This is a list of British television related events from 1997.
Events January 1 January – New Year's Day highlights on BBC1 include a TV film adaptation of The Mill on the Floss and Global Sunrise, an 80-minute film presented by Julian Pettifer. It also includes the culmination of a project that saw camera crews at twenty locations around the world on 1 January 1996, recording the rising sun through six continents and all time zones. ITV introduces a third weekly episode of Emmerdale. 2 January – Test transmissions begin for Channel 5 in some areas. Details of them are made available on Ceefax page 698 for a few weeks. 3 January The final episode in the second run of the game show Celebrity Squares, presented by Bob Monkhouse, is broadcast on ITV, although it will be revived briefly in 2014. The first episode of the ninth series of Wheel of Fortune is broadcast on ITV, with Bradley Walsh taking over as host. 5 January – The network television premiere of Jim Sheridan's 1993 biographical drama In the Name of the Father on BBC2, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Pete Postlethwaite and Emma Thompson. 6 January – Channel 4 closes down for the last time with 24-hour transmissions commencing at 6am the following day. Consequently, after nearly 15 years on the air, 4-Tel On View ends. 7 January – Carlton presents Monarchy: The Nation Decides, a live studio debate discussing the future of the monarchy in the UK, fronted by Trevor McDonald, John Stapleton, Michele Newman and Roger Cook. Viewers are encouraged to vote on the issue in what is the UK's largest television phone poll. However, Carlton is forced to extend the deadline for calls following complaints from people unable to get through. Of the 2.6 million callers who vote, 66% are in favour of retaining a monarch. 8 January – The serialised children's series The Wild House makes its debut on BBC1. 9 January – BT releases an advert featuring Letitia Dean and nine other former EastEnders stars in its Friends and Family promotion despite the BBC threatening them with legal action. The BBC subsequently withdraws its threat to sue after BT pays them an undisclosed five-figure amount. 11 January – John Fashanu co-hosts his final edition of Gladiators, which is a sports celebrity special. He will return to the show for its final mini-series in 1999. 14 January – Viewing figures released for 1996 indicate that BBC1 and BBC2 are the only terrestrial channels to increase their audience share during the year. 29 January – Debut of the spoof documentary series Brass Eye on Channel 4. 31 January The Independent Television Commission receives two applications for the licence to operate digital terrestrial television in the UK. They come from British Digital Broadcasting (BDB), a joint venture between Carlton, Granada and British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) and from Digital Television Network (DTN), a company created by cable operator CableTel, later known as NTL. Details of Channel 5's schedule are leaked to Broadcast magazine. A spokeswoman for the channel confirms the schedule is largely accurate but that the amount of imported content has been distorted: Channel 5's schedule will be made up of 70% UK-produced content.
February 2 February – BBC2 airs George A. Romero's cult 1978 zombie horror Dawn of the Dead, starring David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger and Gaylen Ross. 3 February Trouble launches, broadcasting programmes aimed at teenagers and young adults. It shares space with Bravo, the broadcasting hours of which change to 8pm to 6am. The Family Channel relaunches as a game show channel called Challenge TV, although Family Late continues to broadcast as an overnight programming block. Pre-school programmes block Tiny TCC which aired every day from 6am until 9am is transferred to UK Living and is renamed Tiny Living with its airtime being changed to 7am to 9am on weekdays and 7am to 10am during the weekend. 5 February – The first Wednesday edition of the National Lottery is broadcast on BBC1 with the introduction of a second weekly draw. 5 February – Debut of the comedy sketch series Armstrong and Miller on the Paramount Comedy Channel and later on Channel 4, starring Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller. 9 February – The live final of the 1997 Masters on BBC2 is interrupted by snooker's first ever streaker, 22-year-old secretary Lianne Crofts, who invades the playing area at the beginning of the third frame. After stewards remove her from the arena, Ronnie O'Sullivan amuses the crowd by comically wiping the brow of veteran referee John Street who is refereeing the final match of his career. 12 February – Channel 5 releases details of its programme scheduling. It will introduce the concept of stripping and stranding to British television, stripping being where a programme is shown at the same time each day and stranding being where similar programmes are shown at the same time each day. A full schedule is published on 18 February. 14 February – The cable-only entertainment channel Carlton Select replaces SelecTV which it acquired when Carlton bought Pearson Television. 15 February – The Simpsons is shown for the last time on BBC1 with the episode "Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish". 19 February – Ceefax ceases to provide information on Channel 5 test transmissions. 21 February – Ornithology series Birding with Bill Oddie is first broadcast on BBC2. 24 February – The final episode of the sitcom The Brittas Empire is broadcast on BBC1. 28 February – The BBC sells its transmitters and transmission services to Castle Transmission Services for £244 million to help fund its plans for the digital age. February – The Paramount Channel relaunches as the Paramount Comedy Channel, a channel dedicated solely to comedy. Previously, the channel had aired drama alongside its comedy output.
