This is a timeline of television in Scotland.
1950s 1952 14 March – Television becomes available in Scotland for the first time following the switching on of the Kirk o'Shotts transmitting station. 17 August – The Kirk o'Shotts transmitter begins broadcasting at full power after its main high-powered transmitters are switched on.
1953 No events.
1954 No events.
1955 23 April – The Scottish Cup Final is broadcast live on television for the first time.
1956 The ITV franchise for Central Scotland franchise is awarded to Scottish Television from three applications.
1957 16 August – Television comes to the Moray Firth area following the switching on of the Rosemarkie transmitting station. 30 August – BBC Scotland launches a weekday five-minute news bulletin and a Saturday teatime sports round-up. 31 August At 5:30pm, Scottish Television starts broadcasting. The Black Hill transmitting station comes into service for the launch of Scottish. Later this becomes the main transmitter for all channels in the area, replacing Kirk o'Shotts which stops radiating television signals in 1985 when the 405-line television system is switched off. 18 September – Scottish launches a sports programme called Sports Desk which was soon renamed Scotsport. The programme would be broadcast for the next fifty years.
1958 7 May – First broadcast of the BBC variety show The White Heather Club which aired until 1968. 22 December – Television expands to the far north of Scotland following the switching on of the Orkney transmitter.
1959 No events.
1960s 1960 August – The ITV franchise for North East Scotland is awarded to Grampian Television, from seven applications. The ITV franchise for the English-Scottish Border region is awarded to Border Television. There had been one other applicant – Solway Television.
1961 11 January – North of Scotland Television Ltd changes its name to Grampian Television. 1 September – Border Television goes on the air and at around the same time the Selkirk transmitting station is brought into service to provide television signals to south east Scotland. 30 September – At 2:45pm, Grampian Television goes on the air and at around the same time, the Durris transmitting station is brought into service to provide television signals in the Aberdeen area and the surrounding coastal areas.
1962 No events.
1963 No events.
1964 20 April – The existing BBC channel is renamed BBC1 Scotland. 15 August – Scottish launches Scotsport Results to provide viewers with a round-up of the day's Scottish football. It is broadcast on Saturday teatimes at around 5pm during the football season.
1965 The chairman of the Independent Television Authority Charles Hill pays a visit to STV's Glasgow studios during which he observed an edition of the popular daytime entertainment show The One O'Clock Gang. He was so appalled by it, he personally axed the programme with the words "My God, how long have you been getting away with this?".Cherry, S, ITV: The People's Channel, Reynolds and Hearn, London 2005
1966 The Angus transmitting station is constructed by the ITA, bringing improved reception to the Dundee area. BBC2 is broadcast in Scotland for the first time when transmissions of the channel commence from the Black Hill transmitter. The launch followed several months of Trade Test transmissions.
1967 Scottish Television retains its franchise, despite strong competition from a consortium led by the future BBC Director General Alasdair Milne. Lord Thomson is forced by the ITA to reduce his stake in the station from 80% to 25%, effectively ending the company's standing as a subsidiary of the Thomson Group.
1968 1 April – Debut of BBC Scotland's national news programme Reporting Scotland. August – A technicians strike forces ITV off the air for several weeks although management manage to launch a temporary ITV Emergency National Service with no regional variations.
1969 October – Scottish starts broadcasting in colour and marks the occasion by opening new secondary studios at the Gateway Theatre in Edinburgh. 3 November – A major fire badly damages Scottish's Glasgow studios.It was a night of real drama as fire and death hit Glasgow theatre, Evening Times, 12 March 2013
1970s 1970 No events.
1971 1 September – Border begins broadcasting in colour. 30 September – Grampian Television marks its tenth birthday by commencing colour transmissions. The Craigkelly transmitting station begins carrying all three channels in UHF, bringing improved reception to the Edinburgh area. It had been constructed in 1968 to improve coverage of BBC2.
1972 Scottish Television begins the construction of its new purpose-built complex in Glasgow, at Cowcaddens. 11 September – Scottish launches Scotland Today. However, the programme is only broadcast for ten months each year.
1973 No events.
1974 12 December – The official opening of Scottish Television's new studios by Princess Alexandra takes place.
1975 August – Debut of BBC Scotland's sports strand Sportscene.
1976 3 April – The first edition of BBC Scotland's rural affairs series Landward is broadcast. It was shown on Sunday lunchtimes as an opt-out as the rest of the UK received Farming and from 1988, Countryfile.
1977 No events.
1978 Scotland Today’s annual Summer break is scrapped and consequently, the programme is now on the air all year round. Grampian's regional news magazine programme Grampian Today extends from three to five nights a week. This is made possible by the commencement of the usage of Electronic News Gathering cameras.http://scotland.stv.tv/history/273151-grampian-tv-turns-50-the-news/ Debut of the BBC Scotland series The Beechgrove Garden.
1979 10 August – The ten week ITV strike forces all of Scotland's ITV companies off the air. The strike ends on 24 October.
