This is a list of British television related events from 1999.
Events
January 1 January New Year's Day highlights on BBC One include Ron Howard's acclaimed 1995 Astronaut drama Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and Ed Harris. Denise van Outen presents her final edition of The Big Breakfast although she will return in September of the following year. In Coronation Street, four-decade resident Alf Roberts dies of a heart attack, just one month before the real-life death of Bryan Mosley, the actor who had portrayed him since his debut in 1961. 3–4 January – BBC One airs a two-part adaptation of Andy McNab's book Bravo Two Zero, starring Sean Bean as McNab and set during the Gulf War. 4 January GMTV2 launches during the breakfast downtime of ITV2. Debut of The Vanessa Show with Vanessa Feltz on BBC One. Australian children's drama Misery Guts begins to air on BBC One. Canadian television series for preschoolers Polka Dot Shorts begins to air in the UK on BBC Two. The series is so popular in the UK, it continues airing on the BBC for 6 years until 2004 and a range of videos of the series is released by Abbey Home Media. UK debut of The Powerpuff Girls on Cartoon Network. Debut of Canadian science-fiction drama television series First Wave on Sky One, starring Sebastian Spence. 5 January Provisional viewing figures suggest that an episode of ITV's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? aired on 3 January was watched by 17 million viewers, making it the highest viewed television programme, excluding soaps and World Cup matches since 1997. As he prepares to launch a new series of Parkinson, broadcaster Michael Parkinson criticises his chat show rival, footballer Ian Wright telling BBC Radio 5 Live's Sybil Ruscoe that Wright has a "careless attitude" and does not have the "understanding" to do his job properly. 6 January In a stunt organised by the recently launched "lads magazine" Front, television presenter Noel Edmonds is hit in the face with two custard pies while filming for Noel's House Party in London's Oxford Street. A Broadcasting Standards Commission survey indicates that many viewers believe sex is used on television in order to boost ratings. 7 January – BBC One airs the network television premiere of Braveheart, Mel Gibson's 1995 historical drama about the late-13th century warrior William Wallace who led Scots clans in the fight for Scottish independence; it also stars Patrick McGoohan, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine McCormack and Sophie Marceau in her first English-language appearance. 8 January Teenage model Kelly Brook is chosen to replace Denise van Outen as co-host of Channel 4's The Big Breakfast alongside Johnny Vaughan. Nita Desai, played by Rebecca Sarker arrives in Coronation Street to take over from Ashley Peacock (Steven Arnold) as manager of the corner shop. She is the first member of the Desai family—the soap's first Asian family—to be seen on screen. Debut of the sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme on BBC Two, starring Kathy Burke and James Dreyfus. 10 January – ITV replaces its long-running Sunday morning church service broadcast, Morning Worship, with a new religious magazine programme, Sunday Morning, which includes a short service. The first venue for the programme is Frinton Free Church in Frinton-on-Sea, Essex. ITV begins a six-part adaptation of Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island. 11 January – The black comedy show The League of Gentlemen debuts on BBC Two. Along with The Fast Show and Goodness Gracious Me, it is credited with boosting international interest in British comedy series. 12 January Debut of the Casualty spin-off, Holby City on BBC One. Among the cast are several former soap stars including Michael French, Angela Griffin, Nicola Stephenson and Lisa Faulkner. Airline returns to ITV for a second series with EasyJet now as the featured company. 13 January – BBC One's audience share drops below 30% for the first time. 16 January – ITV's On the Ball has been recommissioned for a second run for the 1999–2000 football season despite getting off to a slow start, The Mirror newspaper reports. 18 January – British Eurosport launches, replacing the pan-European version on most platforms. The change sees the introduction of live studio presentation of major events. 19 January ITV's This Morning becomes the first programme on British television to show men how to check themselves for signs of testicular cancer. Carlton Communications has spent £91 million on a library of 300 films from Universal Studios. The titles which were part of the ITC Television library, include The Eagle Has Landed, The Big Easy, Sophie's Choice, Thunderbirds, The Saint, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Jesus of Nazareth. Claire King makes her final regular appearance as Emmerdale character Kim Tate after a decade with the series. Following a two decades long absence from the soap in September 2018, ITV confirms King will reprise the role for a special week of episodes from 8 October 2018. 20 January The UK government says no political pressure was applied to the BBC over its decision not to give Scotland a separate version of the Six O'Clock News. ITV announces that Michael Nicholson and Jonathan Maitland will join Trevor McDonald to present a new current affairs programme for the network. Channel 4 defends a segment on today's edition of The Big Breakfast in which guest presenter Jenny McCarthy assumes a number of suggestive poses as she plays a "Guess the Balls" game with footballer Vinnie Jones. The item appears at 8:30am when the content can be viewed by children, but a Channel 4 spokesman tells Scotland's Daily Record that "Jenny McCarthy's performance within this criteria has been stunning and we see no areas where she has let us or the public down this week." The Broadcasting Standards Commission upholds viewer complaints against the TV series Compromising Situations, aired on Channel 5 as well as the film Centerfold which the network aired in Summer 1998. Channel 5 is also criticised by the BSC for making sexually explicit material available on free-to-air television. 21 January – ITV and Channel 4 sign a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. 27 January After upholding four viewer complaints about Compromising Situations, a late-night erotic anthology series aired on Channel 5, the Broadcasting Standards Commission warns that erotic content on the channel could lead to soft porn being shown on mainstream television. The Commission expresses the opinion that complaints about Compromising Situations and another series, Hot Line raises "significant issues for public debate". The ruling leads to a row between the Commission and Channel 5, with its chief executive David Elstein, comparing the reprimand to the 1960 prosecution of Penguin Books over its publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Cat food brand Whiskas premieres "the first ever commercial for cats" during Coronation Street, receiving wide media coverage 29 January – Channel 5 airs episode 480 of Family Affairs which sees the entire Hart family killed in a boat explosion. The episode marks a change in direction for the soap which is to move from its riverside location to west London.
