This is a list of British television related events from 1995. Events January 2 January – The network television premiere on BBC2 of The Doors, Oliver Stone's critically acclaimed biopic of Jim Morrison, starring Val Kilmer. 3 January – The legal drama Kavanagh QC makes its debut on ITV, starring John Thaw. 4 January – The network television premiere on ITV of Chris Walas's 1989 horror sequel The Fly II, starring Eric Stoltz, Daphne Zuniga, Lee Richardson and John Getz with a special appearance from Jeff Goldblum. 5 January – Jack Dee guest presents an edition of Top of the Pops. 9 January – Sky One begins 24-hour broadcasting, filling the overnight hours with music videos under the name Hit Mix Long Play. 16 January – BBC World Service Television officially closes, ahead of the launch of two separate channels – BBC World and BBC Prime. 24 January – Martine McCutcheon makes her EastEnders debut as Tiffany Raymond, later Mitchell. 26 January – At 7:00pm London Time, BBC World Service Television is launched, offering two services: BBC World (since renamed BBC News): A 24-hour English free-to-air terrestrial international news channel: news bulletins, information, business and financial news magazines and current affairs programmes . BBC Prime (since replaced by BBC Entertainment): A 24-hour English cable lifestyle, variety and entertainment channel: variety, culture, leisure, lifestyle, art and light entertainment programmes. Contains video of pre-launch caption, and of the simultaneous launch of BBC World and BBC Prime. 27 January – Debut of the medical drama Dangerfield on BBC1, starring Nigel Le Vaillant. 29 January – The start of BBC2's weekly roundup of proceedings in the O. J. Simpson murder trial with The Trial of O. J. Simpson. 30 January BBC Prime is launched at 7:00pm London Time. The most watched episode of Brookside is broadcast on Channel 4, in which the body of Trevor Jordache is found under the patio.
February 1 February – The US medical drama series ER makes its British debut on Channel 4. 2 February – Kylie Minogue guest presents an edition of Top of the Pops. 3 February – An edition of the live morning ITV discussion show The Time, The Place abruptly ends ten minutes early after an item about men's fashion features a black male model wearing a skirt while another black man in the audience starts complaining that the show is racist, eventually making his way onto the stage. 5 February – The network television premiere on ITV of Chris Columbus's 1990 holiday comedy Home Alone, starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard and Catherine O'Hara. 9 February – Gary Olsen guest presents an edition of Top of the Pops. 10 February – After a pilot episode broadcast in December 1993, the first full series of The Mrs Merton Show starts on BBC2, presented by Caroline Aherne as the titular character. 13 February The network television premiere on ITV of Deceived, starring Goldie Hawn and John Heard. Launch of ITV Night Time, a new late night programming strand produced by London News Network. Initially only airing in the London region (Carlton & LWT) upon launch, the service is introduced to the majority of the other ITV regions serving England in June. 14 February – Sky One hosts Sky's first telethon, to raise money for the Variety Club. 16 February – Cable channel Wire TV is sold to Mirror Television, owned by the parent company of the Daily Mirror newspaper. It plans to launch Sportswire as a full-time channel and replace Wire TV with a new channel called L!VE TV. 19 February – The 10th anniversary of the launch of the soap EastEnders on BBC1. As part of the celebrations, the first 25 episodes from 1985 are repeated each day at 10am during February and March, starting from episode one on Monday 20 February and ending on Friday 26 May. while selected episodes from 1985 and 1986 are also repeated on BBC1 on Fridays at 8:30pm for a short while. Billed as The Unforgettable EastEnders the episodes aired are as follows: 17 February: The identity of the father of Michelle Fowler's baby is revealed in October 1985. 24 February: Michelle and Lofty's wedding day in September 1986. 3 March: Den Watts hands Angie divorce papers on Christmas Day 1986, an episode originally watched by more than 30 million viewers. 10 March: Two-hander episode featuring Dot and Ethel from July 1987. 23 February – Peter Cunnah of D:Ream guest presents an edition of Top of the Pops. 25 February BBC2 airs a documentary about the Rev. W. Awdry called The Thomas the Tank Engine Man as part of their Bookmark series. It is narrated by Hilary Fortnam, Awdry's daughter, and includes a look at the Thomas merchandise, the success of Thomas, images from the original Railway Series books with stock narration by John Gielgud, interviews with several people such as Mr Awdry himself, fans of Thomas, Awdry's son Christopher, children's author and poet Michael Rosen, various people who worked on the books and toys, Brian Sibley who also wrote the Reverend's autobiography, the people behind the television broadcasts and rights of Thomas in Japan and the producers of the television series Britt Allcroft and David Mitton, plus a special behind the scenes peek of the 100th episode Thomas and the Special Letter and Mr Awdry criticising the third series episode Henry's Forest. The final episode of the light entertainment series Don't Forget Your Toothbrush is broadcast on Channel 4. 27–28 February – Sky One airs Episode 404 of E Street, the final episode of the Australian soap, splitting the hour-long edition into two half-hour episodes.
