| width=90 | Date | Event |
|---|
| 1 January | David Tennant makes his final regular appearance as the Tenth Doctor in the second part of the Doctor Who festive special "The End of Time", the final episode to be written by Russell T Davies, until 2023.[1] The episode also sees the debut of the Eleventh Doctor played by Matt Smith and was watched by 10.4 million viewers.[2] |
| 3 January | Celebrity Big Brother returns for its final series on Channel 4.[3] |
| 5 January | Filming of Coronation Street and Emmerdale are halted because of heavy snowfall.[4] |
| 7 January | Jonathan Ross announces he will leave the BBC when his contract expires in July.[5] |
| 20 January | ITV broadcasts the postponed 2009 National Television Awards.[6] The venue was also switched from the Royal Albert Hall to The O2 Arena and was watched by 7.4 million viewers – a 30% share of the audience.[7] |
| 21 January | The rapper and former Celebrity Big Brother contestant Lady Sovereign is scheduled to appear on BBC One's political magazine programme, This Week to discuss the laws regarding self-defence for householders. She is shown backstage early in the show, waving to camera in anticipation of her appearance, but has disappeared by the time the segment begins. Presenter Andrew Neil apologises to viewers, explaining she has "done a runner" and instead discussed the topic with regular contributors Michael Portillo and Diane Abbott.[8] In a subsequent interview with The Guardians Rich Pelley, the rapper says she had a panic attack. "My hands went stiff and I started hyperventilating. I didn't want to do it hours before but I went anyway, then I just changed my mind at the last minute, I guess."[9] |
| CBeebies aired the last re-run of series 3 & 4 of Balamory, due to rights issues. Re-runs of the first 2 series continued until 2016. |
| 25 January | Long running children's television series and giant children's favourite Thomas and Friends is back on Channel 5 with a brand new series brought to life with fully CGI animation by Vancouver-based animation studio Nitrogen Studios. |
| 28 January | Royal Mail boss Adam Crozier is appointed as ITV plc's new chief executive.[10] |
| 29 January | While giving evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, former Prime Minister Tony Blair addresses the interview he gave to Fern Britton in December, telling the hearing it was a mistake to say he would have got rid of Saddam Hussein regardless of whether or not the Iraqi leader had weapons of mass destruction. The inquiry is also told the interview had been recorded in July 2009, some months before the hearing was convened.[11] [12] |
| Cage fighter Alex Reid wins the seventh series of Celebrity Big Brother, the final one to air on Channel 4.[13] |
| 31 January | BSkyB becomes the first broadcaster in the world to show a live sports event in 3D when Sky Sports screens a football match between Manchester United and Arsenal to a public audience in several selected pubs.[14] |
| January | Coverage of proceedings from the National Assembly for Wales are moved from S4C2 to the new BBC Democracy Live website.[15] [16] | |
| width=90 | Date | Event |
|---|
| 5 February | Channel 5 airs Episode 5000 of Home and Away.[17] |
| 9 February | Supernanny presenter Jo Frost returns to Channel 4 with a new series, Jo Frost Extreme Parental Guidance.[18] |
| Soap bosses confirm that Shane Richie and Jessie Wallace will reprise their roles as Alfie and Kat Moon in EastEnders, having last been seen on screen together in 2005.[19] |
| 10 February – 10 March | Analogue is switched off in the Blaenplwyf area |
| 10 February | Channel 4's deal with Warner Brothers International Television to show episodes of Friends on Channel 4 and E4 will end from Autumn 2011 meaning the series will disappear from the network's schedules.[20] |
| 12 February | The events of the 2010 Winter Olympics start broadcasting worldwide. |
| 13 February | Charlie Bruce wins series one of So You Think You Can Dance.[21] |
| 15 February | Fiona Armstrong and Julia Somerville join the BBC News Channel as regular presenters. They will be joined by Zeinab Badawi and Carole Walker as the BBC seeks to fight accusations that it has an ageist policy.[22] |
