- 1881
| Sep 18 | Chicago Tribune reports on a televideo experiment. | Ref: 5 |
- 1888
| Aug 13 | John Logie Baird Scotland, inventor (father of TV), is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1889
| Jul 30 | Vladimir Zworykin, called the "Father of Television" for inventing the iconoscope, was born in Russia. | Ref: 70 |
- 1925
| Oct 02 | John Logie Baird makes first television transmission in history in attic of home in London. | Ref: 10 |
| Oct 30 | Scotsman John L. Baird performs first TV broadcast of moving objects. | Ref: 2 |
- 1926
| Jan 26 | John Logie Baird gives earliest demonstration of television in Soho, London for 50 scientists. | Ref: 5 |
- 1927
| Apr 07 | An audience in New York saw an image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television. | Ref: 70 |
| Sep 07 | Philo T. Farnsworth demonstrates the first television transmission when the simple image of a straight line was placed between the image dissector and a carbon arc lamp, it showed up clearly on the receiver in another room. (XDG, p 4A, 9/07/2002) | Ref: 83 |
- 1928
| Feb 05 | Singer Jessica Dragonette was seen on one of the first television shows. She was used only to test the new medium. She didn’t even get to sing. Now, before you start feeling too badly for Jessica, it must be noted that she enjoyed an illustrious radio career. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 08 | First transatlantic TV image received, Hartsdale NY. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 08 | Scottish inventor J Blaird demonstrates color-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 09 | First transatlantic TV transmission by John Logie Baird from Britain to New York. | Ref: 10 |
| Feb 25 | Bell Labs introduces a new device to end the fluttering of the television image. | Ref: 2 |
| Feb 25 | The Federal Radio Commission issued the first U.S. television license to Charles Jenkins Laboratories in Washington, DC. The first commercial TV license was issued in 1941. | Ref: 4 |
| May 11 | WGY-TV in Schenectady, NY began the first schedule of regular TV programs. WGY offered programming to the upstate NY audience three times a week using the electronic scanning method. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 08 | WGY-TV in Schenectady, NY revamped its regular program schedule. While continuing to broadcast three days a week, there were two times each day that viewers could watch TV: 1:30 to 2:00 p.m. and 11:30 to Midnight. In between those hours we used to sit around and stare at the snow on the screen -- hoping against hope that something would come on. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 03 | John Logie Baird demonstrates first colour television transmission in London. | Ref: 10 |
| Sep 11 | World's first television play "The Queen's Messenger" is broadcast by WGY TV, Schnectady N.Y. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 14 | James Fowlkes and Cora Dennison tied the knot as the first (experimental) televised wedding took place in Des Plains, IL -- in a radio studio. | Ref: 4 |
- 1929
| May 11 | First regularly scheduled TV broadcasts (3 nights per week). | Ref: 5 |
- 1930
| Jul 13 | Sarnoff reports in NY Times "TV would be a theater in every home". | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 30 | America's first experimental television station W2RBX begins broadcasts in New York. | Ref: 10 |
| Aug 20 | Dumont's first TV broadcast for home reception (NYC). | Ref: 5 |
- 1931
| Jan 22 | VARA begins experimental TV broadcast in Diamantbeurs Amsterdam. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 12 | Japan makes its first television broadcast--a baseball game. | Ref: 2 |
| Feb 17 | First telecast of a sporting event in Japan (baseball). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 21 | Ted Husing was master of ceremonies for the very first CBS-TV program. The gala show featured singer Kate Smith, composer George Gershwin and NY City Mayor Jimmy Walker. | Ref: 4 |
- 1932
| Aug 22 | The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began its first experimental TV broadcast in England. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 11 | The first telecast of a political campaign was seen -- on about 5 TV sets -- live from NY! The CBS show was sponsored by the Democratic Committee. | Ref: 4 |
- 1933
| Apr 21 | World's First Television Revue "Looking In" starring the Paramount Astoria Girls broadcast on the BBC. | Ref: 10 |
- 1935
| Oct 08 | Wedding bells pealed for a singer and a bandleader who tied the knot, making radio history together. The bandleader was Ozzie Nelson and the singer was Harriet Hilliard. | Ref: 4 |
- 1936
| Apr 29 | Worlds first television interview-with actress Peggy O'Neal. | Ref: 10 |
| Jun 29 | Empire State Building emanates high definition TV-343 lines. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 29 | RCA shows the first real TV program (dancing, film on locomotives, Bonwit Teller fashion show & monologue from Tobacco Road & comedy) | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 22 | BBC Television begins first regular transmissions in England. | Ref: 10 |
| Oct 05 | Coaxial cable strung between NY City and Philadelphia made it possible for the first intercity telecast. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 02 | The first high-definition public television transmissions begin from Alexandra Palace in north London by the BBC. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 06 | RCA displays TV for the press. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 12 | First TV Gardening show. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 01 | Bell Labs tests coaxial cable for TV use. | Ref: 5 |
- 1937
| Jun 20 | W2XBS (later WCBS-TV) in NY City televised the first TV operetta. Pirates of Penzance, composed by Gilbert and Sullivan, was presented to a very small viewing audience. Television was a new, experimental medium at the time. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 12 | NBC & RCA sends first mobile-TV vans onto the streets of NY. | Ref: 5 |
- 1938
| Jan 04 | First television transmission of an event in which there were paying customers- a circus in London. | Ref: 10 |
| Feb 17 | First public experimental demonstration of Baird color TV from the Crystal Palace to the Dominion Theatre in London. | Ref: 5 |
| May 03 | Viewers of W2XBS-TV (now WCBS-TV) watched the first book review show. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 13 | Spectators paid 25 cents to witness the first television theatre that opened in Boston, MA. The variety show with dancing and song lasted 45 minutes and was attended by 200 people. The acts were performed on a floor above the theatre and transmitted downstairs by TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 15 | The first live on-the-scene television news broadcast was transmitted when a fire on Ward's Island broke out near NBC station W2XBT, and the station was able to
film and broadcast the fire live. | Ref: 3 |
- 1939
| May 17 | WNBT-TV in NY broadcast the first fashion show to be seen on TV. The show was broadcast from the Ritz-Carleton Hotel in Manhattan. | Ref: 4 |
| May 20 | The first telecast over telephone wires was sent from Madison Square Garden to the NBC-TV studios at 30 Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan. A bicycle race was the event broadcast to a breathless audience. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 01 | First televised heavyweight boxing match-Max Baer vs Lou Nova. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 06 | WGY-TV (Schenectady, NY), first commercial TV station, begins service. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 19 | A movie premiere audience premiered on TV. Station W2XBS in NY City presented the festivities being held in front of the Capitol Theatre. Bean Grauer was Master of Ceremonies for the event which marked the NY debut of Gone With The Wind. W2XBS, an experimental station, became WCBS-TV. Gone With The Wind became even more famous. | Ref: 4 |
- 1940
| Jan 09 | For the first time, television was used to present a sales meeting to convention delegates in New York City. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 02 | The first televised intercollegiate track meet was seen by TV viewers in New York City as W2XBS presented the action live from Madison Square Garden. New York University won the meet. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 10 | First US opera telecast, W2XBS, New York NY, I Pagliacci. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 03 | High resolution color television first demonstrated over station W2XAB, CBS, New York. | Ref: 5 |
- 1941
| May 02 | The Federal Communications Commission agreed to let regular scheduling of TV broadcasts by commercial TV stations begin on July 1, 1941. It was the start of what would become network television. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 01 | Bulova Watch company sponsored the first TV commercial. Remember “It’s Bulova Watch Time?” It was broadcast over WNBT-TV in New York City, and was a familiar advertising message on TV, radio and in print for many years. That first TV ad, incidentally, cost the watchmaker $9. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 01 | First coml TV licenses granted-W2XBS-WNBT (NBC) & WCBW (CBS), NYC. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 07 | Television station WNBT, Channel 4 in NY City, broadcast the first audience-participation show. Studio guests played charades as part of the fun. | Ref: 4 |
