Time to look at some contemporary TV from late 1978.

One of the biggest shows on BBC1 throughout the 1970s was undoubtedly Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game, for me and many others it formed part of a "Golden era" of Saturday night TV. The gameshow, in which four teams of two (from the same family but different generations, eg. mother/son auntie/nephew) compete for prizes.
Bill Cotton of the BBC saw a Dutch version of the show and thought it could be adapted for a British audience. How right he was, host Forsyth took it to dizzying heights and massive ratings.
Forsyth hosted the show between 1971 and 1977 before defecting to ITV. In 1978 camp comedian Larry Grayson took over hosting duties with female assistant Isla St.Clair taking the show to ever greater heights, a peak of 25 million in 1979. Grayson was loved for his apparent incompetence and inability to remember what was going on — all of which was carefully contrived. The BBC dropped the show in 1982, but brought it back for more success with Forsyth in the early nineties, and later Jim Davidson.
Over on ITV from October '78, Forsyth hosted a three hour variety show, Bruce's Big Night, which fared badly in the ratings, and after three months was dropped.

A big budget drama/adventure series on ITV at this time was Return of The Saint starring Ian Ogilvie as Simon Templar. The series, running for 24 episodes, was a revival/update of the sixties adventure series which starred Roger Moore. The new series borrowed a few storytelling elements from its predecessor. Once again, each episode began with Simon narrating an introduction to set the scene for viewers, and each pre-credit sequence ended with an animated halo appearing above Templar's head as he was identified.
Based on a character created by author Leslie Charteris, The Saint had been a long running series, films made in the 1940s starred Louis Hayward, George Sanders and Hugh Sinclair in the title role. A radio series also appeared which starred Vincent Price. There was also a long running comic series before the iconic sixties series with Roger Moore.
Unlike the earlier series, Return of the Saint did not adapt any Leslie Charteris stories, however several teleplays (such as "The Imprudent Professor" and "Collision Course") were adapted as novels that were credited to Charteris but written by others. A number of Saint books were reprinted with covers depicting Ogilvy as Templar as a tie-in with the series; these collectable volumes carried the Return of the Saint title. The adaptation of "Collision Course", retitled Salvage for the Saint was published in 1983 (several years after the series ended) and was the 50th and final Saint book to be published in a series of publications dating back to the 1920s. The two episodes of "Collision Course" were also edited together to form the syndicated TV-movie, The Saint and the Brave Goose.