February 1 February Kelly Brook takes over from Denise van Outen as co-presenter of Channel 4's The Big Breakfast. The Channel 4 Political Awards is broadcast for the first time. 2 February – As Glenn Hoddle is sacked as England football manager following the controversy over comments he made during a recent interview it is revealed his 13-year-old daughter Zara, wrote to the BBC's Ceefax asking people to leave Hoddle alone to get on with his job. 3 February It is reported that Martini is to sign a £1 million contract with ITV to sponsor a season of James Bond films. The channel is planning to screen all 18 Bond films, beginning with GoldenEye in March, then broadcasting them in chronological order from Dr. No to Tomorrow Never Dies. GoldenEye airs at 8.30 pm on 10 March. Dr. No is screened on 29 May. Tomorrow Never Dies makes its television debut on 13 October. The US romantic comedy-drama Sex and the City makes its British television debut on Channel 4. 8 February – Following a five-week trial at Manchester Crown Court, former Central News reporter John Caine is convicted of sexually abusing underage boys over a period of two decades and jailed for five and a half years. 11 February – Three members of production staff are suspended from BBC One's The Vanessa Show following reports in The Mirror that fake guests appeared on the programme. They are later sacked following an internal inquiry. 12 February – ITV's Trisha show is caught up in a fake guests controversy after it emerges that the agent who supplied guests to the rival Vanessa Show did the same for Trisha, but the show's editor Sally-Ann Howard, denies any of her team were aware that the guests were fakes. 13 February – BBC One airs "Face Value", the 250th episode of Casualty. 15 February – ITV axes Gladiators after eight years due to falling ratings. A final mini-series featuring returning champions is commissioned by ONdigital to air in May before being shown on the main ITV network at the end of the year. 18 February – ITV screens the Granada Television film The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, a dramatisation of the aftermath of the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence told from the point of view of his parents. 21 February – US/Canadian animated series for preschoolers Salty's Lighthouse which uses footage taken from the children's model animated series that was originally broadcast on ITV is shown on Channel 4 for the first time in the UK. At the same time, it is also the second time Tugs is shown in its homeland. 23 February – Channel 4 debuts Russell T. Davies's groundbreaking series Queer as Folk. 25 February The BBC announces that Noel's House Party will be axed after eight years. The most recent edition of the show drew an audience of less than six million and it will finish when its current run ends on 20 March. The Broadcasting Standards Commission upholds a complaint about a feature in the Teletext games magazine Digitiser from 26 October 1998. The gossip column, Gossi the Dog had alluded to Gossi's master thrashing the talking cartoon dog with a belt. 26 February Channel 4 News presenter Sheena McDonald is in intensive care after receiving head injuries when she was hit by a police van on an emergency call in north London. Channel 4 is fined £150,000 by the Independent Television Commission for including fake scenes in Too Much Too Young: Chickens, a documentary about rent boys in Glasgow that aired in 1997. The fine is the first such penalty imposed on Channel 4.
March 2 March – Wheel of Fortune is moved to an afternoon slot. The star prize is reduced from a choice of £20,000 or a car to a regular jackpot of £2,000. 4 March – BBC Prime is launched for the first time in South Africa. 5 March – After 32 years, what is billed as the last ever News at Ten is broadcast on ITV. It is replaced with a 6:30pm bulletin, the ITV Evening News from the following Monday. In the event, News at Ten returns in 2001, is axed again in 2004, and resurrected in 2008. It is restored as a five-nights-a-week programme from March 2009. This day also sees the final broadcast of the ITV Evening News in its long-running 5:40pm slot. The changes at ITV also prompt other broadcasters to review their news scheduling with Sky News and BBC News 24 both launch 10pm bulletins to fill the gap left by News at Ten, while Channel 5 reschedules its evening news bulletin to 6pm. Channel 4 News is also relaunched. 7 March – BBC Two airs the final episode of the 1993 series of Grange Hill, concluding a Sunday morning rerun of the first 16 series of the school drama which began in April 1993.