- 1943
| Dec 23 | The first complete opera to be televised was aired on WRBG in Schenectady, NY. (WRGB was named after GE engineer Dr. W.R.G. Baker. It was not named, as many have thought over the years, for red, blue and green, the three primary colors of a TV picture tube.) Humperdinck’s "Hansel and Gretel" was the opera presented. (And that’s not Engelbert, the singer. Hansel and Gretel’s creator was the original Engelbert Humperdinck.) | Ref: 4 |
- 1944
| Apr 10 | "Patrolling the Ether" is shown on 3 TV stations simultaneously. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 28 | WABD in NY City telecast the first full-length comedy written for TV. Ray Nelson was in the director’s chair for The Boys from Boise. | Ref: 4 |
- 1946
| May 09 | First hour long entertainment TV show, "NBC's Hour Glass" premieres. | Ref: 5 |
| May 11 | Jack Barry, a familiar face on TV game shows, hosted Juvenile Jury on WOR radio in NY City. The show was such a hit after five weeks on the air that it debuted on the Mutual Broadcasting System coast to coast. Maybe Barry became a bit too familiar in 1959. It was Twenty One, the enormously popular show that Barry hosted, that led to the Quiz Show Scandal that rocked television and the US Congress. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 06 | Henry Morgan is first to take off shirt on TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 20 | WNBT-TV, NY became the first station to promote a motion picture. It showed scenes from Columbia Pictures' The Jolson Story. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 02 | First television soap opera, "Faraway Hill"broadcast live from Wanamakers Store in NY for WNEW. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 07 | A coin-operated television receiver was displayed in NY City. To sneak a peak at various test patterns and a model of Felix the Cat, folks dropped in a quarter. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 18 | TV's first network dramatic serial "Faraway Hill" ends 2 month run. | Ref: 5 |
- 1947
| Feb 21 | First broadcast of 1st US TV soap opera "A Woman to Remember". | Ref: 5 |
| May 07 | "Kraft Television Theater" premieres on NBC. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 13 | "Kukla, Fran & Ollie" premieres. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 27 | “The one, the only Groucho” Marx appeared as quizmaster on You Bet Your Life for the first time -- on ABC radio. George Fenneman was Groucho’s eternal straight man. Fenneman stayed with Marx during the program’s run on radio (1948 - 1959) and TV (1950 - 1961). | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 06 | "Meet The Press" makes its NBC-TV debut. | Ref: 4 |
-
| Nov 20 | The first network presentation of Meet the Press airs on NBC-TV (consisting of two stations). The panel interview program became the longest-running series on network television. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 20 | First permanent TV installed on seagoing vessel (The New Jersey). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 27 | “Hey kids... What time is it? It’s Howdy Doody time!” Buffalo Bob (Smith), Clarabelle the Clown (Bob Keeshan), Judy Canova and a host of others joined Howdy Doody on NBC-TV. The show stayed on the air for 13 years. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 28 | First "Howdy Doody Show" (Puppet Playhouse), telecast on NBC. | Ref: 5 |
- 1948
| Jan 13 | First country music TV show, Midwestern Hayride, premieres on WLW Cincinnati OH. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 18 | Ted Mack comes to television as The Original Amateur Hour debuts on the DuMont network (later NBC/ABC/CBS). | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 05 | "The Nature of Things" science show premieres on NBC prime time. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 16 | NBC-TV aired its first nightly newscast, "The Camel Newsreel Theatre," which consisted of Fox Movietone newsreels. | Ref: 70 |
| Mar 18 | Philips begin experimental TV broadcasting. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 20 | Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra were featured in the first televised symphonic concert. CBS-TV, with help from its then Philadelphia television station, WCAU-TV 10, carried the program from the Philadelphia Academy of Music, the home of the world-famous orchestra. The concert was televised live, at 5 p.m. Ninety minutes later, NBC-TV carried TV?s second symphonic concert. This one was from Carnegie Hall in New York City. Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra was featured in a presentation of Wagner compositions. | Ref: 4 |
-
| May 25 | San Fransisco receives its first telecast. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 08 | The "Texaco Star Theater" made its debut on NBC-TV with Milton Berle as guest host. | Ref: 70 |
| Jun 10 | The "Texaco Star Theater" made its debut on NBC-TV with Milton Berle as guest host. | Ref: 70 |
| Jun 20 | Toast of the Town premiered on CBS-TV. NY entertainment columnist and critic Ed Sullivan was the host. It started his TV career that would span 23 years on a weekly basis. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis made their television debut on the show. Also on the guest list: Rodgers & Hammerstein and pianist Eugene List. The first show of Toast of the Town cost $1375 to produce, including just $375 for the talent. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 10 | Allen Funt's "Candid Camera" TV debut on ABC. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 10 | ABC enters network TV at 7 PM (WJZ, NY). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 15 | CBS-TV inaugurated the first nightly news broadcast, with anchorman Douglas Edwards reporting the day’s events | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 14 | Milton Berle starts his TV career on Texaco Star Theater. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 21 | Milton Berle made his debut as permanent host of "The Texaco Star Theater" on NBC. | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 07 | An adaptation of the mystery play, The Storm, became the first production of Studio One on CBS-TV. Margaret Sullivan starred -- for $500. Studio One continued until 1958. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 21 | The Sunday morning religious program "Lamp Unto My Feet" first aired over CBS television. It became one of TV's longest-running network shows, and aired through January 1979. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 29 | The popular children's television show, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, premieres. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 06 | Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts debuted on CBS-TV. The show ran for almost 10 years and the redhead introduced such talent as Pat Boone, The Chordettes, Carmel Quinn, The McGuire Sisters, Rosemary Clooney, Tony Bennett, Connie Francis, Steve Lawrence and Al Martino. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 06 | NBC presented the Horace Heidt Youth Opportunity Program for the first time. The talent show earned Dick Contino, an accordionist, the $5,000 prize as the program’s first national winner. Over the years Heidt gave some big stars their big starts: Art Carney, Frankie Carle, Gordon MacRae, the King Sisters, Alvino Rey, Ken Berry, Frank DeVol, Dick Contino, Al Hirt, Fred Lowrey, Ronnie Kemper, Larry Cotton, Donna and her Don Juans, Ollie O'Toole and many others. | Ref: 4 |
- 1949
| Jan 03 | "Colgate Theatre" dramatic anthology series premieres on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 10 | First Jewish family show "The Goldbergs" premieres on CBS. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 12 | "Arthur Godfrey & His Friends" premieres on CBS TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 12 | The Chicago-based children’s show, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, made its national debut on NBC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 17 | The Goldbergs came to CBS-TV this night. The program had been a radio standard for years, dating back to 1931. The TV version lasted for four years. Molly: “Close the window, Jake. It’s cold outside.” Jake: “Okay. The window’s closed. Now it’s warm outside?” Molly Goldberg was played by Gertrude Berg, who won an Emmy for her performance in 1950. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 18 | "They Stand Accused" courtroom drama premieres on CBS (later DuMont). | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 31 | The first TV daytime soap opera, "These Are My Children," was broadcast from the NBC station in Chicago. | Ref: 70 |
| May 29 | Candid Camera, TV comedy Variety, moves to NBC. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 24 | The movie features of Hopalong Cassidy premiered on TV. The films were edited to thirty and sixty-minute versions starring William Boyd as Hopalong and Edgar Buchanan as his sidekick, Red Connors. Eventually, all 66 original films were shown on TV, so Boyd produced more Hopalong Cassidy episodes just for TV. (Brooks, Tim & Earl Marsh, "The Complete Directory to Prime Time TV Shows, 1946 - Present", (c) 1949, ISBN 0-345-31864-1) | |
