This is a timeline of the history of BBC One.
1960s 1964 20 April – Due to the launch of BBC2, the existing BBC TV channel is renamed BBC1. 28 September – In the Midlands, BBC1 airs the first edition of its local news programme, Midlands Today. 28 October – The Wednesday Play premieres. 15 December – Peter Watkins' docudrama Culloden is shown.
1965 7 April – BBC1 airs Three Clear Sundays, a Wednesday Play about the events leading to a man's conviction for capital murder. 18 June – The last edition of Tonight is broadcast. 7 July – The long-running science and technology programme Tomorrow's World makes its debut. 6 August – The War Game, a drama-documentary by director Peter Watkins, depicting the events of a supposedly futuristic nuclear attack on the United Kingdom, is pulled from its planned transmission in The Wednesday Play anthology strand. The BBC was pressured into this move by the British government, which did not want much of the play's content to become public. It was eventually released to cinemas, and won the 1966 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The BBC finally aired the play in 1985. 4 October United! makes its debut. 24 Hours launches. 18 October – The Magic Roundabout makes its debut. It continues until 1977. 13 December – Jackanory makes its debut. It ran until 1996 and was later revived in 2006.
1966 3 January – Camberwick Green is the first programme on BBC1 to be shot in colour and the first programme to feature the copyright year in the end credits; BBC1 would not broadcast in colour until almost four years later and regular programmes also wouldn't show the copyright year in the end credits until six years later. 6 June – The sitcom Till Death Us Do Part begins its first series run. 16 November – The play Cathy Come Home is presented in The Wednesday Play anthology strand.
1967 3 January – Trumpton is the second programme on BBC1 to be shot in colour and feature the copyright year in the end credits five years before regular programmes would; only BBC2 became the first channel to broadcast colour TV. BBC1 however still wouldn't broadcast colour until almost three years later. 26 December – The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour airs in the UK.
1968 12 February – The Herbs, the first programme in colour produced by another company other than Gordon Murray Puppets Ltd. debuts. 1 April – Reporting Scotland launches on BBC1 Scotland, replacing A Quick Look Round. 9 July – American time-travel series The Time Tunnel debuts. 31 July – The sitcom Dad's Army begins a nine-year run. 9 September – Hector's House debuts.
1969 9 September – The first edition of teatime news magazine Nationwide is broadcast. Initially broadcast twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday), it airs every weekday from 1972. 6 October – Chigley is the third and final programme to be shot in colour on BBC1 before regular colour broadcasting and also happens to be the first programme to feature the copyright year in Roman numerals in the end credits nearly seven years ahead of regular programming. 15 November – Regular colour broadcasting is introduced to BBC1, coinciding with the launch of the new NODD Mirrored Globe ident.
1970s 1970 15 February – BBC1 airs the Ken Russell film Dance of the Seven Veils as part of its Omnibus strand. The film, about German composer Richard Strauss, attracts complaints because of its sex scenes, and controversy by depicting Strauss as a Nazi sympathiser. Strauss's family subsequently withdraw their permission for the use of his music, meaning the film cannot be shown again until the copyright on his work has expired. It is not until 2020 that the film is given a second airing, at that year's Keswick Film Festival. 14 September – The Nine O'Clock News is first broadcast on BBC1. The programme aired until 13 October 2000 when the station's main evening bulletin was switched to 10pm. 25 December – Pluto's Christmas Tree is broadcast on BBC1, the first complete Mickey Mouse cartoon to be shown on British television in colour.
1971 10 April – The Two Ronnies makes its debut on BBC1. 7 June – Children's magazine show Blue Peter buries a time capsule in the grounds of BBC Television Centre, due to be opened on the first episode of the year 2000. 2 October – Debut on BBC1 of The Generation Game, presented by Bruce Forsyth, and from 1978, Larry Grayson.
1972 27 March – For the first time, BBC1 broadcasts children's programmes on weekday mornings during the school holidays. The block, which runs for just over one hour, ends at 11am, which is the start time for Play School on BBC2. 24 April – The first edition of Newsround is broadcast. 2 October – Following a recent law change, BBC1 and ITV are allowed to begin broadcasting a full afternoon schedule with both broadcasters now broadcasting non-stop from lunchtime. BBC1's afternoon schedule launches with the first edition of a new lunchtime magazine programme Pebble Mill at One. 30 December – BBC1 airs part one of "The Three Doctors", a four-part serial of the science-fiction programme Doctor Who created to celebrate its tenth anniversary (which would occur on 23 November of the following year).
1973 4 January – The British long-running comedy series Last of the Summer Wine starts as a 30-minute pilot on BBC1's Comedy Playhouse show. The first series run starts on 12 November and the programme runs for 37 years until August 2010. 5 February – Elisabeth Beresford's well known popular children's characters The Wombles have spawned into a stop motion animated television series narrated by Bernard Cribbins and composed by Mike Batt on BBC1. 15 February – The first episode of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em airs on BBC1. 25 March – The pilot episode of Open All Hours airs as part of Ronnie Barker's series Seven of One on BBC1. 1 April – Prisoner and Escort, the pilot episode of Porridge, airs as part of Seven of One. 25 May – The first episode of the magazine-style series That's Life! airs. Hosted by Esther Rantzen. 31 October – The sixth series of television sitcom Dad's Army opens with the episode "The Deadly Attachment" containing the "Don't tell him, Pike!" exchange which will become rated as one of the top three greatest comedy moments of British television. 12 November – First series run of Last of the Summer Wine starts on BBC1.
