1981 in Scottish television

This is a list of events in Scottish television from 1981.

Events

July

• 29 July – The wedding of Prince Charles 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.^[1]

September

• 1 September - 20th anniversary of Border Television.
• 8 September - BBC One Scotland changes its name to BBC Scotland.
• 30 September - 20th anniversary of Grampian Television.

October

• October - Scottish Television becomes the first ITV station to operate a regional Oracle teletext service, containing over 60 pages of local news, sport and information.^[2]
• 17 October - The first edition of a new Sunday lunchtime current affairs series Agenda is broadcast on BBC1 Scotland.

Unknown

• Scottish Television airs The Shepherds of Berneray, a 50-minute television documentary revolving around the people on the island of Berneray, North Uist, and how they lived at that time.
• Alistair Moffat is appointed Head of Arts at Scottish Television.

Debuts

ITV

• 5 January - Now You See It (1981–1986)

Television series

• Scotsport (1957–2008)^[3]
• Reporting Scotland (1968–1983; 1984–present)
• Top Club (1971–1998)
• Scotland Today (1972–2009)
• Sportscene (1975–Present)^[4]
• The Beechgrove Garden (1978–Present)
• Grampian Today (1980–2009)
• Take the High Road (1980–2003)^[5]

Births

• 10 March - Nicci Jolly, television presenter
• 5 April - Shabana Akhtar, actress
• Unknown
  • Cat Cubie, weather presenter
  • Shauna Macdonald, actress
  • Catriona Shearer, news presenter

Deaths

• 6 January - A. J. Cronin, 84, writer (Doctor Finlay's Casebook)

See also

• 1981 in Scotland

References

1. "1981: Charles and Diana marry". On This Day. BBC. 29 July 1981. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
2. "Turn to the Oracle to be kept in the picture". Glasgow Herald. 12 October 1981. p. 11. Retrieved 28 April 2012.
3. Haynes, Richard (17 November 2016). BBC Sport in Black and White. Springer. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-137-45501-7.
4. "Sportscene at 50: Famous faces back for anniversary". BBC Sport. 6 August 2025. Archived from the original on 11 August 2025. Retrieved 8 August 2025.
5. Brown, Ian (13 February 2020). Performing Scottishness: Enactment and National Identities. Springer Nature. p. 194. ISBN 978-3-030-39407-3.