| Jun 27 | Captain Video and His Video Rangers premiered on the Dumont Television Network. Captain Video was initially played by Richard Coogan. The voice of radio’s Green Hornet, Al Hodge, replaced Coogan in 1951. Don Hastings played the roll of the ranger until the series ended in 1955. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 02 | "Red Barber's Clubhouse" sports show premiers on CBS (later NBC) TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 10 | The first practical rectangular television picture tube was presented. The tube measured 12 by 16 inches and sold for $12. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 01 | Martin Kane, Private Eye debuted on NBC-TV. William Gargan starred on the Thursday night program. Gargan’s Martin Kane was a smooth, wisecracking operator who worked closely with the cops. His headquarters were at Happy McMann’s tobacco shop. As time passed, the format changed and so did the lead. Kane no longer worked closely with the fuzz and three other actors played the famous detective, Lloyd Nolan (1951-52), Lee Tracy (1952-53) and Mark Stevens (1953-54). Martin Kane, Private Eye ended on June 17, 1954. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 04 | One Man’s Family debuted on NBC-TV. The show continued for three seasons. It also enjoyed one of the longest runs of any program on radio (1933-1959). | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 28 | 20th Century Fox announces it will produce TV programs. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 29 | KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut became the first ultrahigh frequency (UHF) television station to begin operating on a regular daily schedule. UHF stations broadcast from where the VHF (very high frequency) stations leave off -- channels 14 through 83. | Ref: 4 |
- 1950
| Jan 30 | "Robert Montgomery Presents" dramatic anthology premieres on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 02 | 1st broadcast of "What's My Line," on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 16 | Longest-running prime-time game show, "What's My Line" begins on CBS. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 25 | The comedy-variety program "Your Show of Shows," starring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and, later, Howard Morris, debuted on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 23 | Beat the Clock, starring radio’s original Superman, Bud Collyer, premiered on CBS-TV. A lady named Roxanne was Collyer’s assistant from 1950 to 1955. Beverly Bentley was the clock-beater’s assistant from 1955 through the last show on February 16, 1958. It was another one of those Mark Goodsen and Bill Todman productions. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 09 | Bob Hope hosted a Star-Spangled Review on NBC-TV. Hope became the highest-paid performer for a single show on TV. The Star-Spangled Review was a musical special and Bob Hope's first TV appearance. | Ref: 4 |
| May 27 | Frank Sinatra made his TV debut as he appeared on NBC’s Star-Spangled Review with show biz legend, Bob Hope. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 20 | "Arthur Murray Party" premiers on ABC TV (later DuMont, CBS, NBC). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 23 | The Gene Autry Show started out on CBS on Sunday nights from 7 p.m.-7:30 p.m. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 01 | Crusader Rabbit", the first limited animation television show, premiered. | Ref: 73 |
| Aug 19 | ABC begins Saturday morning kid shows (Animal Clinic & Acrobat Ranch). | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 09 | First use of TV laugh track-Hank McCune. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 10 | Eddie Cantor moved from radio to TV, as he hosted the Colgate Comedy Hour on NBC. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 11 | Dick Tracy TV show sparks uproar concerning violence. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 25 | NBC-TV introduced a new concept in daytime programming. Kate Smith debuted an hourlong show. Her theme song for the show was When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain. Kate’s daytime show ran for four years. God Bless America. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 07 | The Frank Sinatra Show debuted. It was the crooner’s first plunge into TV, the beginning of a $250,000 per year, five-year contract. Ben Blue, The Blue Family, the Whippoorwills and Axel Stordahl’s orchestra were regulars on the show. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 11 | The Federal Communications Commission authorizes the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) to begin commercial color TV broadcasts. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 12 | The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show made its debut on CBS-TV. Burns and Allen had been on the radio since 1935. The TV show ran through Sep 22, 1958, featuring the real-life married couple at home. George played on-screen host/narrator and straight man for Gracie’s scatterbrained (but hillarious) schemes. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 05 | “The greatest stars of our time on one big program” was the introduction by actress Tallulah Bankhead, who opened the 90-minute Big Show on NBC radio. It was a big show all right. The peacock saw red as losses exceeded a million dollars in the three years the program was on the air. | Ref: 4 |
- 1951
| Jan 18 | Joan Blondell made her debut on TV in the Pot of Gold episode of Airflyte Theatre on CBS-TV. Twenty-one-years earlier she had made her film debut in Sinner’s Holiday with James Cagney. They were both stage performers before Al Jolson discovered them for Warner Brothers. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 03 | "Victor Borge Show" debuts on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 05 | The religious program "Circuit Rider" debuted over ABC television. The broadcast featured music selections and biographies of evangelists, and was produced by Franklin W. Dyson. | Ref: 5 |
| May 07 | Religious program "The Circuit Rider" broadcast for the last time over ABC television. Featuring sacred music and biographies of great evangelists, the series had premiered only two months earlier, in March. | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | Ernie Kovacs Show, TV Variety debut on NBC. | Ref: 5 |
| May 28 | Goon Show (Crazy People Featuring the Goons) broadcast in UK with Sellers, Secombe & Milligan. | Ref: 10 |
| May 28 | Jerry Colonna Show, debuts on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 25 | The first commercial color TV program was seen. It was a four-hour-long Arthur Godfrey Show presented on CBS and carried in NY City, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C. Arthur Godfrey, Faye Emerson, Sam Levenson and Ed Sullivan starred in the TV milestone. An interesting side note to this event is that the public didn’t own any color TVs at the time and CBS, itself, owned only about three dozen sets. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 04 | Jack Webb did a summer switch -- from his Dragnet role of Sgt. Joe Friday to that of Pete Kelly. Pete Kelly’s Blues, a crime drama, was the summer replacement on NBC radio for Halls of Ivy (with Ronald Colman and Benita Hume). Webb also played Pete Kelly in the 1955 movie of the same name; then produced and directed a 1959 TV series, also titled Pete Kelly’s Blues, starring William Reynolds as Pete. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 14 | The first sports event to be shown in color was the Molly Pitcher Handicap at Oceanport, New Jersey. The historic event was seen over CBS-TV this day, but not by many. A color TV system for wide use wouldn’t be available until the 1960s. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 03 | What was to become the longest-running TV serial (or soap opera) was seen for the first time. Search for Tomorrow debuted on CBS-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 04 | NBC extends to become a 61 station coast-to-coast network. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 04 | The first transcontinental television broadcast in America is carried by 94 stations. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 23 | The CBS-TV show Crusade for Freedom was broadcast from NY City. It was the first transcontinental telecast to be received on the west coast. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 30 | "The Red Skelton Show" debuts on NBC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 15 | "I Love Lucy" debuts on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 18 | On this, a Sunday afternoon, Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly launched one of the most highly-praised TV productions in history. See It Now debuted on CBS. On that first program, Murrow showed a live camera shot of the Atlantic Ocean, followed by a live shot of the Pacific, then he said, “We are impressed by a medium through which a man sitting in his living room has been able to look at two oceans at once.” In April of 1952, See It Now moved into an evening time slot. | Ref: 4 |
-