March 3 March The iconic snooker series Pot Black returns in a format for veteran players aged over 40 years in a one year only tournament called Seniors Pot Black which runs for 10 editions for the next two weeks shown on a tea-time slot on BBC2. Regular snooker presenter David Vine hosts the series which featured former champions by now retired Ray Reardon, John Spencer and then current players Dennis Taylor and Terry Griffiths. The title was won by Joe Johnson who never competed in the original series. Dave Spikey becomes the sixth host for the final series of the ITV weekday morning game show Chain Letters in the same year as its 10th anniversary. 4 March – The BBC and Flextech agree on a deal to provide BBC-branded channels. BBC Showcase, for entertainment, BBC Horizon, for documentaries, BBC Style for lifestyle programming, BBC Learning for schools and BBC Arena for the arts, plus three other channels: BBC Catch-Up for repeats of popular programmes within days of their original broadcast; a dedicated BBC Sport channel; and a TV version of Radio 1. 8 March – ITV takes over the UK television rights to Formula One after 18 years of coverage on the BBC. It shows full coverage of qualifying as well as the race itself, something that the BBC generally did not do, although it is also criticised for showing advertisement breaks during the races. 10 March – The Simpsons is moved from BBC1 to BBC2 and is shown between Monday and Friday at 6pm. 14 March – Among the highlights of this year's Comic Relief telethon is Prime Cracker, a short spoof crossover of ITV stablemate crime dramas Prime Suspect and Cracker, starring Helen Mirren and Robbie Coltrane as their respective characters. 18 March – The final episode of Come Outside is broadcast on BBC2. 21 March – Campaign magazine reports that the BBC and Flextech have ratified their joint venture. They will create two new operational ventures, one that will develop and launch subscription channels in the UK and Ireland and one that will acquire and run UK Gold. 23 March The science documentary The Language Master makes its debut on BBC2 in which language teacher Michel Thomas teaches French to sixth form students for five days at a further education college in London.The Language Master at the British Film Institute Film & TV Database As a result of the interest generated by this documentary, the publisher Hodder & Stoughton commissions Thomas to produce commercial versions of his courses. Debut on ITV of the long-running crime drama Midsomer Murders, starring John Nettles. 25 March – ITV's Network First strand presents a ground-breaking documentary about Edinburgh's Royal Blind School, a boarding school for visually impaired students. 26 March – The network television premiere on ITV of Alan J. Pakula's 1993 American thriller The Pelican Brief, based on John Grisham's novel of the same name starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington. 28 March – The final episode of the children's series Playdays is broadcast on BBC2. 30 March Channel 5, the UK's fifth and last analogue terrestrial channel, launches at 6pm. The first faces seen are the Spice Girls who perform 1-2-3-4-5, a rewritten version of Manfred Mann's 1964 song 5-4-3-2-1. The opening night's highlights include the launch of a new daily soap Family Affairs and The Jack Docherty Show, a weeknight chat show based on the format of American shows such as The Late Show with David Letterman. Sky1 airs "The Springfield Files", a crossover episode of The Simpsons with The X-Files, featuring the guest voices of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, as well as Star Treks Leonard Nimoy, who appears as himself to feature numerous references of the series. ITV airs the comedy pilot Cold Feet. It returns for a full series the following year and runs until 2003. It will be revived in 2016 for four series. 31 March The hugely popular preschool children's series Teletubbies makes its debut on BBC2. The game show Blockbusters relaunches on BBC2, presented by Michael Aspel. This is the first version featuring adult contestants and the only version to have purple rather than blue hexagons while retaining the same format. The series continues until 28 August. BBC1 airs a made-for-television version of Michael Flatley's musical Lord of the Dance. The programme is shown on the same evening that Channel 4 airs a relaunched version of Riverdance featuring Colin Dunne and Jean Butler. Channel 5 becomes the subject of a ratings war with all major channels adopting aggressive scheduling to retain viewers. As well as Lord of the Dance, BBC1 airs two episodes of EastEnders and the thriller Malice, while ITV screens five films, including Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and RoboCop 2. Channel 4 has the films The Goodbye Girl and Breakheart Pass. The inaugural edition of 5 News features an interview with Labour Party leader Tony Blair. Among the new shows that make their debut on Channel 5 today are the game shows 100% and Whittle as well as Hot Property and the children's programming block Milkshake!. Debut of BBC World's flagship interview series HARDtalk.
April 1 April At 4:40am, Channel 5 begins a rerun of the Australian soap Prisoner: Cell Block H. This is the series' first networked broadcast in the UK as during its earlier run on ITV, scheduling of the show had varied from region to region. Quincy, a series that was previously shown on ITV, begins airing on BBC1 as part of their daytime schedule. 3 April BBC1 airs Episode 2710 of Neighbours in which the character Cheryl Stark, played by Caroline Gillmer, is killed when she is hit by a vehicle while trying to cross a road to save her daughter. Scenes involving the accident are censored by the BBC before the episode is broadcast. Five seconds of the episode had also been cut before it aired in Australia in September 1996. Postman Pat returns for a new series of 13 episodes on BBC1, copyrighted the previous year. Two special episodes are aired two and a half years prior to making another 15 episodes in total.