This is a list of British television related events from 1966.
Events
January
1 January – The first edition of Rugby Special is broadcast on BBC2, showing weekly highlights of rugby union matches. 3 January – Stop-motion children's television series Camberwick Green, first of the 'Trumptonshire' trilogy, is first shown on BBC1 as part of Watch with Mother; it is the channel's first programme to be filmed in colour, although transmitted in black and white at this time. 4 January – More than 4,000 people attend a memorial service at Westminster Abbey for the broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, who died last month aged 52. 15 January – BBC2 goes on air in the South and West of England. 29 January – ITV begins showing the anthology horror series Mystery and Imagination, which features numerous adaptations of classic horror stories.
February
No events.
March
3 March – The BBC announces plans to begin broadcasting television programmes in colour from next year. 10 March – The Frost Report, which launches the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett and other writers and performers, is first broadcast on BBC1 22 March – ITV launch How, the educational children's programme hosted by Jack Hargreaves and Fred Dinenage.
April
5 April – The Money Programme debuts on BBC2. It continues to air until 2010. 7 April–24 September – Weavers Green, made by Anglia Television, airs on ITV in 49 half-hour episodes twice-weekly, it is the first rural soap opera on British television and one of the first television programmes to be shot on location using videotape and outside broadcast equipment, rather than film, as has usually been the case for non-studio shooting until this point. 21 April – The opening of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is televised for the first time.
May
21 May – ITV Midlands (ABC) and ITV London and Southern begin broadcasting Batman, the American live-action series, starring Adam West and Burt Ward. Other ITV regions broadcast it soon afterwards, with STV first showing it on 2nd July, and Border on 13th August. Episodes are shown in two parts over Saturday and Sunday evenings. 23 May – Julie Goodyear makes her Coronation Street debut as Bet Lynch. She will become a regular character between 1970 and 1995.
June
6 June – BBC1 sitcom Till Death Us Do Part begins its first series run. 11 June – BBC2 Northern Ireland goes on the air. 16 June – The Beatles perform live on BBC television's Top of the Pops, the UK's major television pop music show, for the first and only time, miming to both "Paperback Writer" and its b-side, "Rain". The appearance is subsequently lost due to the BBC's habit of wiping expensive video tape for reuse, but in 2019 a collector unearths 11 seconds of the performance and a longer 92 seconds is found later in the year.
July
9 July – BBC2 Scotland goes on the air, the last regional area to receive BBC2 (including the Gaelic language strand BBC Dhà Alba). It ceases broadcasting on 17 February 2019 to make way for the new BBC Scotland channel launching on 24 February 2019. 30 July – England beat West Germany 4-2 to win the 1966 World Cup at Wembley, attracting an all-time record UK television audience of more than 32,000,000.
Summer
Summer – Patrick McGoohan quits the popular spy series Danger Man after filming only two episodes of the fourth season, in order to produce and star in The Prisoner which begins filming in September.
August
No events.
September
No events.
October
1 October – A Carry On comedy film is shown on UK television for the first time, with ITV Midlands broadcasting the 1958 first in series, Carry On Sergeant, starring William Hartnell, Bob Monkhouse, Shirley Eaton, Kenneth Connor, Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams. 2 October The four-part serial Talking to a Stranger, acclaimed as one of the finest British television dramas of the 1960s, begins transmission in the Theatre 625 strand on BBC2. Thunderbirds is back with a second season on ITV but without David Holliday (the original voice of Virgil Tracy) as he is now replaced by Jeremy Wilkin and running only for six episodes. 8 October – First episode of the Doctor Who serial The Tenth Planet aired, introducing the Cybermen. 29 October – Actor William Hartnell makes his last regular appearance as the First Doctor in the concluding moments of Episode 4 of the Doctor Who serial The Tenth Planet. Patrick Troughton briefly appears as the Second Doctor at the conclusion of the serial.