| Dec 16 | NBC-TV debuted “Dum-de-dum-dum. Dum-de-dum-dum-daa.” Dragnet made it to TV, in a special preview, on Chesterfield Sound Off Time. The Jack Webb (Sgt. Joe Friday) police drama opened its official TV run on January 3, 1952. Trivia factoid: Sgt. Friday’s boss in this preview was played by Raymond Burr (later of Perry Mason and Ironside fame). | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 24 | Gian Carlo Menotti's "Amahl and the Night Visitors," the first opera written specifically for television, was first broadcast by NBC TV. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 30 | "The Roy Rogers Show" debuts on NBC-TV. (XDG, p 4A, 12/30/2000) | Ref: 83 |
| Dec 31 | Because of the success of the TV version of Wild Bill Hickok (April, 1951 - 1958), the series came to radio. Guy Madison (Wild Bill) and Andy Devine (sidekick, Jingles) starred on the Mutual network show (as well as in the syndicated TV version). The western remained on the radio for five years. | Ref: 4 |
- 1952
| Jan 03 | "Dragnet" with Jack Webb premieres on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 08 | Marie Wilson came to TV as My Friend Irma. The show, popular for years on radio, lasted two seasons on television. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 14 | "Today Show" premieres with Dave Garroway & Jack Lescoulie on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 08 | "RCA Victor Show Starring Dennis Day" debuts on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 12 | The Roman Catholic program "Life is Worth Living" debuted on television. Hosted by (then-) Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, the half-hour program aired on Tuesday nights. It became the longest-running religious TV series of its day, and ran through February of 1957. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 16 | The first religious program on TV, "This Week in Religion," debuted on Dumont television. It was the only ecumenical program of TV's early religious offerings, and ran for two years, last airing in October 1954. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 24 | Raymond Burr made his TV acting debut on the Gruen Guild Playhouse in an episode titled, The Tiger. Not long after this start, Burr would be seen in the hugely popular Perry Mason and much later in Ironside. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 30 | Mr Potato Head is first toy advertised on television. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 19 | CBS-TV debuted one of television’s most popular hits, I’ve Got a Secret. Garry Moore was the first host, from 1952 to 1964. Steve Allen was next (1964 to 1967) and moderated a syndicated version in the 1972-1973 season. Bill Cullen hosted the attempted comeback of the show in 1976. Panelists included Allen’s wife, Jayne Meadows; Bill Cullen, Henry Morgan, Betsy Palmer, Faye Emerson, Melville Cooper and Orson Bean. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 30 | "The Guiding Light," a popular radio program, made its debut as a television soap opera on CBS. | Ref: 70 |
| Jul 15 | Singer Patti Page made her TV debut in a summer replacement series for Perry Como. The 15-minute program spotlighted Patti three times each week on CBS. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 23 | Pay Television for sporting events began -- with the Marciano-Walcott fight, coast to coast, in 49 theatres in 31 cities. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 01 | First ultra high frequency (UHF) television station, Portland Or. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 01 | Emcee Ralph Edwards began a new TV program on NBC-TV called This is Your Life. Each show began with Edwards surprising some unsuspecting. The victim would then be presented with the story of his or her life, complete with friends and relatives who had been brought in for the big occasion. The popular show ran for nine years. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 26 | NBC-TV premiered Victory at Sea. The show was the first documentary film series to gain wide acceptance. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 08 | First TV acknowledgement of pregnancy (I Love Lucy). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 11 | An audience of 70,000 people watched from 31 theatres as Richard Tucker starred in Carmen. The event was the first pay-TV production of an opera. Ticket prices ranged from $1.20 to $7.20. | Ref: 4 |
- 1953
| Jan 02 | NBC-TV presented the first program in the series of The Life of Riley, starring William Bendix as Chester A. Riley. Chester A. Riley as a big, lovable, galoot who had trouble getting things to go right. He worked at an aircraft factory but we usually saw him at home creating all kinds of problems and near disasters for himself and those around him: his wife Peg (Marjorie Reynolds), son Junior (Wesley Morgan), daughter Babs (Lugene Sanders) and good friend Jim Gillis (Tom D'Andrea). Riley’s philosophy when things went wrong was, “What a revoltin’ development dis is!” When things went right (usually straightened out by Peg), however, Riley was very satisfied with life and ‘the life of Riley’ became synonymous in the 1950s with ‘the good life’. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 19 | Sixty-eight percent of all TV sets in the U.S. are tuned to CBS-TV this day, as Lucy Ricardo of I Love Lucy gave birth to a baby boy -- just as she actually did in real life. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 01 | "General Electric Theater" premieres on CBS TV; Reagan later hosts. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 01 | "You Are There" with Walter Cronkite premieres on CBS television. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 01 | CBS-TV debuted Private Secretary. Ann Sothern played Susie McNamera, private secretary to NY talent agent, Peter Sands (played by Don Porter). Susie, you will remember, kept trying to improve Peter’s professional -- and personal -- life, screwing it up seriously in the process. The show ran during the regular TV seasons on CBS (last show was September 10, 1957) and ran on NBC-TV in the summers of 1953 and 1954. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 03 | J Fred Muggs, a chimp, becomes a regular on NBC's Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 09 | "The Adventures of Superman" TV series premieres in syndication. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 18 | Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz signed a contract worth $8,000,000 to continue the "I Love Lucy" TV show through 1955. The deal was the richest contract in television. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 09 | TV Guide publishes their first issue | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | NBC-TV presented Ethel and Albert, the video version of the popular radio show. Peg Lynch and Alan Bunce starred in the program. | Ref: 4 |
| May 24 | A previously unknown actor, Rod Steiger, starred in Marty on the Goodyear Playhouse. Paddy Chayefsky wrote the original TV play and then adapted it for the Oscar-winning film. | Ref: 4 |
| May 25 | First non-commercial educational television station-Houston TX. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 01 | The Mask of Medusa, on ABC-TV’s Twilight Theater, featured the network-TV acting debut of Raymond Burr. He later became the star of Perry Mason and Ironside. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 07 | Kukla, Fran (Allison) and Ollie, along with the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Fiedler, were featured on the first network telecast in ‘compatible color’. The program was broadcast from Boston, MA. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 07 | First color network telecast in compatible color, Boston, Mass. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 03 | Frank Blair becomes news anchor of the Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 19 | Gisele MacKenzie took over as host on NBC-TV’s Your Hit Parade. Her biggest hit during that stint (1953-57) was Hard to Get in June of 1955. Ironically, the song was first sung by Gisele in an episode of the NBC-TV show, Justice. It became a hit and she performed it again on Your Hit Parade. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 20 | Lovely Loretta Young hosted a weekly TV show, Letter to Loretta. Later (February 14, 1954), the name was changed to The Loretta Young Show. As you might suspect, the show featured dramatic responses to letters Loretta had received from her fans during the years she had been a movie star. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 29 | Milton Berle Show premiers. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 29 | Danny Thomas, who many now remember as Marlo’s dad and Phil Donahue’s father-in-law, is also remembered for many things that influenced television. At the suggestion of his friend, Desi Arnaz, Thomas negotiated a deal that would allow him to retain ownership rights to his programs, like Make Room for Daddy, which debuted this day on ABC-TV. Later, in 1957, the show would move to CBS under the Desilu/Danny Thomas Productions banner. The rest is, literally, TV history. His success allowed him to give something back to the world, in the form of his philanthropic efforts to build St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis. “All I prayed for was a break,” he once told an interviewer, “and I said I would do anything, anything, to pay back the prayer if it could be answered. All I needed was a sign of what to do and I would do it.” And so it was. