In Focus- 1980

1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1980th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 980th year of the 2nd millennium, the 80th year of the 20th century, and the 1st year of the 1980s decade.

1 January – Cliff Richard is appointed an MBE by Elizabeth II.
16 January – Paul McCartney is arrested in Tokyo for possession of a half pound of marijuana. The remaining part of McCartney’s tour has to be cancelled.
25 January – Paul McCartney is released from a Japanese jail and ejected from the country by Japanese authorities.
8 February – David Bowie and his wife of nearly 10 years, Angie, file for divorce. Bowie gets custody of their 9-year-old son, Zowie
30 April – The Roger Daltrey film, McVicar, opens in London.
18 May – Ian Curtis, vocalist of pioneering post-punk group Joy Division, hangs himself in his Macclesfield home. His death comes just days before Joy Division are scheduled to begin their first U.S. tour.
16 September – Kate Bush becomes the first British female artist to reach No.1 in the album charts.
20 September – Ozzy Osbourne’s breakthrough debut album Blizzard of Ozz is released in the UK.
25 November – ABBA score the last of their nine number one singles in the UK Charts.
December – Duran Duran signs with EMI after finalizing its lineup and touring as a support act for Hazel O’Connor.
4 December – Led Zeppelin disbands following the death of drummer John Bonham.
8 December – John Lennon is shot dead outside his apartment building in New York City. His latest single, “(Just Like) Starting Over”, subsequently becomes a number one hit.

Date	Artist/s	Title	Label	Weeks At #1

19th January	Pretenders	Brass In Pocket	Mercury	3

2nd February	Specials	The Special AKA Live	2 Tone	2

16th February	Kenny Rogers	Coward Of The County	United Artists	2

1st March	Blondie	Atomic	Chrysalis	2

15th March	Fern Kinney	Together We Are Beautiful	WEA	1

22nd March	Jam	Going Underground	Polydor	3

12th April	Detroit Spinners	Working My Way Back To You	Atlantic	2

26th April	Blondie	Call Me	Chrysalis	1

3rd May	Dexy’s Midnight Runners	Geno	Parlophone	2

17th May	Johnny Logan	What’s Another Year	Epic	2

31st May	MASH	Theme From	CBS	3

21st June	Don McLean	Crying	EMI	3

12th July	Olivia Newton John	Xanadu	Jet	2

26th July	Odyssey	Use It Up And Wear It Out	RCA	2

9th August	ABBA	The Winner Takes It All	Epic	2

23rd August	David Bowie	Ashes To Ashes	RCA	2

6th September	Jam	Start	Polydor	1

13th September	Kelly Marie	Feel’s Like I’m In Love	Calibre	2

27th September	Police	Don’t Stand So Close To Me	A&M	4

25th October	Barbra Streisand	Woman In Love	CBS	3

15th November	Blondie	The Tide Is High	Chrysalis	2

29th November	ABBA	Super Trouper	Epic	3

20th December	John Lennon	(Just Like) Starting Over	Geffen	1

27th December	St Winifrid’s School Choir	There’s No One Quite Like Grandma	MFP	2

1 January – A brand new sitcom called Hi-de-Hi! debuts on BBC1.
20 January – The British record TV audience for a film is set when some 23,500,000 viewers tune in for the ITV showing of the James Bond film Live and Let Die, released in 1973 and starring Roger Moore who is now in the process of filming his fifth film as the spy.
28 January – The first edition of Newsnight is broadcast on BBC2. Its launch had been delayed for four months by the Association of Broadcasting Staff, at the time the main BBC trade union.

1 February – Debut of Play Your Cards Right on ITV.
25 February – The first episode of the popular political sitcom Yes Minister, “Open Government”, is broadcast by BBC2.

March – The very first in-vision Ceefax transmissions are broadcast. These consist of three 30-minute transmissions broadcast between 0830 and 0900 on BBC1 and 1000–1030 and 1530–1600 on BBC2. However if BBC2 was transmitting programmes at these times, the channel would broadcast Ceefax pages for the 30 minutes prior to the start of the first programme.

4 April – Violet Carson makes her last appearance as Ena Sharples on Coronation Street.
9 April – ATV airs the critically acclaimed Death of a Princess, a drama documentary about a young princess from a fictitious Middle-Eastern Islamic nation and her lover who are publicly executed for adultery. The drama is believed to be based on the true story of Princess Misha’al bint Fahd al Saud and its showing causes a great deal of controversy, provoking an angry response from the Government of Saudi Arabia.

5 May – Both the BBC and ITV interrupt their scheduled programming to broadcast the SAS assault during the Iranian Embassy siege. The coverage launches the careers of several journalists, such as the BBC’s Kate Adie, while ITN Director, David Goldsmith and his team receive a BAFTA for their coverage.

19 July–3 August – BBC Television and ITV provide live coverage of the 1980 Summer Olympics.

8 September – Watchdog is launched as a weekly slot on BBC1’s news magazine programme Nationwide.

1 October – BBC1’s lunchtime children’s programme is labelled See Saw for the first time.

21 November –
- The first annual Children in Need charity appeal is organised by the BBC.
- 21.5 million viewers tune in to watch the 1980–81 season premier of Dallas, which answers the question of Who shot J.R.?. At the time the audience figures are a record for a soap in Britain.

8 December – Ian Allen’s best known puppet series for children called Button Moon screens on ITV with narration by actor Robin Parkinson (‘Allo ‘Allo!) and a wonderful theme tune sung by husband and wife actors Peter Davison (Doctor Who) and Sandra Dickinson (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Amazing World of Gumball and The Tomorrow People).
9 December –
- The single drama The Flipside of Dominick Hide is first broadcast as part of the Play for Today series on BBC1.
- 20th anniversary of the first episode of Coronation Street.
25 December – British television premiere of the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun on ITV.
28 December – The IBA announces the results of the 1980 franchise round. TSW will replace Westward and TVS will replace Southern. ATV must restructure the company to create a separate East and West Midlands service, and reduce the shareholding of its parent body to 51% by February 1981. Also announced is the winner of a national franchise to provide a breakfast television service on ITV. TV-am is awarded the contract to begin transmission in 1983.
30 December – The BBC announces their intention to launch their own breakfast television service to compete with TV-am, announced two days earlier. Breakfast Time is launched on BBC1 on 17 January 1983, two weeks before TV-am.