3 January – Children's stop-motion animation series Trumpton is the second programme on
BBC1 to be shot in colour and to show the copyright year in the end credits.
7 January – Debut of The Forsyte Saga, a blockbuster
BBC dramatisation (the last to be made in black and white) in 26 50-minute episodes originally shown on
BBC2. Because of the restricted number of viewers who can receive this channel, it is not until it begins BBC1 Sunday evening repeats on 8 September that it reaches a large audience which will build to 18 million and cause some church services to be rescheduled;[1] it is also popular internationally and becomes the first British television programme ever to be sold to the
Soviet Union.
9 January – The long-running children's educational programme Look and Read debuts on BBC1.
28 February – National and regional newspapers carry advertisements from the
Independent Television Authority requesting applicants for various new ITV contracts, one of which is Programme Contractor for Yorkshire Area (Contract D) – All Week. Ten formal bids are received by the closing date.[3][4]
March
No events.
April
4 April – BBC1 show a Tom and Jerry cartoon for the first time, commencing with the 1942
short 'Dog Trouble'. The hugely popular
Hanna-Barbera characters are shown twice weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and go on to be screened continually on the BBC throughout many decades.
12 June – The 1967 franchise round sees a number of changes being made to the ITV regional map which will take effect from May to August 1968:
Any split weekday/weekend licences are removed in all regions, except London.
The London split is moved from Friday/Saturday to Friday at 7pm.
The North of England region is split into the North West and Yorkshire.
Granada, the existing weekday contractor for the North of England region, is given a seven-day licence for the new North West of England region.
Lord Thomson of Fleet is required to divest himself of most of his holding in
Scottish Television.
A new company, Telefusion Yorkshire, later renamed
Yorkshire Television, is given the licence to broadcast in the newly created Yorkshire region.
ATV wins the new seven-day Midlands licence, replacing
ABC at the weekend.
ABC and
Rediffusion, London are asked to form a joint company to take the London weekday franchise previously held by Rediffusion alone, the result,
Thames Television, is 51% controlled by ABC.
The London Television Consortium, put together by
David Frost wins the London weekend contract which now includes Friday evenings from 7pm. They go on air as
London Weekend Television.
Most controversially,
TWW loses its franchise for Wales and the West of England to
Harlech Television which later becomes known as HTV on the arrival of UHF.
1 July –
BBC2 becomes Europe's first colour TV broadcaster. The colour service is launched with live coverage from the
Wimbledon Championships.
2 July – The BBC's colour
Test Card F, featuring
Carole Hersee, is broadcast for the first time.
3 July – News at Ten premieres on
ITV. It airs for half an hour nightly on weeknights until 1999 before being axed. It is then reintroduced in 2001, axed again in 2004 and brought back for a second time in 2008.
8–9 July –
BBC1 broadcasts The Great Climb, covering ascents of the
Old Man of Hoy in Orkney in real time,[5] which attracts around 15 million viewers.[6]
25 December – The final edition of The Sooty Show is shown on the BBC after being cancelled by
Paul Fox, the controller of
BBC 1. Part of the reason for the cancellation is due to his decision to clear out long-running programmes on the channel to make way for new shows. The Sooty Show will return next year on ITV, being produced by the newly-launched London franchise
Thames Television.