1974 7 January – A two-minute weekday mid-afternoon regional news summary is broadcast on BBC1 for the first time. It is transmitted immediately before the start of the afternoon's children's programmes. 23 September – The BBC teletext service Ceefax goes live with 30 pages of information. 16 October – The Welsh language soap Pobol y Cwm makes its debut on BBC Wales. 28 December – The BBC1 Mirrored Globe ident changes to a blue and yellow colour scheme. The legend BBC1 was rendered in white, using a heavy weight of the Futura typeface.
1975 6 January – Due to cutbacks at the BBC, BBC1 stops broadcasting programmes on weekday early afternoons. Consequently, apart from schools programmes and live sport, the channel now shows a trade test transmission between 2pm and the start of children's programmes. 4 April – The Good Life makes its debut on BBC1. 31 May – Jim'll Fix It makes its debut on BBC1. 15 July – BBC1 airs This is Ceefax in which Angela Rippon tells the story of this new form of broadcasting and looks at some of its uses.BBC Programme Guide ‘This is Ceefax’
1976 4 February – Early morning programming from the Open University begins on BBC1, with Electrons in motion airing at 7:05am. 6 April – Original scheduled airdate of Dennis Potter's Play for Today Brimstone and Treacle. The film is pulled from transmission on BBC1 due to controversy over its content, including the rape of a woman by the devil. It is eventually aired on BBC1 in 1987, after having been made into a film starring Sting in 1982. 2 October – The first edition of Saturday morning children's magazine show Multi-Coloured Swap Shop is broadcast. It runs throughout the morning on BBC1.
1977 Unknown – Scum, an entry in BBC1's Play for Today anthology strand, is pulled from transmission due to controversy over its depiction of life in a Young Offenders' Institution (at this time known in the United Kingdom as a borstal). Two years later the director Alan Clarke makes a film version with most of the same cast, and the original play itself is eventually aired in 1991.
1978 7 March–11 April – Dennis Potter's groundbreaking drama serial Pennies From Heaven airs on BBC1. 28–29 May – British television debut of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, airing as a two-part presentation over two consecutive nights on BBC1. 21–22 December – BBC1 and BBC2 are forced off the air due to industrial action at the BBC by the ABS union which starts on Thursday 21 December. On Friday 22 December the radio unions join their BBC Television counterparts, forcing the BBC to merge their four national radio networks into one national radio station, the BBC All Network Radio Service, from 4pm that afternoon. The strike is settled shortly before 10pm on 22 December, with the unions and BBC management reaching an agreement at the British government's industrial disputes arbitration service ACAS. BBC1 resumes broadcast at 3pm on Saturday 23 December, with BBC2 resuming at 1pm the same afternoon. Threat of disruption to the BBC's festive television schedules is averted. BBC Radio networks resume normal schedules on the morning of Saturday 23 December. 25 December – BBC1 airs the British television premiere of The Sound of Music.
1979 3–4 May – BBC1 broadcasts coverage of the 1979 General Election. 2 September – Subtitling of television programmes on Ceefax begins. 25 September – Robin Day presents the first edition of the long-running political debate programme Question Time on BBC1 The programme continues to air to the present day. 11 November – The last episode of the first series of the sitcom To the Manor Born is broadcast on BBC1. It is watched by 23.95 million viewers, the all-time highest figure for a recorded programme in the UK.
1980s 1980 1 January – The holiday camp sitcom Hi-de-Hi! makes its debut on BBC1. March – The very first in-vision Ceefax transmissions are broadcast. These consist of 30 minute transmissions, which BBC1 broadcasts on weekday mornings between 8:30am and 9am. 8 September – Watchdog is launched as a weekly slot on BBC1's news magazine programme Nationwide. 19 September – Regional peak time continuity on BBC1 ends and with it the weeknight closedown regional news bulletin. 1 October – BBC1's lunchtime children's programme is labelled See Saw for the first time. 21 November The first annual Children in Need charity appeal is organised by the BBC. 21.5 million viewers tune in to watch the 1980–81 season premier of Dallas, which answers the question of Who shot J.R.?. At the time the audience figures are a record for a soap in Britain. 9 December – The single drama The Flipside of Dominick Hide is first broadcast as part of the Play for Today series on BBC1.
1981 5 January – Debut of the BBC1 soap Triangle, a twice-weekly series set aboard a North Sea ferry, and filmed on location using outside broadcast cameras. The website TVARK describes the programme as being chiefly remembered as "some of the most mockable British television ever produced" owing to its clichéd storylines and stilted dialogue. It is axed after three series. 10 February – The Alan Rogers animated series Pigeon Street begins on BBC1. The series ran until December before repeats on BBC1 and BBC2 throughout the 1980s and 1990s. 29 March – BBC1 airs highlights of the first London Marathon under the International Athletics strand. Live coverage of the event begins the following year. 29 July – BBC1 televises the marriage of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer takes place at St Paul's Cathedral. More than 30,000,000 viewers watch the wedding on television – the second highest television audience of all time in Britain.