| On an edition of the BBC's regional Inside Out programme, broadcaster Ray Gosling confesses to killing a former lover who had AIDS[23] He is arrested on suspicion of murder by Nottinghamshire Police two days later.[24] The confession was later deemed to have been false. Gosling was charged with wasting police time, and given a 90-day suspended sentence at Nottingham Magistrates Court on 14 September.[25] |
| 19 February | BBC One soap EastEnders celebrates its 25th anniversary with a live episode. The episode, watched by 16.6 million viewers sees the culmination of the storyline concerning who killed the character Archie Mitchell (played by Larry Lamb), revealing that the deed was done by Stacey Slater (Lacey Turner).[26] |
| 24 February | News at Ten presenter Julie Etchingham is named as Presenter of the Year at the Royal Television Society Awards, the first woman to win the accolade.[27] |
| 28 February | The events of the 2010 Winter Olympics end broadcasting worldwide. | |
| width=90 | Date | Event |
|---|
| 3 March | ITV announces a pre-tax profit of £25m for 2009, compared with a loss of £2.7bn in 2008.[28] |
| 3 – 31 March | Analogue is switched off in the Wenvoe area. |
| 4 March | Penny Smith announces she is to leave GMTV after 17 years to pursue other projects.[29] |
| Carol Vorderman appears as a panellist on BBC One's Question Time. Her performance is subsequently described by the New Statesmans James Macintyre as "one of the worst by any panel member I have ever seen" because of her "clichéd, shrill, pub-boring, parochial approach" and because "she trotted out sluggish conventional wisdom at every turn".[30] |
| 13 March | ITV announces that This Morning will air seven days a week, with two new one-hour shows being broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays from Saturday 20 March. Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby will present the extra shows.[31] |
| 18 March | A debate on The Alan Titchmarsh Show in which the actress Julie Peasgood emphasises the negative effects of violent video games attracts criticism due to her contribution to the 2000 release , and because her arguments were based on a single unfavourable report on the subject.[32] [33] |
| 24 March – 7 April | Analogue is switched off in the Mendip area. |
| 26 March | Primary school programming is shown during the day on BBC Two for the final time.[34] From next term, primary schools broadcasts become part of the overnight BBC Learning Zone with series shown as a back-to-back set rather than over several weeks. |
| Doctors celebrates its 10th anniversary.[35] |
| ITV announced its intention to cancel its long running police drama The Bill from autumn 2010,[36] saying that the decision was made as it reflects the "changing tastes" of viewers.[37] |
| Channel 4 quiz show Countdown celebrates its 5000th edition with a letter of congratulations from The Queen.[38] |
| 28 March | Gray O'Brien begins filming new scenes as Coronation Street villain Tony Gordon, who will break out of prison brandishing a gun after faking a heart attack.[39] |
| Actress Hayley Tamaddon and skating partner Daniel Whiston win the fifth series of Dancing on Ice.[40] [41] |
| 29 March | Claudia Winkleman is confirmed as Jonathan Ross's replacement as host of Film 2010 when Ross leaves the show later in the year.[42] |
| The financial debate, the first of the 2010 election debates between Chancellor Alistair Darling, shadow Chancellor George Osborne and Liberal Democrat financial affairs spokesman Vince Cable is held on Channel 4.[43] |
| 31 March | The last analogue television services are switched off in Wales, making it the first part of the UK to have a fully digital service.[44] |
| S4C begins broadcasting solely in Welsh. |
| BSkyB is told by the broadcasting regulator Ofcom that it must cut the price it charges rival cable, terrestrial and internet broadcasters to show its premium sports channels. Sky says that it will appeal against the ruling.[45] | |
| width=90 | Date | Event |
|---|
| 3 April | Doctor Who begins a new season (technically its 31st) with new leading actor Matt Smith.[46] The first episode is watched by 8.4 million viewers.[47] |