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 02 | Friday nights were Person to Person nights on CBS, beginning this night. Edward R. Morrow, with lit cigarette in hand, premiered the popular interview program which would establish him as a TV icon. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 04 | I Led Three Lives was first seen in syndication (it was never on a TV network) this day. Richard Carlson starring as Herbert Philbrick. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 09 | Anne Jeffreys played Marion Kirby, Robert Sterling was George Kirby and the lead character of Topper was played by Leo G. Carroll on CBS-TV. Topper was called the first of the ‘spirit’ shows of the day. Marion and George Kirby had died along with their dog Neil (a St. Bernard) in an avalanche while on a skiing vacation. The three characters returned to their home -- now occupied by Topper. The adventures of the Kirbys, their dog and Topper were quite chaotic and a lot of fun to watch. The story was loosely based on the writings of Thorne Smith. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 31 | NBC televised Carmen on Opera Theatre -- in living color. It was the first major opera televised in anything other than black and white. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 03 | Nanette Fabray (Shelley’s aunt) starred in the first color TV program to be sent coast to coast. The telecast, from the Colonial Theatre in NY City, was broadcast via WNBT, NY to Burbank, CA. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 22 | The Colgate Comedy Hour becomes the first commercially sponsored color TV program. | Ref: 3 |
| Dec 17 | Following an earlier decision that favored CBS-TV, the wise minds at the Federal Communications Commission changed opinions and decided to approve RCA’s color television specifications. Guess who benefited most? That’s right, NBC, parent company (then) of RCA. NBC stations soon took the lead in displaying programs "...presented in living color." | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 18 | WPTZ in Philadelphia, PA presented a Felso commercial, marking the first color telecast seen on a local station. What’s Felso? We remember it well. Felso was a laundry detergent. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 24 | Dragnet, starring Jack Webb as Detective Joe Friday, became the first network program to be sponsored. Dragnet was on NBC-TV, for you who want the facts, just the facts. “Who was the sponsor, you ask?” Fatima cigarettes, that’s who. | Ref: 4 |
- 1954
| Jan 04 | Soap Opera "The Brighter Day" premieres. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 17 | Jacques Cousteau's first network telecast airs on "Omnibus" (CBS). | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 01 | A television classic was born on CBS-TV, as "The Secret Storm" was shown for the first time. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 14 | The weekly television show "Letter to Loretta" hosted by Loretta Young changes its name to "The Loretta Young Show". | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 22 | ABC radio’s popular Breakfast Club, program with longtime host, Don McNeill, was simulcast on TV beginning this day. The telecast of the show was a bomb, but the radio program went on to break records as the longest-running program on the air. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 09 | WNBT-TV (now WNBC-TV), New York, broadcast the first local color television commercials -- for Castro Decorators of New York City. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 16 | CBS introduces The Morning Show hosted by Walter Cornet to compete with NBC's Today Show. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 18 | Viewers saw the first televised prize fight shown in living color as Joey Giardello knocked out Willie Troy in round seven of a scheduled 10-round bout at Madison Square Garden in New York City. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 16 | Comedian Jack Paar replaced Walter Cronkite as host of The Morning Show on CBS-TV. Cronkite came back as host in October, 1955, when Paar didn’t pan out. Television found Paar’s forte three years later as the host of The Tonight Show. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 01 | The first prizefight to originate from a TV studio was seen by viewers in Philadelphia. A scheduled 15-round welterweight fight that was supposed to be televised from Connie Mack Stadium in the City of Brotherly Love had been postponed. Two six-round bouts were substituted at the TV studio at the last minute. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 12 | Lassie was seen on CBS-TV for the first time. Despite being called “girl” by Jeff Miller, who starred as Tommy, and Jan Clayton, who starred as Jeff's mom, Ellen, Lassie was, in reality, a male dog. In fact, there were more than a half-dozen Lassie dogs doing stunts. Lassie ran on CBS for exactly 17 years. The last show aired on September 12, 1971. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 24 | Tonight Show premiers on NBC (Johnny takes over 8 years later). | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 27 | The Tonight show debuted on NBC-TV. Steve Allen hosted the late-night program which began as a local NY show on WNBT-TV in June 1953. Tonight became a launching pad for Steve and hundreds of guests, including Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme. Skitch Henderson and orchestra provided the music. Ernie Kovacs was the host from 1956-1957. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 03 | "Father Knows Best" premiers on CBS-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 04 | Comedienne Spring Byington began the successful network TV series, December Bride -- on CBS. The show had started on radio in 1952 before making the switch to black and white TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 15 | Studio One on CBS-TV featured Joan Weber singing Let Me Go, Lover. The song had enjoyed limited popularity before the TV show, but skyrocketed to fame immediately after. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 30 | James Arness made his dramatic TV debut on the Lux Video Theatre in The Chase. (The Gunsmoke series didn’t begin for Arness until the fall of 1955.) | Ref: 70 |
- 1955
| Jan 02 | First "Bob Cummings Show" premieres on NBC (later on CBS). | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 12 | The beginning of Rod Serling’s stellar career began with the TV production of Patterns, an original, hour-long drama. Within two weeks, the then struggling author had 23 other TV assignments. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 19 | "The Millionaire" TV program premieres on CBS. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 07 | Peter Pan, with Mary Martin and Cyril Richard, is presented as a television special for the first time. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 15 | Dutch 2nd Chamber requires TV licenses. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 21 | NBC-TV presents the first Colgate Comedy Hour. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 27 | 1st coast to coast color TV broadcast. | Ref: 51 |
| Mar 27 | Steve McQueen made his network TV debut on Goodyear Playhouse. McQueen starred in The Chivington Raid. In 1958, McQueen was starred in his own TV series, Wanted Dead or Alive, on NBC. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 01 | One Man’s Family was seen on TV for the final time after a six-year stay on NBC-TV. The longtime popular radio show of the same name continued until 1959. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 03 | Fred Astaire appeared on television for the first time on The Toast of the Town, with host, Ed Sullivan. Already an established dancer in films, Astaire was quick to become a TV sensation as well. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 11 | WABD in NY and KTLA in Los Angeles begins to run pre-1948 Warner Bros. cartoons in a half-hour format. Saturday Morning Cartoons are born! | Ref: 73 |
| May 12 | Gisele MacKenzie played a singer on the NBC-TV program, Justice. She introduced her soon-to-be hit song, Hard to Get. The song went to number four on the Billboard pop music chart by September. | Ref: 4 |
