2005 in British Television - Events

Events

• 5 January—Desperate Housewives makes its initial UK debut with an impressive 5 million viewers. These are the highest figures Channel 4 has had since the debut night of The Simpsons on 5 November 2004
• 8 January—Jerry Springer: The Opera airs on BBC Two, despite protests from Christian Voice and other groups.
• 21 January—The auction channel bid-up.tv is rebranded as bid.tv.
• 8 February—Teachers' TV, run by the Department for Education and Skills, launches on Sky Digital (channel 686) and Freeview.
• 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 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). It is the UK's second highest rated programme of 2005 (the first was an episode of Coronation Street three days later).
• 23 February—UKTV Style Gardens, a channel dedicated to gardening programmes, launches.
• 26 February—Sound TV, known pre-launch as The Great British Television Channel, launches on Sky Digital (588). It closed in the Autumn.
• 3 March—Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern opens RTÉ's new studios in London, based at Millbank opposite the Houses of Parliament.
• 20 March—BBC Director General Mark Thompson announces BBC staff of 27,000 will be cut by 3,780.
• 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 episode went on to become the UK's 7th highest rated programme of 2005.
• 30 March—As a test trial, the small Welsh towns of Ferryside and Llansteffan have their analogue television signals switched off. The trial proved a success and the digital switchover fully began two and a half years later in Cumbria.
• 30 March—Only days after his having debuted as the Ninth Doctor, the BBC announces that Christopher Eccleston will be leaving Doctor Who after only one season. Soon after, David Tennant is announced as the Tenth Doctor.
• 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.
• 8 April—13.03 million viewers watched Ken Barlow tie the knot with Deirdre Rachid on Coronation Street, one day before The Prince of Wales' wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles (7.36 million viewers watched). The scheduling move echoed Ken and Deirdre's first wedding, which occurred two days before Charles's nuptials to Diana, Princess of Wales, and which also beat the Royal wedding in the television ratings (see 1981 in British television).
• 11 April—ITV Day launches on ITV1.
• 18 April—Launch of the teleshopping channel iBuy.
• 5–6 May—Coverage of the 2005 general election is shown on British television. The Labour Party attains a third successive General Election victory.
• 16 May—BBC Weather relaunches, changing from 2D to 3D graphics.
• 23 May—Over one third of BBC staff join a strike in response to proposed job cuts at the corporation.
• 18 June—Christopher Eccleston's final episode of the Ninth Doctor in Doctor Who, 'The Parting of the Ways', is broadcast on BBC One. David Tennant becomes the Tenth Doctor in the same episode.
• 25 June—The Girl in the Café, a comedy-drama by Richard Curtis made as part of the global Make Poverty History campaign, is shown by both BBC One in the United Kingdom and HBO in the United States on the same day.
• 26 June—Television presenter Richard Whiteley dies at Leeds General Infirmary following a short illness.
• 2 July—Broadcast of Live 8, a string of benefit concerts, in the G8 states and South Africa. They were timed to precede the 31st G8 summit being held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland from 6–8 July; they also coincided with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid.
• 17 July—After forty-one years broadcasting on BBC One, music show Top of the Pops is switched to the less mainstream BBC Two channel due to declining audiences. This is not enough to save it, and it is axed the following year.
• 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.
• 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."
• 22 September—It is announced that Des Lynam will succeed the late Richard Whiteley as presenter of Channel 4's Countdown, with his first episode airing on 31 October.
• 22 September—ITV airs a second live episode of The Bill to mark the broadcaster's 50th year on air.
• 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.
• September—ITV celebrates its 50th anniversary with a collection of special programmes, under the name ITV 50.
• 10 October—More4, a digital channel from Channel 4 offering factual content, launches.
• 24 October—Sky News moves to new studios, with a new schedule and on-air look.
• 25 October—The relaunched Doctor Who is the major winner at the annual National Television Awards in the UK, taking the Most Popular Drama award, with its stars Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper winning Most Popular Actor and Most Popular actress.
• 27 October – 16 December—Bleak House, a 15-episode adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel of the same name designed to capture a soap opera-style audience by using Dickens's original serial structure in half-hour episodes, is broadcast on BBC One.
• 31 October—Sky3 is launched on British digital terrestrial and satellite platforms. On the same day Sky Mix is rebranded as Sky Two, and Sky Travel ceases transmission on Freeview.
• 1 November—ITV4, a digital channel aimed at men, is launched in the UK. It is launched on Sky Digital Channel 120 on 7 November.
• 7–28 November—BBC One broadcasts ShakespeaRe-Told, a series of four adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays based in 21st century Britain. The plays in order are Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
• 11 November—EastEnders is the first British drama to feature a two minute silence. This episode later goes on to win the British Soap Award for 'Best Single Episode'.
• 18 November—BBC One broadcasts this year's annual Children in Need appeal. It contained several highlights including Catherine Tate in EastEnders, the BBC Newsreaders performing Bohemian Rhapsody, and a brand new Doctor Who adventure. The first to fully star David Tennant as the Doctor, the 7 minute episode directly follows on from The Parting of the Ways and directly leads on to The Christmas Invasion.
• 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.
• 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 that night is replaced with the News at Ten theme used from 1992 to 1999, McDonald having presented the show during that time.
• 23 December—ITV News Channel closed.
• 25 December—BBC One airs the Doctor Who Christmas Special, "The Christmas Invasion", Shane Richie and Jessie Wallace leave EastEnders for America.
• 29 December–The last edition of Click Online broadcast under its original title before it is renamed Click.
• 30 December-Family Affairs is axed on five.