2007 in British television

This is a summary of the year 2007 in British television.

Events

*2 January - "This Life" returns for a ten-year reunion special.
*9 February - Paul Merton presents his last edition of "Room 101".
*14 February - Samuel Preston walks off live on an episode of "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" after insults about his wife Chantelle Houghton. Team captain Bill Bailey replaced him with a member of the audience, Ed Seymour.
*18 February - BBC Two launches 14 new idents designed by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO and produced by Red Bee Media, with the "2" becoming a "Windows of the World" a portal through which the world is seen differently.
*18 February - "Richard and Judy" is scrutinised when it is claimed that the winners were already chosen for its premium-rate phone-in quiz, "You Say, We Pay". This results in the start of the phone-in scandal.
*5 March - ITV's quiz channel ITV Play comes under attack from the scandal. As a result, ITV allow independent auditor Deloitte to review programmes with phone-ins that generate revenue such as "Dancing on Ice" and "The X Factor".
*13 March - ITV Play is shut down permanently due to the phone-in scandal.
*14 March - BBC children's programme "Blue Peter" is now involved with the scandal, after it is discovered they used a girl who was visiting the studio to pose as a caller live on the show.
*16 March - Comic Relief night. The last ever episode of "The Vicar of Dibley" was broadcast.
*20 March - "Dancing on Ice" reveals they lost 11,500 phone calls, as they were not delivered to Vodafone until next Monday morning (26 March).
*13 April - "Have I Got News for You" starts to produce a video podcast featuring unbroadcast material.
*23 April - A BBC "Panorama" disclosed that callers to GMTV's phone-in competitions may have been defrauded out of millions of pounds, because the telephone system operator, Opera Interactive Technology, had determined the winners before the phone lines had closed. GMTV responded by suspending the phone-in quizzes, but claimed that "it was confident it had not breached regulators' codes". Opera Interactive also denied any wrongdoing.
*14 May - BBC One broadcasts "Scientology and Me" a "Panorama" investigation into Scientology by journalist John Sweeney. A clip from the programme of Sweeney losing his temper and shouting at a disruptive scientologist representative is widely released on the internet and by DVD by scientologists prior to airing.
*18 July - Six BBC programmes, "Children in Need", "Comic Relief", "Sport Relief", "TMi" and two radio programmes ("The Liz Kershaw Show" and "White Label") have been discovered have been involved in the phone in scandals.
*26 July - The 2005 British Comedy Awards broadcast on ITV now become involved with the phone-in scandal, when it is discovered that people phoning in to vote for the People's Choice Award called when the programme was not being broadcast live, and last half hour of the show had been recorded when the ITV showed a news broadcast.
*5 September - The BBC scraps plans for "Planet Relief", a programme similar to "Comic Relief" and "Sport Relief" for fear of bias against critics of climate change and that people would prefer more factual programmes on the subject.
*9 September - In an advertising first, eBay begin showing live auction adverts between programmes, showing an auction with picture, current bid, time auction ends, and postage and packaging charges.
*21 September - ITV postpone broadcasting the 2007 British Comedy Awards due to the phone-in scandals.
*The BBC celebrates their 75-year service in television (85 years for radio).
*17 October - The town of Whitehaven in Cumbria becomes the first place in the UK to lose their analogue television signals and start the digital switchover, starting with BBC Two. The other four channels were switched off on November 14.
*14 November - The remaining four Analogue channels are switched to Digital in Whitehaven in Cumbria.
*25 December - BBC One gets its highest rated Christmas Day schedule in years, with Voyage of the Damned, the Christmas special of "Doctor Who" getting the shows' biggest audience since 1979 (13.31 million) and a special episode of "EastEnders" getting 14.38 million, that shows' biggest rating in three years and the highest rated show of 2007. Another success was a one-off special of "To the Manor Born", returning after 26 years, with an audience of 10.25 million.

Debuts (including scheduled)

BBC One

Channel 4

fnb|1 It later moved to Bravo in early 2008

Television shows

1950s

*"Panorama" (1953-present).
*"What the Papers Say" (1956-present).
*"The Sky at Night" (1957-present).
*"Blue Peter" (1958-present).

1960s

*"Coronation Street" (1960-present).
*"The Money Programme" (1966-present).

1970s

*"Emmerdale" (1972-present).
*"Newsround" (1972-present).
*"Last of the Summer Wine" (1973-present).
*"Wish You Were Here...?" (1974-present).
*"Arena" (1975-present).
*"Grange Hill" (1978-present).
*"Antiques Roadshow" (1979-present).

1980s

*"Timewatch" (1982-present).
*"The Bill" (1984-present).
*"EastEnders" (1985-present).
*"Comic Relief" (1986-present).
*"Casualty" (1986-present).
*"ChuckleVision" (1987-present).
*"This Morning" (1988-present).

1990s

*"Have I Got News For You" - (1990 - present)
*"Silent Witness" (1996-present).
*"Jonathan Creek" (1997-2004, "Present")
*"Midsomer Murders" (1997-present).
*"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" (1998-present).
*"Bremner, Bird and Fortune" (1999-present).

2000s

*"The Weakest Link" (2000-present).
*"I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" (2002-present).
*"Harry Hill's TV Burp" (2002-present).
*"Spooks" (2002-present).
*"Peep Show" (2003-present).
*"Postman Pat" (1981, 1996, 2004-present).
*"Sea of Souls" (2004-present}.
*"Shameless" (2004-present).
*"The X Factor" (2004-present).
*"Afterlife" (2005-present).
*"Doctor Who" (1963-1989, 1996, 2005-present)
*"Love Soup" (2005-present)
*"Hotel Babylon" (2006-present)
*"Jackanory" (1965-1996, 2006-present).
*"Robin Hood" (2006-present).
*"That Mitchell and Webb Look" (2006-present).
*"Torchwood" (2006-present).
*"Waterloo Road" (2006-present).
*"Star Stories" (2006-present).

Ending this year