| May 27 | Red Buttons Show, last airs on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 07 | "The $64,000 Question" premiers on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 23 | Harry Belafonte became a popular TV star following the program debut of Three for Tonight, on CBS. Belafonte had been touring with the show before bringing it to the tube. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 27 | The first Wide Wide World was broadcast on NBC-TV. Dave Garroway, of the Today show, was the program host. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 02 | “Ah one anna two...” ABC Television premiered The Lawrence Welk Show. In Welk’s 24-piece band was the ’Champagne Lady’, Alice Lon. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 10 | "Gunsmoke" debuts on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 10 | Bert Parks began a 25-year career as host of the Miss America Pageant on NBC. The show became a TV tradition as Parks sang to the newly-crowned beauty queen, “There She is ... Miss America”. The song was composed by Bernie Wayne and was sung for the first time on this day. Sharon Kay Ritchie was the first Miss America to be honored with the song. When she married singer Don Cherry (Band of Gold), There She Is was part of the wedding ceremony. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 17 | The Perry Como Show moved to Saturday nights on NBC-TV. Soon, U.S.A. audiences would “Sing along with me ... I’m on my way to the stars...” with the incomparable Mr. C. Como’s hourlong variety show replaced his three-times-per-week, 15-minute show, which had been on the air since 1948. The new version of The Perry Como Show soon became Saturday’s highest-rated TV program, beating CBS competitor Jackie Gleason. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 18 | What had been "The Toast of the Town" on CBS Television (since 1948) became "The Ed Sullivan Show". | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 19 | Eva Marie Saint, Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman starred in the Producer’s Showcase presentation of Our Town on NBC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 20 | You’ll Never Get Rich started its run on CBS-TV. Because of weak ratings, the name of the show was changed (less than two months later) to The Phil Silvers Show, with the subtitle, You’ll Never Get Rich. The change worked. The show, “An outrageous satire on military life,” became a hit on the tube and ran thru 1959. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 22 | Commercial television was beamed to homes in Great Britain; first commercial to be broadcast is for Gibb's SR toothpaste. The rules said that only six minutes of ads were allowed each hour and there was no Sunday morning TV permitted. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 24 | Millions of Americans tuned in to watch Judy Garland make her TV debut on the Ford Star Jubilee. The CBS show received the highest television ratings to that time. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 01 | "Honeymooners" premieres. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 02 | "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" premiers on CBS-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 03 | "Captain Kangaroo" premiers on CBS-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 13 | The "Grand Ole Opry" premiers on ABC-TV. | |
| Oct 17 | Lee Merriwether joins the Today Show panel. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 17 | Jose Ferrer and Claire Bloom starred on NBC’s Producer’s Showcase. They performed in Cyrano De Bergerac. Ferrer also won an Oscar for his performance in the film version. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 13 | NBC showed the first live TV program from a foreign country (noncontiguous). Scenes from Havana, Cuba were seen by viewers of Dave Garroway’s Wide Wide World program. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 04 | As part of an NBC-TV special, mime artist Marcel Marceau appeared on television for the first time. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 06 | NY psychologist Joyce Brothers wins "$64,000 Question" on boxing. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 06 | Robert Sarnoff was elected president of NBC. Sarnoff was promoted to put NBC on the road to economic self-sufficiency, replacing the rather flamboyant (and big spending) president/CEO Pat Weaver. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 10 | The Big Surprise on NBC-TV awarded the largest amount of money given away on television. Mrs. Ethel Park Richardson of Los Angeles, CA may have needed an armored truck to carry away her $100,000 in cash. | Ref: 4 |
- 1956
| Feb 10 | "My Friend Flicka" premieres on CBS (later NBC) TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 05 | "King Kong" first televised. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 10 | Julie Andrews was 23 years old this night when she made her TV debut. She appeared with Bing Crosby and Nancy Olson in the musical adaptation of Maxwell Anderson’s play, High Tor. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 11 | Sir Lawrence Olivier starred in the three-hour afternoon NBC-TV special, Richard III. The network reportedly paid $500,000 for the rights to the program. A writer named William Shakespeare was responsible for Richard III. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 22 | Perry Como became the first major TV variety-show host to book a rock and roll act on his program. The ‘Incomparable Mr. C.’ booked Carl Perkins for the show and Perkins sang Blue Suede Shoes. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 24 | Perry Como became the first major TV variety-show host to book a rock and roll act on his program. The ‘Incomparable Mr. C.’ booked Carl Perkins for the show and Perkins sang Blue Suede Shoes. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 02 | "The Edge of Night" and "As the World Turns" are seen for the first time on CBS-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 10 | Philips broadcasts first Dutch color TV programs. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 15 | The worlds’ first all-color, TV station was dedicated -- in Chicago, IL. It was named WNBQ-TV and is now WMAQ-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| May 11 | Pinky Lee Show, last airs on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 22 | "Bob Hope Show" last airs on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 18 | Nanette Fabray bid audiences farewell in her final appearance on Caesars Hour after two years as a regular on the popular TV program. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 09 | Dick Clark's first appearance as host of American Bandstand. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 07 | A U.S. House subcommittee began investigations of allegedly rigged TV quiz shows. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 08 | Lawrence “a-one and a-two” Welk was doing so well with “da boys inta bant” on ABC-TV, that, after being on the tube for just one year with The Lawrence Welk Show, Welk originated another popular show called Lawrence Welk’s Top Tunes and New Talent. Mr. Welk wasn’t much on hip show titles, was he? | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 23 | Jonathan Winters becomes a TV star when he is seen coast to coast in the first videotape recording to be broadcast. The tape originates from WRCA-TV in New York City and broadcast by NBC network stations. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 29 | John Cameron Swayze and The Camel News Caravan were replaced by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 03 | The classic MGM film, The Wizard of Oz, was first seen on television. The film cost CBS $250,000 to show. The movie was shown 18 times between 1956 and 1976, and you can probably catch it again no matter what year it is. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 07 | Helen O'Connell joins the Today Show panel. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | "To Tell The Truth", hosted by Bud Collyer, premiers on CBS-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 24 | "I Love Lucy" Christmas show airs, never put in syndication. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | After five years on television, the last Ding Dong School was seen on NBC-TV. Miss Frances (Dr. Frances Horwich) rang the bell for one last time this day. | Ref: 4 |
- 1957
| Jan 04 | "Blondie" situation comedy premieres on NBC TV (later on CBS). | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 19 | Philadelphia comedian, Ernie Kovacs, became a major star, when he was able to pull off the challenge of doing a half-hour TV show without uttering a single word of dialogue. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 21 | Singer Patsy Cline appeared on Arthur Godfrey’s nighttime TV show. She warbled the classic, Walking After Midnight, which quickly launched her career. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 25 | Steve Allen hosts his last Tonight! Show. | |
| Jan 28 | "Tonight! America After Dark" premieres, with Jack Lescoulie & Al (Jazzbo) Collins on NBC (between Steve Allen & Jack Paar). | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 27 | Premiere of only prime-time network TV show beginning with an "X" "Xavier Cugat Show" on NBC (until X-Files). | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 01 | Kokomo the Chimp becomes Today Show animal editor. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 21 | Shirley Booth made her TV acting debut in The Hostess with the Mostest on Playhouse 90 on CBS. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 22 | Art Clokey's "Gumby" debuted. | Ref: 73 |
| Mar 27 | Steve McQueen makes his network TV debut (Goodyear Playhouse). | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 08 | Jimmy Dean began a morning show on CBS-TV to compete with the first 45 minutes of the Today show on NBC-TV. No, he didn’t stand around in an apron cookin’ sausage and singing Big Bad John for the audience, though it may not have been a bad idea. No sponsors were found for the show and it was back to the smokehouse for Jimmy when CBS quickly sliced the show from the network. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 16 | For the first time, TV was utilized to show an annual stockholders’ meeting. American Machine and Foundry Company (AMF) shareholders watched TV screens in both New York City and Chicago, IL. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 16 | Polly Bergen starred in The Helen Morgan Story on the CBS television presentation of Playhouse 90. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 18 | Comedian Johnny Carson turned briefly to TV acting in a role on the Playhouse 90 production of Three Men on a Horse on CBS-TV. Carson, of Who Do You Trust? fame, was five years from becoming the host of The Tonight Show. | Ref: 4 |
