1 January - Celebrity Big Brother 5 launched on Channel 4, with celebrities such as Jermaine Jackson, Dirk Benedict and Leo Sayer.
2 January – This Life returns for a ten-year reunion special and Des O'Connor takes over from Des Lynam as co-presenter (with Carol Vorderman) of Channel 4's long-running quiz show Countdown.
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.[1]
8 January – Michael Grade takes over as chief executive of ITV.[2]
17 January - Protests in India and the UK against the British series of Celebrity Big Brother after Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara are alleged to be racially abusive to Bollywood star, Shilpa Shetty.
22 January – BBC News 24 re-relaunched with new titles and new Astons.
27 January - The final edition of Grandstand, the flagship BBC sports programme, is aired after nearly 50 years on television screens.
9 February – Paul Merton presents his last edition of Room 101.
14 February – Samuel Preston walks off live on an episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks after insults about his wife Chantelle Houghton. Team captain Bill Bailey replaced him with a member of the audience, Ed Seymour.
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 and 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.
1 March – A channel agreement between Virgin Media and Sky for Virgin to broadcast non-premium Sky channels ends at midnight. Virgin Media and Sky had failed to reach agreement on the issue and subsequently Sky1, Sky2, Sky Travel, Sky Travel Extra, Sky Sports News and Sky News were 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 comes under attack from the 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.
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 have called for his release and Channel 5's game show BrainTeaser axes after only 5 years broadcast.
13 March – ITV Play is shut down permanently to be rebranded as ITV Bingo due to the phone-in scandal.
14 March – BBC children's programme Blue Peter is now involved with the scandal, after it is discovered they used a girl who was visiting the studio to pose as a caller live on the show.
16 March – Comic Relief night. The last ever episode of The Vicar of Dibley was broadcast.
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).
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 seriss.[3]
31 March – The Teletubbies celebrate their 10th anniversary for a TV comeback after 6 years of absence.
13 April – Have I Got News for You starts to produce a video podcast featuring unbroadcast material.
23 April – A BBC Panorama disclosed 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 claimed that "it was confident it had not breached regulators' codes". Opera Interactive also denied any wrongdoing.
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.[4]
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.
4 June – It is announced that Dannii Minogue will replace Louis Walsh as a judge on the forthcoming series of The X Factor,[5] joining Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne. Walsh had intended to leave the show, but later decided to return after being invited back.[6]
18 June - Golden Balls appears on ITV1.
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.
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 have been involved in the phone in scandals.
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 last half hour of the show had been recorded when the ITV showed a news broadcast.
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.
3 September – CBBC identity relaunched, with its third marketing campaign since the launch of the CBBC Channel.
5 September – The BBC scraps plans for Planet Relief, a programme similar to 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.
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 and The BBC One Sunday morning political programme Sunday AM is renamed The Andrew Marr Show when it returns after its summer break.
18 September – It is announced that E.ON is to end its sponsorship of ITV Weather after 16 years.[7] 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.
21 September – ITV postpone broadcasting the 2007 British Comedy Awards due to the phone-in scandals.
26 September – ABC1 ceases broadcasting and 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.
1 October – Virgin1 launches at 9pm, replacing Ftn.
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.
17 October – 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 12–16 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.[8]
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.[9][10]
14 November – The remaining four Analogue channels are switched to Digital in Whitehaven in Cumbria.
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.[11]
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 was a one-off special of To the Manor Born, returning after 26 years, with an audience of 10.25 million.
25 December – BBC iPlayer, an online service for watching previously aired shows, is launched.
Debuts (including scheduled)[]
BBC One[]
Date
Debut
1 January
The Sarah Jane Adventures
12 January
After You've Gone
16 March
Celebrity Apprentice
25 March
Play It Again
13 April
Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul
8 May
HolbyBlue
25 May
Ronni Ancona & Co
16 June
Jekyll
16 June
Would I Lie to You?
28 August
Outnumbered
28 September
Trapped!
15 October
Real Rescues
26 October
The Armstrong and Miller Show
17 November
The Omid Djalili Show
17 November
Who Dares Wins
BBC Two[]
Date
Debut
22 February
Fear, Stress & Anger
12 April
Roman's Empire
4 May
Maxwell
25 July
Heroes
4 October
The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle
4 October
The Peter Serafinowicz Show
5 October
The Tudors
ITV[]
Date
Debut
1 February
Benidorm
10 February
Primeval
18 June
Golden Balls
24 June
News Knight
3 September
The Alan Titchmarsh Show
Channel 4[]
Date
Debut
3 January
Desperate Housewives Season Three
3 January
Celebrity Big Brother
25 January
Skins
30 May
Big Brother 8
16 July
Win My Wage
5 October
Other People
12 October
Ladies and Gentlemen
19 October
Plus One
26 October
The Eejits
2 November
Free Agents
9 November
The Kevin Bishop Show
BBC Three[]
Date
Debut
23 May
Gavin & Stacey
BBC Four[]
Date
Debut
15 October
Doctors to Be: 20 Years On
30 October
The History of the World Backwards
Changes of network affiliation[]
Show
Moved from
Moved to
TNA Impact
TWC Fight
Bravo 2Template:Ref
The Apprentice
BBC Two
BBC One
Prison Break
Five
Sky One
American Dad!