March 1 March – TV Asia is renamed Zee TV following the sale of the business to Zee's owner Subash Chandra. 2 March – Keith Allen guest presents an edition of Top of the Pops. 4 March – Channel 4 airs "Pot Night", eight hours of programming dedicated to cannabis. 11 March – Channel 4: Begins airing a rerun of the Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais' comedy-drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, which made its debut on ITV on 11 November 1983. Debuts "Red Light Zone", a season of "late-night programming focusing on sex, the sex industries and sexual tourism". The strand runs weekly for eight weeks. 12 March – Debut of Kay Mellor's crime drama series Band of Gold on ITV, starring Geraldine James, Cathy Tyson, Barbara Dickson and Samantha Morton, which focuses on a group of prostitutes who live and work in Bradford's red-light district. 15 March – As part of the Modern Times series, BBC2 airs Death on Request, a Dutch documentary showing a doctor giving a terminally-ill patient a lethal injection of drugs. The programme is criticized by groups opposed to euthanasia. 16 March – Lenny Henry guest presents an edition of Top of the Pops. 17 March – The Night of Comic Relief, the 1995 Comic Relief telethon is broadcast on BBC1. 24 March Following the recent death of James Herriot (Alf Wight), BBC1 airs A Tribute to James Herriot in which Robert Hardy introduces a 1980 episode of the series All Creatures Great and Small, which was based on Herriot's memoirs as a Yorkshire vet. The final episode of The Word is broadcast on Channel 4 after five years on the air. 29 March – Trinity College, Cambridge wins the 1994–95 series of University Challenge on BBC2, beating New College, Oxford 390–180. 30 March P.J. and Duncan guest present an edition of Top of the Pops. The third series of the hugely popular sitcom Absolutely Fabulous begins on BBC1.
April 1 April Confessions makes its debut on BBC1. The programme is developed from Simon Mayo's Confessions feature on his BBC Radio 1 programme. The action/science-fiction series Bugs makes its debut on BBC1. The US medical drama series Chicago Hope makes its UK debut on BBC1. 3 April – A Scottish court imposes a prohibition on BBC Scotland airing an edition of Panorama that includes an interview with Prime Minister John Major amid concerns it could affect local elections to be held on 6 April. However, the edition is broadcast in England and Wales. 8 April–20 May – ITV shows the LWT-made cue sports tournament Tenball, a variant of snooker with elements of pool. It is won by Jimmy White, but neither show nor sport are revived after this single season. 10 April – Conservative MP Jonathan Aitken calls a televised press conference three hours before the transmission of a World in Action film, Jonathan of Arabia, demanding that allegations about his dealings with leading Saudis to be withdrawn. He promises to wield "the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play ... to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism." After launching a subsequent libel case against the makers of the film, Aitken is sentenced to 18 months in prison for perjuring himself. 13 April – Phill Jupitus guest presents an edition of Top of the Pops. 17 April – ITV airs an adaptation of the Joanna Trollope novel A Village Affair. 21 April – Channel 4 airs the first episode of the Irish sitcom Father Ted starring Dermot Morgan and Ardal O'Hanlon. 22 April – Fully Booked replaces Parallel 9 as BBC1's Saturday morning Summer children's show. 27 April – Chris Evans guest presents an edition of Top of the Pops. 28 April – The hugely popular US sitcom Friends makes its UK debut on Channel 4. 29 April The final edition of ITV's Saturday morning show What's Up Doc? is broadcast. It is replaced the following Saturday by Scratchy & Co. The final episode of You Bet! presented by Matthew Kelly is broadcast on ITV.
May 1 May – ITV airs what is billed as a one-off episode of Boon. The episode, Thieves Like Us, was originally due to air at the end of series 7 in 1992/93. 2 May Closing date for applications to run Channel 5. Four bids are received, from New Century TV Ltd (British Sky Broadcasting, Goldman Sachs, Granada Group, Hoare Govett, Kinnevik, Polygram, Really Useful Group and TCI International) who bid £2,000,000, Virgin TV Ltd with a bid of £22,002,000, UKTV (CanWest Global Communications Corp., Scandinavian Broadcast System SA, SelectTV Plc, The Ten Group Ltd) who bid £36,261,158 and Channel 5 Broadcasting Ltd (MAI (now United News and Media Plc), CLT/UFA, Pearson Plc, Warburg Pincus & Co) with a bid of £22,002,000. Debut of News '45, a news bulletin-style programme presented by Sue Lawley to mark the 50th anniversary of VE Day on BBC1. 4 May – Whigfield guest presents an edition of Top of the Pops. 8 May The 50th anniversary of VE Day is widely marked with a series of television programmes. The network television premiere of John Singleton's 1991 drama Boyz n the Hood on BBC2, starring Ice Cube and Cuba Gooding Jr. 9 May – The US/Canadian police comedy drama Due South makes its UK debut on BBC1. 11 May – Channel 4 screens a shortened version of the controversial film The Maltese Double Cross – Lockerbie, which disputes the conclusion reached by the official investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, instead advancing the theory that the bomb was introduced onto the aircraft by an unwitting drug mule, Khaled Jafaar, in what the filmmaker claims is a CIA-protected suitcase. The film draws criticism from some American relatives of the victims, who accuse Channel 4 of giving air-time to what they claim as "Libyan propaganda." 13 May – Norwegian duo Secret Garden win the 40th Eurovision Song Contest (staged in Dublin and broadcast in the UK by the BBC) with "Nocturne". The UK entry, "Love City Groove" performed by rap group Love City Groove, finishes in 10th place. 15 May – Bruce Gyngell, the former chairman of the breakfast station TV-am, becomes Yorkshire–Tyne Tees Television's managing director. 22 May – The toy shop format of Rainbow is broadcast for the final time as it is axed due to poor reception. It is to be replaced a year later with Rainbow Days. 25 May – Stewart Lee and Richard Herring guest present an edition of Top of the Pops.