| May 06 | Last broadcast of "I Love Lucy" on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 02 | Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was interviewed by CBS-TV. News correspondent Daniel Schorr was first to interview the Soviet leader. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 10 | The Tom Terrific cartoon debuted on The Captain Kangaroo Show. | Ref: 73 |
| Jul 29 | The new Tonight show debuted with Jack Paar behind the desk and Hugh Downs as his announcer-sidekick. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 14 | Richard Boone became the hired gun, Paladin. The CBS-TV series Have Gun Will Travel debuted this night. The popular western continued for six years. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 15 | "Bachelor Father" with John Forsythe premiers. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 18 | The Big Record, hosted by ‘the singing rage’, Miss Patti Page, debuted on CBS-TV. The Big Record was a live musical showcase featuring established artists singing their big songs. The Big Record lasted one big season. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 18 | "Wagon Train" premiers. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 21 | "Perry Mason" with Raymond Burr premiers on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 27 | The dramatic anthology series "Crossroads" aired for the last time over ABC television. Depicting the work of various clergymen, the series had premiered in October 1955. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 04 | "Leave It to Beaver," debuts on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 07 | First Bandstand (later, American Bandstand) broadcast | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 13 | Two superstars introduced a new car on ABC-TV. Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra joined forces in an hourlong special that turned out to be a big ratings hit. Too bad the Edsel, the car that Ford Motor Company was introducing, didn’t fare as well. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 20 | Walter Cronkite hosted a weekly documentary beginning this (Sunday) night. The 20th Century reported on major events that had shaped modern world history. The show changed its focus and its title to The 21st Century in 1967. Cronkite was the only narrator of the program through its final show on January 4, 1970. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 14 | "Ruff and Reddy", Hanna Barbera's first TV show, debuts. | Ref: 73 |
| Dec 17 | "The Nat King Cole Show" was canceled after a year for lack of a sponsor | Ref: 62 |
| Dec 25 | Queen Elizabeth II delivers first royal Christmas message on television. | Ref: 10 |
- 1958
| Jan 11 | Lloyd Bridges starred as Mike Nelson, an ex-Navy frogman who became an underwater trouble shooter, in Seahunt on CBS-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 26 | Jack Smith takes over for Art Baker as TV host of "You Asked for It". | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 31 | "Jackpot Bowling" premieres on NBC with Leo Durocher as host. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 11 | Charles Van Doren finally loses on TV game show "21". | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 14 | Pianist Van Cliburn was presented on national TV for the first time on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jack Paar. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 27 | After nearly three years on NBC-TV, Matinee Theatre was seen for the final time. And a good thing, too. Critics called the show one of the most successful failures in theatrical history. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 03 | "The Andy Williams Show" premiers on ABC (later on CBS & NBC). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 21 | The last of Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts programs aired on CBS-TV. Many artists got their start on Talent Scouts, including Tony Bennett, Pat Boone, The McGuire Sisters and a singer named Connie Francis -- who not only sang, but played the accordion, as well. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 04 | Dumont TV Network crumbles. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 18 | TV game show scandal investigation starts. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 18 | Betsy Palmer joins the Today Show panel. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 02 | China opens first TV station at Peking. | Ref: 10 |
| Sep 05 | (or 6th) Actor Steve McQueen starred on the CBS-TV series, Wanted: Dead or Alive. McQueen played bounty hunter Josh Randall. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 05 | The first color videotaped program was aired. It was The Betty Freezor Show on WBTV-TV in Charlotte, NC. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 06 | Georgia Gibbs sang The Hula-Hoop Song on The Ed Sullivan Show. It was the first national exposure for the Hula-Hoop craze. Many people recorded the song to capitalize on the fad, including Teresa Brewer and Betty Johnson. Like sometimes happens with fads, these songs didn’t become very popular. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 02 | "The Huckleberry Hound Show" premieres. | Ref: 73 |
| Oct 10 | The television show "77 Sunset Strip" debuts. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 30 | "Concentration" appears on TV screens at 8:30 p.m. as a temporary replacement for "Twenty-One", which had been canceled suddenly because of the quiz show scandals of the time. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 23 | One of the last drama programs on radio debuted. It was unusual in that it followed the TV show of the same name. Have Gun Will Travel was broadcast on CBS radio and starred John Dehner as Paladin. Richard Boone played Paladin on TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 29 | TV soap "Young Dr Malone" debuts. | Ref: 5 |
- 1959
| Jan 02 | CBS radio dropped the curtain on four soap operas. Our Gal Sunday, This is Nora Drake, Backstage Wife and Road of Life all hit the road for good. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 05 | "Bozo the Clown" live children's show premieres on TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 09 | "Rawhide" with Clint Eastwood premieres on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 19 | Dick Clark’s American Bandstand was the number-one daytime TV show in the U.S. Remember Rate-A-Record? Three kids would listen and then rate a new song. Rankings went from 35 to 98. The usual comment, “It has a good beat and you can dance to it.” | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 26 | Alcoa Presents was seen for the first time on ABC-TV. Later, the show would be renamed One Step Beyond. The program was based on “true events that are strange, frightening and unexplainable in terms of normal human experience.” | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 09 | "Rawhide" with Clint Eastwood premieres on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 20 | The FCC applies the equal time rule to TV newscasts of political candidates. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 08 | Groucho, Chico & Harpo's final TV appearance together. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 20 | Desilu Playhouse on CBS-TV presented a two-part show titled, "The Untouchables" which became weekly series later in the Fall. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 24 | Your Hit Parade ended after a nine-year run on television and many more years on radio. The show debuted in 1935. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 27 | "Today" show goes abroard the first time (Paris France). | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 28 | The TV program, Hallmark Hall of Fame, featured one of the best TV dramas on the air, according to critics. Eugene O’Neil’s Ah, Wilderness starred a who’s who of American performers including Lloyd Nolan, Helen Hayes, Burgess Meredith and Betty Field. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 28 | Arthur Godfrey was seen for the last time in the final telecast of Arthur Godfrey and His Friends on CBS-TV. The show had been a part of the CBS lineup for 10 years. We remember the Little Godfreys: Tony Marvin (announcer), singers Carmel Quinn, Lou Ann Sims, Frank Parker, Janette Davis, Marion Marlowe and Julius LaRosa. “Howaya, Howaya, Howaya.” | Ref: 4 |
| May 13 | Kraft Music Hall with Milton Berle, last airs on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 18 | The first telecast received from England was broadcast in the US over NBC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
-