1980s 1980 7 January – Grampian Today is relaunched as North Tonight as part of an effort to reflect northern Scotland as a whole. The new programme is marked by the opening of a new studio in Dundee. 1980 also sees Grampian introduces weekday lunchtime and closedown news bulletins, called North News and North Headlines respectively. 19 February – The first edition of the soap opera Take the High Road is broadcast. It would run until 2003. 1 December – BBC Scotland carries out a one-week experiment in breakfast television. It is a simulcast of BBC Radio Scotland's breakfast show Good Morning Scotland. 28 December – The IBA announces the results of the 1980 franchise round, revealing that all three of Scotland's ITV broadcasters have retained their franchises.
1981 8 September – BBC One Scotland changes its name to BBC Scotland.
1982 No events.
1983 Grampian opens a studio in Inverness, thereby increasing its coverage of the Highlands and Islands areas. 17 January – Breakfast Time, Britain's first breakfast show, launches on BBC1. The new service includes four opt-outs which allow BBC Scotland to broadcast its own news bulletin. 1 February – ITV's breakfast television service TV-am launches. It is a UK-wide service and therefore contains no Scottish-specific content. Consequently, the three Scottish ITV companies begin their broadcast day at 9:25am. 24 October – Following the launch of the BBC's new teatime news and current affairs series Sixty Minutes, Reporting Scotland is renamed Scotland Sixty Minutes.
1984 30 July – Following the demise of Sixty Minutes, the title of BBC Scotland's regional news magazine reverts back to Reporting Scotland. 8 October – Scotland Today is relaunched as a feature-led magazine format with the news relegated to brief summaries before and after the programme.Kelly gets his eye in, Gavin Docherty, Evening Times, 8 October 1984
1985 4 January – The last 405-line transmissions take place in Scotland and the switch-off sees the ending of television signals being radiated from the Kirk o' Shotts transmitting station. Grampian and Scottish launch computer-generated idents, doing so in April and August respectively.
1986 20 October – Following considerable criticism, including from the Independent Broadcasting Authority, the 1984 changes to Scotland Today are reversed and the programme once again becomes a news broadcast with the feature elements transferred to a new lunchtime programme called Live at One Thirty.
1987 Ahead of the forthcoming launch of 24-hour broadcasting, Grampian stops broadcasting a news bulletin at closedown.
1988 13 February – Scottish launches 24-hour broadcasting. This date also sees Scottish abandoning in-vision continuity, apart from during the overnight hours. Grampian launches weekend regional news bulletins. 2 September – Grampian and Border begin 24-hour broadcasting.
1989 August – BBC Scotland launches an extended Saturday teatime results programme. Rather than opting out of the last few minutes of Grandstand, the programme, called Afternoon Sportscene, runs for the entire duration of the time allocated for the day's results, starting at some point between 1 and 5 minutes before the network aired English counterpart Final Score. Border begins providing a sub-regional service for Scottish Borders viewers served by the Selkirk transmitter, consisting of a short opt-out during Lookaround each weeknight.
1990s 1990 No events.
1991 18 February – BBC1 Scotland is rebranded as BBC Scotland on 1 and BBC2 Scotland as BBC Scotland on 2. 16 October – Scottish, Grampian and Border all retain their ITV licenses. 31 December – The BBC airs the first edition of Hogmanay Live, an annual programme that rings in the New Year.
1992 No events.
1993 4 January Following the launch of GMTV, news bulletins from Scotland are seen on ITV at breakfast for the first time. Scottish launches a 30-minute lunchtime edition of Scotland Today. Launch of Telefios, a Scottish Gaelic news programme broadcast on both STV and Grampian. May – After 29 series, Scottish axes Scotsport Results. 31 December – The first edition of the annual Scottish football-themed comedy sketch show Only an Excuse? airs on BBC Scotland on 1, and is shown each Hogmanay.
1994 10 November – The first edition of BBC Scotland Investigates is broadcast. It replaces Frontline Scotland.
1995 No events.
1996 1 November – SMG plc and BSkyB launch Sky Scottish as a joint venture. Broadcast for two hours each evening, the channel is aimed at Scots living in other parts of the UK.
1997 June – SMG buys Grampian Television, the ITV contractor for Northern Scotland, for £105 million.Scottish Media buys Grampian for 105m pounds, Cathy Newman, The Independent, 11 June 1997 Shortly afterwards, the company became SMG.
1998 31 May – Sky Scottish closes because the channel fails to meet its financial targets. 23 September – BBC Choice, the UK's first digital-only TV channel, launches. It broadcasts around two hours each night of programming for Scotland as an opt-out from the main channel. 15 November – The public launch of digital terrestrial TV in the UK takes place.
1999 April – Border's sub-regional service for Scottish Borders viewers served by the Selkirk transmitter is extended to cover Dumfries and Galloway and a dedicated Scottish news bulletin is introduced on weekday lunchtimes.Memorandum submitted by Border Television Limited, parliament.uk, 23 November 2001 30 April – S2 launches. 4 October – Launch of Newsnight Scotland, the BBC Scotland opt-out of the main Newsnight programme on BBC Two. 31 October – Launch of TeleG, Scotland's first daily Gaelic language digital channel.
2000s 2000 Gaelic news bulletin Telefios is axed.
2001 30 March – BBC Choice Scotland ends and shortly after, BBC Two's variants for Scotland are made available to digital viewers for the first time. 27 July – S2 closes and is replaced by ITV2.
2002 24 September – Debut of BBC Scotland's soap River City.