| 5 April | Emmanuel College, Cambridge wins the 2009–10 series of University Challenge, beating St John's College, Oxford 315–100. |
| 7 April | Dhruv Baker wins the 2010 series of MasterChef.[48] |
| 9 April | Long-running Coronation Street actor Bill Tarmey quits the soap after 31 years playing Jack Duckworth.[49] |
| 10 April | ITV airs the British terrestrial television premiere of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; the film is watched by 5.726 million viewers (25.7% of the audience share).[50] |
| 11 April | Coronation Street begins airing its first lesbian storyline, involving Sophie Webster (Brooke Vincent) and Sian Powers (Sacha Parkinson).[51] |
| 13 April | BBC One airs the 500th episode of its hospital drama Holby City.[52] |
| 15 April | ITV airs the first of three election debates between Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg ahead of the 2010 General Election.[53] |
| 19 April | Adrian Chiles quits the BBC to join ITV and GMTV in a new four-year deal.[54] |
| Five launches a contest to find an aspiring British actress to appear in Neighbours to celebrate the soap's 25th anniversary.[55] |
| 21 April | Ben Shephard announces he is to quit GMTV after five years. |
| ITV newsreader Katie Derham is to join the BBC. She will be given an arts brief, including fronting the coverage of the Proms for BBC Two and BBC Radio 3.[56] |
| 22 April | The second election debate is aired by Sky News, and is viewed by an audience of 3.355 million, giving the channel its largest ever peak time audience. The debate is also shown on Sky Three and the BBC News Channel, and collectively attracts a viewership of 4.1 million.[57] |
| 29 April | BBC News hosts the final leaders debate before the election.[58] |
| Rachel Leskovac, who plays hairdresser Natasha Blakeman in Coronation Street is to leave the soap.[59] |
| 30 April | Adrian Chiles presents his final edition of The One Show.[60] | |
| width=90 | Date | Event |
|---|
| 2 June | Television schedules are changed in the wake of the Cumbria shootings. BBC One alters their programming to broadcast two BBC News Specials about the shootings, at 14:15 and 19:30 on the same day.[69] The scheduled 21:00 episode of ITV's Coronation Street is cancelled as it contained a violent storyline featuring a gun siege.[70] Episodes for 3 and 4 June were also cancelled and rescheduled to air the following week.[71] An episode of the Channel 4 panel game You Have Been Watching, which was due to be broadcast on 3 June, was postponed because it is a crime special.[72] |
| The BBC have announced that long running comedy Last of the Summer Wine is to be axed after 37 years.[73] |
| ITN has announced that Nina Hossain is to replace Katie Derham as a new co-host on London Tonight. |
| 2 – 16 June | Analogue is switched off in the Rumster forest area. |
| 4 June | Penny Smith presents her final programme on GMTV after 17 years. |
| BSkyB announces that it has finalised the terms of a deal to buy Virgin Media Television for £160 million.[74] |
| 5 June | Gymnastics troupe Spelbound win the fourth series of Britain's Got Talent.[75] |
| 9 June | Big Brother returns to Channel 4 for its final series.[76] |
| 10 June | Mathematics student Arjun Rajyagor wins the first series of Junior Apprentice and a £25,000 investment from Lord Sugar to kick start his business career.[77] |
| 11 June | The events of the 2010 FIFA World Cup start broadcasting worldwide. |
| GMTV announces plans to rebrand itself in September, dropping the GMTV name after 17 years in a £1.5million overhaul. On the same day presenter Andrew Castle announces his intention to leave the station after 10 years on air.[78] |
| 20 June | ITV has announced that Christine Bleakley is to join GMTV to reunite with Adrian Chiles after signing a three-year contract with the broadcaster.[79] |
| Thousands of hours of programming from STV's archives will be made available online from later in the year after the Scottish broadcaster signed a deal with YouTube, the Daily Record reports.[80] |
| 23 June | Following the previous day's emergency budget statement, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are questioned by a live audience on its potential impact. The programme is presented by Nick Robinson and aired on the BBC News Channel and BBC Two.[81] |