BBC Two
BBC Three
Template:Refbegin
Template:Note It later moved to Bravo in early 2008
Template:Refend
Channel debuts[]
New channels[]
Date
Channel
20 August
Channel 4 +1
10 December
Channel 4 HD
Channel rebrands[]
Rebranding channels[]
Date
Old Name
New Name
13 March
ITV Play (defunct on the same day)
ITV Bingo
Television shows[]
Returning this year after a break of one year or longer[]
Programme
Date of original removal
Original channel
Date of return
New channel(s)
Teletubbies for 10th Anniversary episodes
5 January 2001
BBC One
31 March 2007
BBC Two & CBeebies
The Bionic Woman
13 May 1978
ITV
26 September 2007
N/A (Same channel as original)
To the Manor Born
29 November 1981
BBC One
25 December 2007
N/A (Same channel as original)
1950s[]
Panorama (1953–present).
What the Papers Say (1956–2008).
The Sky at Night (1957–present).
Blue Peter (1958–present).
1960s[]
Coronation Street (1960–present).
Songs of Praise (1961–present).
Doctor Who (1963–1989, 1996, 2005–present).
Match of the Day (1964–present).
The Money Programme (1966–present).
1970s[]
Emmerdale (1972–present).
Newsround (1972–present).
Last of the Summer Wine (1973–2010).
Arena (1975–present).
Top Gear (1977–2001, 2002–present).
Grange Hill (1978–2008).
Antiques Roadshow (1979–present).
Question Time (1979–present)
1980s[]
Family Fortunes (1980–1985, 1987–2002, 2006–present)
Postman Pat (1981, 1991, 1996, 2004–present)
Timewatch (1982–present).
The Bill (1984–2010).
Thomas & Friends (1984–present)
EastEnders (1985–present).
Comic Relief (1986–present).
Casualty (1986–present).
ChuckleVision (1987–present).
Fireman Sam (1987–1994, 2005–present)
This Morning (1988–present).
1990s[]
Have I Got News for You (1990–present)
Room 101 (1994–2007, 2012–present)
Hollyoaks (1995–present)
Silent Witness (1996–present)
Midsomer Murders (1997–present)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1998–present)
Bob The Builder (1998–present)
Bremner, Bird and Fortune (1999–present)
2000s[]
The Weakest Link (2000–2012)
Big Brother (2000–2010, 2011–present)
Real Crime (2001–present)
I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! (2002–present)
Harry Hill's TV Burp (2002–2012)
Spooks (2002–present)
The Daily Politics (2003–present)
Peep Show (2003–present)
The Politics Show (2003–present)
QI (2003–present)
The Royal (2003–2011)
This Week (2003–present)
Sea of Souls (2004–2007)
Supernanny (2004–2008, 2010–present)
Shameless (2004–present)
Strictly Come Dancing (2004–present)
The X Factor (2004–present)
More4 News (2005—2009)
My Family (2000-2011)
Love Soup (2005–2008)
Deal or No Deal (2005–present)
Sunday AM/The Andrew Marr Show (2005–present)
Dancing on Ice (2006–present)
Hotel Babylon (2006–2009)
Robin Hood (2006–2009)
That Mitchell and Webb Look (2006–present)
Torchwood (2006–present)
Waterloo Road (2006–present)
Star Stories (2006–2008)
Big Brother racism controversy[]
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[]
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[]
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[]
Date
Show
Channel(s)
Debut(s)
Unknown
What Not to Wear
BBC
2001
4 January
Green Wing
Channel 4
2004
28 January
Grandstand
BBC
1958
7 March
BrainTeaser
Channel 5
2002
16 March
The Vicar of Dibley
BBC
1994
10 April
Life on Mars
BBC
2006
19 April
Sea of Souls
BBC
2004
13 July
Art Attack
ITV
1990
14 July
Popworld
Channel 4
2001
10 August
Win My Wage
Channel 4
2007
13 September
Born to Be Different
Channel 4
2003 & 2006
28 November
The Bionic Woman
ITV
1976 & 2007
15 December
Parkinson
ITV
1971
Top 10 highest rated shows of 2007[]
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[]
7 January – Magnús Magnússon, 77, Icelandic-born television presenter (Mastermind)
8 March – John Inman, 71, actor, best known for playing Mr. Humphries in Are You Being Served?
29 July – Mike Reid, 67, comedian and actor, best known for playing Frank Butcher in British soap opera EastEnders and hosting Runaround
29 July – Phil Drabble, 93, television presenter, author and countryman, best known as the presenter of sheepdog trial show One Man and His Dog
6 September – Ronald Magill, 87, Actor, best known for playing Amos Brearly in Emmerdale
1 October – Ronnie Hazlehurst, 79, theme tune composer. (Only Fools and Horses, Yes Minister, Are You Being Served? and The Two Ronnies etc.)
16 October – Deborah Kerr, 86, actress (A Woman of Substance)
9 November - Trish Williamson, 52, TV weather presenter, journalist, producer and director[12]
20 November – Dick Wilson, 91, actor
22 November – Verity Lambert, 71, TV producer (Doctor Who)