This is a list of British television related events from 1988.
Events January 1 January New Year's Day highlights on BBC1 include the network television premiere of Roger Donaldson's 1984 historical drama The Bounty, starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins. BBC2 airs a five-hour Whistle Test special to welcome in 1988 which aired from 9:35pm on New Year's Eve to 2:55am on New Year's Day. The special takes a look back through the archives in what is the programme's final outing. It will be three decades later in 2018 before a new edition of the programme is broadcast. Michael Grade takes on the role of Chief Executive of Channel 4. From today, each programme on ITV is no longer preceded by the identifier of the regional company that had produced the show. 4 January – BBC1 moves the repeat episode of Neighbours to a 5:35pm evening slot, the decision to do this having been made by controller Michael Grade on the advice of his daughter. 5 January – Actor Rowan Atkinson launches the new Comic Relief charity appeal. 6 January – All ITV regions begin to broadcast Emmerdale Farm in the Wednesday and Thursday 6:30pm slot. 8 January BBC1 network television premiere of the hit 1984 musical drama film Footloose, starring Kevin Bacon. Launch of LWT News, a news service from London Weekend Television providing at least eight bulletins each weekend for the ITV London region and created as a response to IBA concerns about the lack of a proper news service in London at weekends. 9 January ITV's weekend morning children's programme No. 73 is rebranded as 7T3. 11 January The US animated series The Real Ghostbusters, based on the hit 1984 Ghostbusters movie makes its UK debut on Children's ITV. Debut of the game show Fifteen to One on Channel 4, presented by William G. Stewart. The show's first winner is Gareth McMullan, a teacher from Northern Ireland. 14 January – Talks between TV-am's management and the ACTT union begin, aiming to resolve the ongoing strike. 25 January – TVS launches Late Night Late and gradually extends its broadcast hours over the next few months.TV Live: ITV Night Time – Late Night Late 25–29 January – TV-am airs a week of live broadcasts from Sydney to celebrate Australia's bicentenary and featuring Anne Diamond and Mike Morris. 30 January – The network television premiere of the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy on ITV, starring Roger Moore.
February 1 February TV-am celebrates its fifth birthday, with Anne Diamond being joined by Richard Keys, Gyles Brandreth, Su Pollard and Jimmy Greaves. It is the first time it has been able to get its daily output down to an hour of pre-recorded material since the beginning of the strike. However, the station continues to air imports of old US shows for several months. The deadline on which the ACTT must accept TV-am's "Ten Point Plan" aimed at resolving the strike. However, the plan is rejected by a ballot and the union refuses to resume negotiations. 5 February – The inaugural Red Nose Day sees Comic Relief air its first live fundraiser on BBC1. Hosted by Lenny Henry and Griff Rhys Jones, "A Night of Comic Relief" would go on to raise £15 million for the charity. 9 February – MPs vote in favour of allowing television cameras into the House of Commons.Daily Express 10 February 1988 10 February – Debut of Moondial, a six-part series adapted from the novel by Helen Cresswell on BBC1. The series is repeated by BBC1 in 1990. 13 February Scottish and GranadaLast Granada closedown Friday 12 into Saturday 13 February 1988 begin 24-hour broadcasting. Central, which has been keeping its transmitters on the air since last April by filling its closedown period with its Jobfinder service, launches a full overnight schedule. Jobfinder also launches on both Granada and Scottish and all three companies broadcast Jobfinder for one hour beginning at 4am. 13–28 February – The 1988 Winter Olympics are held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The BBC provides British coverage of the event. 15 February Channel 4 starts broadcasting into the early hours, closing down between 2am and 3am. Previously, Channel 4 has closed down at just after midnight. An early morning 60-minute news programme, ITN Early Morning News, is launched but is available in areas which have 24-hour broadcasting only. The first 30 minutes of the programme includes a full broadcast of ITN's international news bulletin ITN World News. The new bulletin is supplemented by the launch of additional, brief news summaries which are broadcast at various points through the night. The cult science-fiction comedy series Red Dwarf makes its debut on BBC2, starring Chris Barrie, Craig Charles and Danny John-Jules. 16 February – TV-am Managing Director Bruce Gyngell sacks the station's locked out staff and calls a meeting of its remaining employees the following morning to announce that the ACTT will never again organise itself at TV-am's studios. His decision fails to resolve the crisis, however, as picketing continues and the quality of its output remains unchanged. 17 February – Debut of five-part crime drama The Fear on ITV, starring Iain Glen, Susannah Harker, Anthony Valentine, Jesse Birdsall, Jerome Flynn and Adrian Dunbar. It focuses on the story of Carl Galton, the enterprising leader of a criminal gang running a protection racket in North London who represents a new breed seeking to expand his underworld empire and take on the old East End firms. The series continues on 16 March. 19 February – The popular comedy and music show Friday Night Live returns to Channel 4 (with a change of title from Saturday Live), and again featuring comedians Ben Elton and Harry Enfield. 20 February Debut of the stunt-based game show You Bet! on ITV, presented by Bruce Forsyth. London's Burning makes its debut as a regular series on ITV, having been developed from Jack Rosenthal's original 1986 film. February – British Medical Television is officially launched, ahead of it commencing broadcasting later in the year as a subscription service airing during BBC1's overnight closedown period.BBC Select: A Failed Subscription Service