| 25 June | ITV is to suspend production of Heartbeat to catch up on a backlog of unbroadcast episodes, it is reported.[82] |
| 27 June | ITV experiences its lowest viewing figures in its history. Less than one in ten people watched the channel and no more than 4 million people watched a single programme. On the day, the BBC broadcast the 2010 FIFA World Cup last-16 match between England and Germany (with 17.8 million viewers). Lack of viewers was also blamed on good summer weather. | |
| width=90 | Date | Event |
|---|
| 1 July | It is announced that Emma Crosby will leave GMTV after only a year.[83] |
| 7 – 21 July | Analogue is switched off in the Eitshal area. |
| 9 July | ITV announces the name of its new breakfast television service that will replace GMTV. Daybreak will launch in September. |
| 11 July | The events of the 2010 FIFA World Cup finish broadcasting worldwide with the conclusion of the final match from Soccer City in Johannesburg. |
| 13 July | BSkyB completes its deal to buy Virgin Media Television after receiving regulatory approval in the Republic of Ireland. Sky will rename its new acquisition Living TV Group.[84] |
| 14 – 28 July | Analogue is switched off in the Skriaig area. |
| 16 July | Essex teenager Gabriella Darlington wins Five's Be a Star on Neighbours competition, and will make a four-week appearance in the show as Poppy Rogers. She will be seen on UK screens from 10 November.[85] |
| 19 July | S4C begins broadcasting in high definition when it launches a channel called 'Clirlun'.[86] |
| 20 July | The Teletext games magazine GameCentral is to move to the Metro website following an online petition by fans to keep it running.[87] |
| 23 July | Media tycoon Richard Desmond buys Five from RTL for £104m.[88] |
| 25 July | BBC One broadcasts the first episode of Sherlock, a modern-day adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, written by Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson. The episode is watched by a total of 7.5 million viewers. |
| 30 July | Ben Shephard presents his final programme on GMTV after 11 years. | |
| width=90 | Date | Event |
|---|
| 1 – 15 September | Analogue is switched off in the Durris area. |
| 3 September | GMTV airs its last edition after 17 years on air.[99] |
| Virgin1 is rebranded as Channel One.[100] |
| 6 September | New ITV breakfast show Daybreak begins with former The One Show hosts Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley presenting. The inaugural edition features an interview with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, while overnight viewing figures published the following day indicate the programme had an audience of over a million.[101] |
| 8 – 22 September | Analogue is switched off in the Knockmore area. |
| 9 September | Five airs a special evening edition of its morning news themed programme The Wright Stuff to celebrate its tenth anniversary.[102] |
| 10 September | Barbara Windsor makes her final regular appearance as EastEnders Peggy Mitchell, exiting in a dramatic storyline that sees The Queen Vic destroyed by fire.[103] |
| Brian Dowling becomes Big Brother's Ultimate Housemate after winning Ultimate Big Brother which was the last ever series of the reality television show to air on Channel 4 before returning on 18 August 2011 this time on Channel 5.[104] |
| 12 September | Heartbeat airs its last ever episode after 18 years with the episode watched by 6.00 million viewers.[105] |
| 14 September | Jay Hunt announces she is leaving the post of Controller of BBC One to take up the role of chief creative officer at Channel 4.[106] |
| 15 September | BSkyB announces that it is to close down Bravo (and also Bravo 2) on 1 January 2011 and Channel One (formerly Virgin 1) on 1 February 2011 to focus on the Living brand as well as their own channels such as Sky1, Sky2 and Sky3. The gameshow channel Challenge is to take over Channel One's slot on Freeview, which will boost ratings for Challenge.[107] |
