December 1987 highlights  Most of the usual programmes you expect to see on a late 1980s Saturday line-up - even Noel Edmonds was making an appearance during the hiatus between his Late Late Breakfast Show and his Saturday Roadshow, since Telly Addicts was shifted from its usual Tuesday slot for one year only. And to fill the midweek gap, Noel had another game show running at this time, the little-remembered Whatever Next?
BBC2 broadcast music from Ibiza 92 - but this was not the kind of music that has connoctations with Ibiza nowadays. No, in 1987 it mean the likes of Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Marillion and Chris Rea. Back on 1, and although Going Live! (right) was barely two months old, it was already proving a hit, particularly the comedy segments from Trevor and Simon, and Peter Simon's weekly falling over session in Double Dare. Earlier on, the astonishingly long-running Chucklevision (below) was in its first series, though following a different format from today -
this series included magic from Simon Lovell and stories read by Billy Butler.  There were more children's programmes on Sunday mornings - from 9.15am-2.00pm Simon Potter presented Now on Two; however this was not a year-round affair, being forced to give way to the Open University the rest of the year. Programmes this weekend included Whirlybirds in black-and-white, the Blue Peter Omnibus, Chris Serle's archive series Windmill and a repeat of Tuesday pop show No Limits, which has the dubious honour of launching the career of Jenny Powell.
Back to Saturday, and on Radio 2 the great man Martin Kelner was presenting the late night show from Manchester, produced by the also great Mark Radcliffe. On Radio 1 Johnnie Walker was presenting The Stereo Sequence, broadcast during the five-and-a-half period that the network was allowed to borrow Radio 2's FM frequencies. Since the end of October, however, listeners in the London area could hear Radio 1 in FM stereo all day long, on 104.8 FM. The expansion of the network's FM network would continue through the next few years. Radio 1's weekend schedule had seen a few changes recently, and it was a case of out with the old, in with the new. Jimmy Savile departed after twenty years, and Jeff Young was signed to present the station's first and (at that time) only dance music show, imaginatively titled the Dance Music Show, on Friday nights. If only it was still the only one...
And in Radio Times 5-11 December 1987 Price 37p A vaguely festive cover for this week's Radio Times, two weeks before the Christmas issue. The cover marked the 40 Minutes Special which celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of Sherlock Holmes. I didn't know the Radio Times had been around in the 1880s... The coming year would, in many ways, mark the end of the 'old style' Radio Times. A series of changes would see radio details separated from television in 1989, full colour introduced in 1990 and the introduction of ITV/C4/satellite in 1991. The RT of the early 90s, therefore, was far removed from the RT of just a few years earlier. And by no means was it any better... 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 Radio Times Covers | 
