| 1981 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
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| January 12 |
First episode of Dynasty, a 60-minute prime-time series, is broadcast in US
on the ABC network. |
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| January 20 |
Inauguration speech of President Ronald Reagan is
televised with the world’s first live teletext subtitles for the hard-of-hearing. |
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| February |
Sony starts marketing a complete digital audio studio
system including mastering equipment, audio processor, editor and reverberator. |
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| April 8 |
Disc-jockey Larry Norton ends a record-breaking
continuous broadcast of 484 hours on radio station WGRQ FM at Buffalo, NY, having started on March 19. |
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| April |
Japanese evaluation of digital audio disc technologies is
completed in favour of an optical compact disc (CD) approach. |
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| May |
Report on Direct
Broadcasting by Satellite (DBS) is published by UK's Home Office. |
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| |
Norway’s entry in the
Eurovision Song Contest, 'Aldri i livet' sung by Finn
Kalviks, scores no points in the Eurovision Song Contest—the second time this has happened. |
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| June 12 |
Twentieth Century-Fox is acquired by Marvin Davis and family. |
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| June |
Australian government introduces the
so-called 10BA tax concession giving backers of Australian
film production a 150 per cent tax allowance on their investment. The number of Australian films
produced this year: 15. By the end of the decade, 227 feature films, 78
made-for-TV movies, 70 television mini-series and 521 documentaries are
produced using the 10BA write-off. |
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| July |
Italian government bans national terrestrial broadcasting
as the number of private television stations burgeons. |
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| July |
Lonhro, a trading company headed by Roland 'Tiny' Rowland,
acquires UK's oldest surviving Sunday newspaper, The Observer. |
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| l |
Rupert Murdoch acquires UK 'quality' newspapers The Times and The Sunday Times. |
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| July 27 |
British Telecommunications Act receives Royal Assent,
establishing British Telecommunications as a public
corporation to take over the telecommunications assets of the Post Office. |
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| August 1 00:01 |
MTV (Music Television) is launched as a
24-hour pop music channel on US cable networks. The first music video
to be shown is, appropriately enough, Buggles' Video Killed the Radio Star. |
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| August 7 |
First Bulgarian satellite, Intercosmos Bulgaria 1300, is launched. |
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| August 12 |
 IBM launches a 'personal computer' (PC),
Model 5150 [right], incorporating an Intel 8088 microprocessor and using the MS-DOS operating
system developed by Microsoft. It has 64k RAM and uses 5¼-inch floppy
discs that store 160k of data. It costs $2,880. |
à 1975 |
| August 15 |
BBC Overseas Service begins radio transmissions in the Pashto language. |
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| August 27 |
UK’s last remaining 'cartoon cinema', at Victoria Station, closes after the 19:45 show of
The Hound that Thought He was a Raccoon. It was opened in 1935 by
Capitol and Provincial News Theatres—as was one at Waterloo Station—designed by
Alistair McDonald of the modern movement in architecture. |
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| September 9 |
Rediffusion Starview pay TV experiment begins in
UK towns Reading, Burnley, Hull, Pontypridd and Tunbridge Wells. The subscription rate
varies between £7.95 and £11.95 in different towns. |
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| October 15 |
Visionhire Cable begins its Showcable pay TV
experiment on twisted-pair cable networks in some inner London boroughs, with programming
by BBC Enterprises. The connection charge is £25 and the monthly subscription fee £7.75. |
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| October 29 |
SelecTV experimental pay TV
service begins on coaxial cable networks of British Telecom in Milton Keynes, and Philips
Cablevision in Northampton and Tredegar. The connection charge is £28.75 and the monthly
subscription rate £9.95. |
à 1982 |
| October |
UK company Satellite Television begins test transmissions of a direct-to-home satellite
service from the UK to Europe. |
à 1982 |
| October |
Telecommunications Act
becomes UK law. It creates British Telecommunications as a separate entity, and establishes the British
Approvals Board for Telecommunications (BABT) as a subsidiary of the British Electrotechnical Approvals. |
ß 1980 |
| |
Board to oversee introduction of equipment from a variety
of suppliers as permitted under the Act. |
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| November 6 |
Thorn EMI’s Cinematel pay TV experiment begins on the eight-channel Radio Rentals coaxial
cable network in Swindon. The monthly subscription is £7.75, plus a £10.00 connection fee. |
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| November 19 |
Launch of RCA’s Satcom IIIR satellite (replacement for Satcom
III), the first satellite dedicated entirely to relaying cable television programming. |
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| December 1 |
UK television licence fee increases by the largest
amounts ever: from £12 to £15 for monochrome, £34 to £46 for colour. |
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| December 16 |
In the Irish Repubic the Cinematograph Act 1909, a legacy from British rule, is repealed by
the Fire Service Act. |
|
| l |
Pioneer forms separate Laser Disc production company in Japan, Pioneer LDC. |
|
| l |
For John Waters' film Polyester the audience receives scratch'n'sniff cards with
numbered patches, for which numbers appear in the corner of the screen. The film is billed as 'Filmed in
Odorama'. |
ß 1960 |
| l |
Radio Monte Carlo launches to new FM channels,
RMC Classique and RMC Rock to serve Monaco and the south-east of France. |
|
| l |
UK government appoints a Minister for Information Technology and sets up the
Information Technology Advisory Panel (ITAP) to advise, among other things, on prospects for cable television. |
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| l |
Cable & Wireless is one of the first state-owned
companies to be privatised by the UK Conservative government. |
|
| l |
Toni Basil's album Word of Mouth, including the future hit Mickey, may be
the first released simultaneously in video and audio-only versions. |
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