| 16 September | BBC One airs a special edition of Question Time featuring David Miliband, Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and Diane Abbottthe five candidates in the forthcoming Labour Party leadership election.[108] |
| The Welsh language channel S4C2 is removed from Sky channel 507. |
| 17 September | Jessie Wallace returns to EastEnders after five years. |
| 21 September | Edd Kimber wins the first series of The Great British Bake Off.[109] |
| 28 September | ITV confirms that the noted 1950s red landmark "Granada TV" sign on the roof and entrance of Granada Studios on Quay Street, Manchester, has been removed for safety reasons after maintenance found it was badly corroded.[110] | |
| width=90 | Date | Event |
|---|
| 1 October | The very first 3D channel in the UK, Sky 3D launches. |
| 4 October | Tiffany Pisani wins Cycle 6 of Britain's Next Top Model. |
| 6 October | The Apprentice returns to BBC One for a sixth series, having been delayed from earlier in the year because of the general election, and concerns Lord Sugar's role as a government adviser could present a conflict of interest if the series was on air in the run up to polling day.[111] |
| 6 – 20 October | Analogue is switched off in the Rosemarkie area. |
| 8 October | During a review of the following day's newspapers, Sky News presenter Steve Dixon is forced to make a hasty apology after asking Bee Gee Robin Gibb if his brother, Maurice (who died in 2003) is watching while discussing an article that makes reference to the late singer.[112] |
| 11 – 25 October | BBC Four show the first episode of Mark Gatiss' A History of Horror documentary. Each of the three episodes looks at the influence of the genre and features interviews with the likes of John Carpenter, George A. Romero and Roger Corman. |
| 13 – 27 October | Analogue is switched off in the Torosay area. |
| 14 October | Five confirms that Natasha Kaplinsky will leave the broadcaster at the end of the year.[113] |
| 15 October | BBC Three Controller Danny Cohen is named as the new Controller of BBC One, replacing Jay Hunt.[114] |
| Five airs Episode 6000 of Neighbours.[115] |
| 20 October | ITV confirms that Beverley Callard will leave her Coronation Street role as Rovers Return landlady Liz McDonald in 2011, after 22 years with the soap.[116] |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announces that part of the responsibility for funding S4C is to be transferred to the BBC.[117] |
| 23 October | Channel 4 teen soap Hollyoaks celebrates its 15th anniversary. |
| 28 October | Release of A Simples Life, the autobiography of the real-life meerkat Aleksandr Orlov, star of the Compare the Meerkat television adverts that first appeared on screen in January 2009. The commercials have proved popular with viewers, and have seen pre-order sales of the book on Amazon.co.uk out-perform those of autobiographies by people such as Tony Blair, Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue.[118] |
| October | UKTV launches its second HD channel – for Eden. |
| In Wales, S4C2 is removed from Virgin Media channel 168. | |
| width=90 | Date | Event |
|---|
| 2 November | Claire Lara wins the third series of .[119] |
| 4 November | Business Secretary Vince Cable orders Ofcom to investigate News Corporation's plan to take full control of BSkyB.[120] |
| 5 November | Members of the National Union of Journalists at the BBC begin a 48-hour strike in a dispute over proposed changes to the corporation's pension scheme. BBC News operates a reduced service.[121] |
| The BBC announces that Ready Steady Cook will not return for another series.[122] |
| 8 November | Bill Tarmey makes his final appearance on Coronation Street, dying in his armchair of incurable cancer. Elizabeth Dawn returns for a one-off appearance as the ghost of Jack's late wife Vera.[123] |
| 17 November | Analogue is switched off in the Channel Islands. |
| 19 November | Cast members of EastEnders and Coronation Street take part in a crossover episode titled East Street for Children in Need. |
| 26 November | Ofcom revokes the broadcast licenses of the four Tease Me television sex line channels for broadcasting sexually explicit content before the watershed.[124] |
| 30 November | In Wales, S4C2 is removed from Freeview channel 86. | |
