October 1976 highlights  Before October 1976 Saturday mornings on BBC1 had been little more than a jumble of cartoons, language learning programmes and black-and-white films. Now in its fourth week, Noel Edmonds had revolutionised the BBC1 Saturday schedule with three hours of fun, swaps, phone-ins and music which (apart from the swaps) would set the tone for Saturday mornings for the next 24 years.
The textbook 1970s Saturday line-up continued right through the day, with highlights including Basil Brush, the 100th edition of the Generation Game, Messrs Corbett and Barker, and Parky rounding off the day. And this week's Doctor Who was the final episode of The Hand of Fear (right) which marked Elisabeth Sladen's departure from the series after three years in the role of Sarah Jane Smith. Another long runner experiencing a change of personnel this week was Last of the Summer Wine, which saw Brian Wilde making his debut as Foggy (below) in the first in a new series on Wednesday at 9.25pm. In fact, there was a whole new season of programmes this week, including the  return of The Record Breakers, The Liver Birds and Ken Dodd's World of Laughter. Doddy (now minus the Diddymen) was followed on Friday evening by series two of When the Boat Comes In, starring James Bolam and Susan Jameson, which chronicled the hardships of life on Tyneside in the 1920s. The programme would continue for several more years; meanwhile another series which would survive into the 1980s, the hospital drama Angels, was airing on Mondays in a weekly 50 minute slot; it would later change to a soap-style twice-weekly format.  Although colour television had now existed for nine years, monochrome licences still exceeded colour, and so BBC1 had no qualms in giving over much of Wednesday evening to a black-and-white film, Carry On Constable. BBC2 were a little more highbrow, though, and were currently halfway through the classic drama series I Cladius.
Cost restraints at Radio 1 meant that it had to join forces with its sister station at times, so listeners were treated to the likes of Radio 2 Top Tunes with the BBC Midland Radio Orchestra playing the station's most popular tunes. How times have changed...
 And in Radio Times 23-29 October 1976 Price 11p
Radio Times revived a 1930s tradition this week, with a Fireside Issue' with a specially illustrated cover by Peter Brookes, marking the week that the clocks
went back, "giving an extra hour's darkness for viewing and listening every night". This week's issue previewed the many new series this week, including a very long feature on the popular drama When the Boat Comes In (left), the Irish-themed
Play for Today - Your Man from Six Counties, and Horizon which focused on
guided missiles. Meanwhile three-quarters of a page was given over to Melvyn
Bragg to consider the role of television in party politics.
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