March 3 March – BBC1 airs Around the World with Willy Fog with former CBBC and Broom Cupboard presenter Andy Crane singing the theme tune. A special event called "National Willy Fog Day" which Crane invented will also appear on 28 April to air the final episode and celebrate the final broadcast. 7 March – ITV's lunchtime news programme returns to the 1pm timeslot. 11 March – The final episode of the long-running children's series Play School is broadcast on BBC1, although repeats will continue until October. 18 March – The final US edition of Top of the Pops is broadcast. 19 March – Corporals killings: Two British soldiers in civilian dress are killed after stumbling into an IRA funeral procession in Belfast. Footage of the incident is captured by journalists and widely broadcast. 21 March – Anglia's silver statue of a knight on horseback ident is consigned to history, having been used as Anglia's identity since the station went on the air 29 years earlier. It is replaced by a new identity, a quasi-heraldic stylised 'A' made of triangles, designed by Robinson Lambie-Nairn at a cost of £500,000.(Norfolk) Evening Star. Tuesday 22 March 1988 "Exit the knight who has had his day..." About Anglia is also given a new look to coincide with the ident change. 22 March – Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher tells the House of Commons that journalists have a "bounden duty" to assist the police investigation into the Corporals killings by handing over their footage. Many have refused to do so fearing it could place them in danger. 23 March – Film of the Corporals killings is seized from the BBC and ITN under the Prevention of Terrorism and Emergency Provisions Acts. 25 March BBC2 shows Two of Us, a gay-themed television film. It has been produced as part of the BBC Schools Scene programme and is intended for young adults. It confronts the Thatcherite government's attempt to prohibit gay sex education in schools via the controversial and subsequently repealed section 28 legislation. Given this backdrop, the BBC opts not to show it during the day and it is screened late at night on this day, even though originally created for a school audience. In 1990, the play is finally shown during the day, when it is broadcast in a lunchtime slot. Former MP John Stonehouse collapses on set during an edition of Central Weekend in Birmingham during the filming of a programme about missing people. He is given emergency medical treatment at the studio and taken to hospital, where he is diagnosed as having suffered from a minor heart attack, but will die at home three weeks later. 27 March – The final edition of children's programme 7T3 is broadcast on ITV. 31 March – Daphne Hudson wins the first series of the BBC's quiz show Going for Gold, and is awarded the prize of tickets to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
April 1 April – The network television premiere of the Rankin/Bass animated film The Flight of Dragons on BBC1. 3 April – BBC1 airs the first terrestrial television showing of A Passage to India, David Lean's 1984 epic drama based on E. M. Forster's 1924 novel and Santha Rama Rau's 1960 play of the same name which stars Judy Davis, Peggy Ashcroft, Victor Banerjee, James Fox, Alec Guinness, Nigel Havers and Art Malik. 4 April The original series of Crossroads airs for the last time on ITV. It returns in 2001 before being axed again in 2003. The network television premiere of Terry Gilliam's 1985 dystopian dark comedy Brazil on BBC2, starring Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins and Ian Holm. 6 April – ITV's chart show The Roxy airs for the last time; that same day, Children's ITV begins re-airing Thomas & Friends Season 2. 7 April – Ireland has purchased the Welsh children's stop-motion animated series Fireman Sam for television broadcasting there. The show will debut on RTÉ1 with the first series only, and will return to air a number of times on RTÉ2, known at this time as Network 2, although viewers in Ireland with access to British television are able to see earlier transmissions including all four series and the Christmas special with their original airdates. 10 April – Debut of East of the Moon on Channel 4, a new series for children based on fairy tales written by former Monty Python member Terry Jones brought to life with live-action and animation and songs written and performed by Neil Innes. 15 April – The Pogues perform their controversial hit "Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six", a song expressing support for those convicted over the Guildford and Birmingham pub bombings on the Ben Elton-presented Channel 4 show Friday Night Live. The song is cut short, however, by a commercial break. 19 April – Liz Forgan becomes Channel 4's first official Director of Programmes. 23 April-10 September – Two new Saturday morning magazine series are shown this Summer: On the Waterfront is aired for the first part of the season with UP2U taking over in mid-July. The same two shows are also shown the following Summer. 28 April BBC1 airs the concluding episode of Around the World with Willy Fog. ITV broadcasts "Death on the Rock", a hugely controversial episode of Thames's This Week current affairs strand, investigating Operation Flavius which resulted in the SAS killing three members of the IRA in Gibraltar on 6 March. The programme is later considered as a contributing factor towards the introduction of the Broadcasting Act 1990 by Margaret Thatcher and Thames subsequently losing its ITV franchise in 1991.