1989 in Scottish television

This is a list of events in Scottish television from 1989.

Events

January

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.
January – Scottish Television launches a new set of idents.

February

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, 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.

April

20 April – John Leslie becomes the first Scottish presenter of Blue Peter.

May

20 May – Arthur Montford presents his final edition of Scotsport after 32 years with live coverage of the Scottish Cup final.

August

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.
25 August – Rupert Murdoch delivers the MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival in which he launches an attack on the narrow elitism within the British television industry.

September

1 September - The first ITV generic look is introduced. All three regions adopt the look, but Scottish drops it in December.

December

December – The controversial Broadcasting Bill is introduced into Parliament by the Government. It will pave the way for the deregulation of commercial television.

Debuts

BBC

Unknown - ''The Singing Kettle''

ITV

11 February - Home and Away
24 February - ''Fun House''

Television series

Births

18 June - Jordan Smith, actor

Deaths

17 December - Edward Boyd, 73, radio and television writer