7 January – BBC Scotland launches an extended Saturday teatime results programme. Rather than opting out of the last few minutes of Grandstand, the programme, called Afternoon Sportscene, runs for the entire duration of the time allocated for the day's results, starting at some point between 1 and 5 minutes before the network aired English counterpart Final Score.
5 February – The world's first commercial DBS system, Sky Television, goes on air in the United Kingdom.
March
15 March – BBC1 airs John's Not Mad,[2] an edition of the QED documentary strand which shadowed John Davidson, a 15-year-old from Galashiels in Scotland, with severe Tourette syndrome. The film explores John's life in terms of his family and the close-knit community around him, and how they all cope with a misunderstood condition.
6 August – After being a co-host on the show last season, Jim White takes on the main presenting role on Scotsport replacing the now-retired Arthur Montford.
1 September - The first ITV generic look is introduced.[5] All three regions adopt the look, but Scottish drops it in December.
October
No events.
November
No events.
December
December – The controversial Broadcasting Bill is introduced into Parliament by the Government. It will pave the way for the deregulation of commercial television.[6]
^"I Love Blue Peter – John Leslie". BBC Online. Retrieved 9 May 2009.
^Shaps, Simon (24 August 2009). "Rupert predicted the future but will James be such a visionary?". The Independent. Archived from the original on 28 August 2009. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
^"Scottish Television ITV Corporate Ident 1989 Announcer Brian Ford". YouTube. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
^"The Broadcasting Acts of 1990 and 1996". Ofcom. Archived from the original on 8 May 2009. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
^Brown, Ian (13 February 2020). Performing Scottishness: Enactment and National Identities. Springer Nature. p. 194. ISBN978-3-030-39407-3.
^McElroy, Ruth (14 October 2016). Contemporary British Television Crime Drama: Cops on the Box. Taylor & Francis. p. 27. ISBN978-1-317-16096-0.
^Williams, Craig (30 April 2020). "A look back at classic Glasgow comedy show City Lights". GlasgowLive. Retrieved 24 May 2022.
^Tait, Derek (15 November 2019). A 1980s Childhood. Amberley Publishing Limited. p. 104. ISBN978-1-4456-9242-5.