter, host of Countdown. |
30 June |
Christopher Fry |
97 |
television scriptwriter |
4 July |
Bryan Coleman |
94 |
actor (Upstairs, Downstairs) |
11 July |
Gretchen Franklin[118] |
94 |
actress (Ethel Skinner in EastEnders) |
20 July |
David Tomblin |
74 |
television director and producer |
25 July |
David Jackson |
71 |
actor (Blake's 7, Z-Cars) |
9 August |
Kay Tremblay |
91 |
actress (Road to Avonlea) |
11 August |
James Booth |
77 |
actor |
22 August |
Elizabeth Knight |
60 |
actress (It's Awfully Bad for Your Eyes, Darling) |
25 August |
Jonathan Adams |
74 |
actor (Sir Francis Drake) |
31 August |
Michael Sheard[119] |
67 |
actor (Mr Bronson in Grange Hill) |
12 September |
Ronald Leigh-Hunt |
84 |
actor (Danger Man, Doctor Who, Freewheelers) |
23 September |
Roger Brierley |
70 |
actor (Jeeves and Wooster, Ripping Yarns, Only Fools and Horses) |
3 October |
Ronnie Barker |
76 |
actor and comedian (The Two Ronnies, Porridge, The Frost Report) |
16 October |
Ursula Howells |
83 |
actress (Dixon of Dock Green, The Forsyte Saga, Bergerac, Casualty) |
17 October |
Leslie Duxbury |
79 |
television producer (Coronation Street) |
20 October |
Michael Gill |
81 |
television producer and director |
25 October |
Barbara Keogh |
76 |
actress (EastEnders) |
31 October |
Mary Wimbush |
81 |
actress (Poldark, Jeeves and Wooster, Century Falls) |
7 November |
Harry Thompson |
45 |
television producer and scriptwriter |
Steve Whatley |
46 |
television presenter |
19 November |
John Timpson |
77 |
journalist and television presenter (Newsroom) |
2 December |
Leonard Lewis |
78 |
television director and producer |
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