1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common yearstarting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1981st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 981st year of the 2nd millennium, the 81st year of the 20th century, and the 2nd year of the 1980s decade.
Music in Focus-
9 February - Phil Collins releases his first solo album (although he will not leave the band Genesis until 1995)
14 February - Billy Idol leaves Generation X to begin a solo career
4 April - Bucks Fizz win the Eurovision Song Contest with "Making Your Mind Up"
7 April - Former Who manager Kit Lambert dies after falling down a flight of stairs in his mother's home in London.
17 April - Eric Clapton is released from St. Paul's Hospital in Minnesota following a month-long treatment for bleeding ulcers.
18 April - Yes announce that they are breaking up. (They would however reunite frequently in years to come).
25 April - Paul McCartney's band, Wings, breaks up
2 May - Working as a local wedding singer 12 months previously, Scottish vocalist Sheena Easton hits No.1 in the US with "Morning Train (9 to 5)"
11 May - The musical Cats begins its 8,949 performance run on London's West End.
August - the success of Stars On 45 leads to a short-lived medley craze. The most successful imitator of the Stars On 45 format is, rather unexpectedly, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra whose "Hooked On Classics (Parts 1&2)" reaches number two in the charts.
14 September - Emma Kirkby and Gothic Voices record the album A Feather on the Breath of God in St Jude-on-the-Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London.
17 October - Performance artist Laurie Anderson achieves a surprise #2 hit when her eight-minute experimental song O Superman is championed by Radio 1 DJ John Peel.
Number 1 singles in 1981
| Position | Artist/s | Title | Highest Position | Weeks At #1 |
| 1 | Soft Cell | Tainted Love | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | Adam And The Ants | Stand And Deliver | 1 | 5 |
| 3 | Adam And The Ants | Prince Charming | 1 | 4 |
| 4 | Shakin’ Stevens | This Ole Huse | 1 | 3 |
| 5 | Ultravox | Vienna | 2 | n/a |
| 6 | Bucks Fizz | Making Your Mind Up | 1 | 3 |
| 7 | Michael Jackson | One Day In Your Life | 1 | 2 |
| 8 | Joe Dolce | Shaddup You Face | 1 | 3 |
| 9 | The Tweets | The Birdie Song | 2 | n/a |
| 10 | Shakin’ Stevens | Green Door | 1 | 4 |
Best selling singles of 1981
| Position | Artist/s | Title | Highest Position | Weeks At #1 |
| 1 | Soft Cell | Tainted Love | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | Adam And The Ants | Stand And Deliver | 1 | 5 |
| 3 | Adam And The Ants | Prince Charming | 1 | 4 |
| 4 | Shakin’ Stevens | This Ole Huse | 1 | 3 |
| 5 | Ultravox | Vienna | 2 | n/a |
| 6 | Bucks Fizz | Making Your Mind Up | 1 | 3 |
| 7 | Michael Jackson | One Day In Your Life | 1 | 2 |
| 8 | Joe Dolce | Shaddup You Face | 1 | 3 |
| 9 | The Tweets | The Birdie Song | 2 | n/a |
| 10 | Shakin’ Stevens | Green Door | 1 | 4 |
Movies of 1981
- An American Werewolf in London (1981)
- Any Which Way You Can (1981)
- Arthur (1981)
- Blow Out (1981)
- For Your Eyes Only (1981)
- Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
- Halloween II(1981)
- Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
- On Golden Pond (1981)
- Superman 2 (1981)
- The Cannonball Run (1981)
Television in 1981
January
- 5 January – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the television version of Douglas Adams‘ radio comedy of the same name debuts on BBC2.
- 20 January – BBC2 airs live coverage of the inauguration of Ronald Reagan as the 40th President of the United States.
February
- 10 February – Alan Rogers animation Pigeon Street begins on BBC1. The series ran until December before repeats on BBC1 and BBC2 throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
March
- 21 March – After an unprecedented seven years starring in Doctor Who, Tom Baker makes his final appearance as the Fourth Doctor in Part 4 of Logopolis. Peter Davison makes his first appearance as the Fifth Doctor at the conclusion of that story.
April
- 4 April – The UK wins the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Making Your Mind Up“, sung by Bucks Fizz.
May
- 17 May – Sunday Grandstand launches. It broadcasts during the summer months on BBC Two.
June
- 2 June – Razzamatazz debuts on ITV. The British music based series for children ran for 6 years.
July
- 27 July – In a specially timed event by the show’s writers, Ken Barlow marries Deirdre Langton on Coronation Street, just two days before the real-life wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer. The wedding of Ken and Deirdre is watched by over 24 million viewers in Britain.
- 29 July – The marriage of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer takes place at St Paul’s Cathedral. More than 30,000,000 viewers watch the wedding on television – the second highest television audience of all time in Britain.
August
- 11 August – TSW takes over Westward Television but continues to use the Westward name until 1 January 1982.
- 27 August – Moira Stuart, 29, is appointed the BBC‘s first black newsreader.
September
- 5 September – The BBC1 Mirror globe changes colour from yellow on blue to green on blue.
- 7 September – News After Noon is launched as a 30-minute lunchtime news programme, replacing the much shorter Midday News.
- 8 September – BBC One airs the first episode of the popular comedy series Only Fools and Horses starring David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst.
- 16 September – Debut of a children’s television series about a rural postman with a black and white cat written and created by John Cunliffe and voiced and narrated by Ken Barrie, Postman Pat on BBC One. Episode 8 introduced a more authentic look to the Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd logos and more storybooks produced after 13 episodes being broadcast repeating on BBC1 and BBC2 made the programme (Postman Pat) more popular than usually expected to be (starting from Christmas 1981 along with Pigeon Street).
- 28 September – Thames Television broadcasts the first episode of Cosgrove Hall Films‘ children’s animated series, Danger Mouse, with the lead character voiced by David Jason.
October
- 12 October – Brideshead Revisited, a television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh‘s novel of the same name, begins on ITV.
- 19 October – British Telecom announces that the telegram will be discontinued next year after 139 years in use.[
- 23 October – The last ever teatime block of Open University programmes are transmitted today. From the 1982 season, only a single Open University programme is aired, at 5.10pm ahead of the start of the channel’s evening programmes.
November
- 2 November – The TV licence increases in price from £34 to £46 for a colour TV, and £12 to £15 for black and white.
- 12 November – Noele Gordon, eight times winner of the TV Times award for best actress, leaves Crossroads after playing Meg Richardson since the series began in 1964. She had been sacked from the programme.
December
- December – BBC1 and the BBC’s Open University broadcasts begin using computer generated clocks.
- 31 December – The final day on air for the ITV regional stations ATV, Southern and Westward.