| Oct 02 | "The Twilight Zone", hosted by Rod Serling, premiers on CBS-TV at 10:00 PM. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 11 | First episode of "Rocky & His Friends" airs. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 15 | Van Johnson was originally slated to play Eliot Ness, but he backed out in a dispute over money the weekend before filming was to begin. Robert Stack was hastily recruited for the starring role in The Untouchables on a Sunday morning. He was fitted for costumes in the afternoon, and started filming the first episode, The Empty Chair, on Monday morning. The Untouchables, with the chatter of machine-gun fire and the squeal of tires on the streets of Chicago, began a four-year run this day on ABC-TV. With Stack, as G-man Ness, were Nick Georgiade (as Enrico Rossi), Jerry Paris (as Martin Flaherty), Abel Fernandez (as William Youngfellow), Anthony George (as Cam Allison), Paul Percerni (as Lee Hobson), Steve London (as Agent Rossman) and Bruce Gordon (as Frank Nitti). The unforgettable narrator was radio’s famous Walter Winchell. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 19 | Florence Henderson joins the Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 29 | The first corporation to use closed-circuit television was General Mills of Minneapolis, MN, beaming simultaneous meetings in seven cities. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 02 | Charles Van Doren admitted to a House subcommittee that he had the questions and answers in advance of his appearances on the NBC-TV game show "Twenty-One." | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 11 | The 1st episode of "Rocky & His Friends" airs. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 19 | Jay Ward's "Rocky and His Friends" debuts. | Ref: 73 |
| Nov 29 | The Grammy Awards were shown on network television for the first time. (It was actually the second year of the Grammy Awards.). | Ref: 4 |
- 1960
| Jan 20 | As of 1995, the 8th highest rated television show is this evening's episode of "Wagon Train" with an average audience of 43.7%. | Ref: 34 |
| Jan 28 | Goon Show's final episode on BBC. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 31 | Julie Andrews, Henry Fonda, Rex Harrison and Jackie Gleason, appeared in a two-hour TV special titled, The Fabulous Fifties. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 11 | Jack Paar walks off NBC’s Tonight Show. The previous night, Paar had told a joke during his monologue, and although Paar didn’t say “toilets,” but “water closets,” it offended the NBC censors, who cut the joke (a total of four minutes) out of the show. Paar was incensed when he found out, so on this night he complained about the NBC censors, said “good night” and left. (He returned on March 7, following a trip to Hong Kong, and stayed around for another two years as host of Tonight.) | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 13 | As of 1995, the 7th highest rated television show is this evening's episode of "Gunsmoke" with an average audience of 43.9%. | Ref: 34 |
| May 16 | A research study reported that TV commercials "in living color" were over three times more effective than black and white commercials. | Ref: 4 |
| May 18 | Eileen Fulton begins playing Lisa on As the World Turns (for > 30 years). | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 03 | The Hanna-Barbera show "Lippy the Lion and Hardy-Harr-Harr" premiered. | Ref: 73 |
| Sep 24 | Howdy Doody's Clarabell the clown, silent for 13 years ended Howdy's last show by saying "Goodbye, kids." | Ref: 62 |
| Sep 29 | My Three Sons was welcomed into U.S. homes on ABC-TV. Fred MacMurray, who was a movie actor, had a difficult time making the adjustment to the small screen. But adjust he did, and My Three Sons endured so well that CBS bought the successful hit for somewhere between seven and ten million dollars in 1965. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 30 | Flintstones premiers (1st prime time animation show). | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 30 | On Howdy Doody's last show Clarabelle finally talks "Goodbye Kids". | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 03 | "The Andy Griffith Show" premiered on CBS-TV. | Ref: 6 |
-
| Nov 25 | Edward R. Murrow's "Harvest of Shame", a documentary about migrant workers, was the first documentary shown on TV | Ref: 62 |
| Dec 09 | First broadcast of "Coronation Street" on British ITV. | Ref: 5 |
- 1961
| Jan 05 | “Hello. I’m Mr. Ed!” “A horse is a horse, of course, of course”... you know the lyrics. Mr. Ed, the talking horse, debuted for what would be a six-year run. The show starred Alan Young as Ed’s owner, Wilbur Post. Wilbur’s wife, Carol, was played by Connie Hines. Good old neighbor Roger Addison was Larry Keating. The voice of Mr. Ed was... no, not Alan Young... rather, Allan ‘Rocky’ Lane... of course, of course. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 08 | Robert Goulet makes his national TV debut this night on The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 19 | First episode for "The Dick Van Dyke Show" is filmed. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 27 | "Sing Along with Mitch" [Miller] premieres on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 30 | The "Yogi Bear Show" debuts. | Ref: 73 |
| Apr 05 | Barbra Striesand appears on "The Jack Paar Show". | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 14 | The first live broadcast is televised from the Soviet Union. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 29 | ABC's "Wide World of Sports, debuts. | Ref: 5 |
| May 08 | Shore Patrol Revisited became one of the most memorable episodes of the CBS-TV series, Hennessey. The program marked the first time that Jackie Cooper and Mickey Rooney appeared together professionally since they had been teenagers -- some 25 years earlier. | Ref: 4 |
| May 09 | In a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow condemned television programming as a "vast wasteland." | Ref: 70 |
| May 26 | After 10 years Dave Garroway retires from NBC-TV's Today show ending with his trademark, “Peace,” with palm facing the camera. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 16 | Dave Garroway is fired as Today Show host. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 18 | Gunsmoke was broadcast for the last time on CBS radio. The show had been on for nine years. It was called the first adult Western. The star of Gunsmoke was William Conrad, who would become a major TV star (Cannon, Jake and the Fatman), as well. When Gunsmoke moved to TV, James Arness filled Conrad’s boots. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 17 | John Chancellor became the on-air host of the Today show on NBC-TV. Chancellor replaced Dave Garroway, who had resigned after 10 years of early morning duty on the popular program. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 24 | Edwin Newman becomes news anchor of the Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 27 | Francis the Talking Mule is the mystery guest on "What's My Line". | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 13 | "Car 54 Where are You?" premiers on TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 23 | First movie to become a TV series-How to Marry a Millionaire. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 24 | Bullwinkle J. Moose and his friend, Rocket J. (Rocky) Squirrel, were seen in prime time for the first time on NBC-TV. The Sunday night cartoon (7-7:30 p.m.) was called The Bullwinkle Show. Originally Bullwinkle and Rocky appeared on ABC in a weekday afternoon series, Rocky and His Friends. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 28 | Richard Chamberlain played the part of handsome, young, Dr. Kildare for five years, beginning this day on NBC. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 28 | Hazel premiered on NBC-TV. The sitcom starred Shirley Booth in the title role, with Don DeFore as George Baxter and Whitney Blake as Dorothy Baxter (the family who Hazel adopted). She was their maid and housekeeper. Hazel was based on the Saturday Evening Post cartoon series by Ted Key. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 02 | "Ben Casey" premieres on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 03 | "Dick Van Dyke Show" premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
-
| Oct 13 | For the first time since 77 Sunset Strip debuted (Oct. 10, 1958), viewers saw Gerald Lloyd ‘Kookie’ Kookson III (Edd Byrnes) wearing a coat and tie. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 27 | "Sing Along with Mitch" [Miller] premieres on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 12 | Former big band singer (with Kay Kyser) Mike Douglas began a variety TV show from Cleveland. The show became most successful when KYW-TV moved from Cleveland to Philadelphia. Then, when the Douglas show left Philly for Hollywood, it folded. All things considered, it was a successful syndication effort, nationally, for Westinghouse Productions. | Ref: 4 |
- 1962
| Jan 02 | Nighttime version of "Password" with Allen Ludden premieres on CBS. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 29 | Jack Paar left his highly successful late night TV talk show after five years. He left behind a salary of $250,000 and an estimated audience of eight-million people. Fill-in hosts were used, including one who would ultimately win the coveted position of host of The Tonight Show. He was Johnny Carson. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 30 | Jack Paar's last night as host of the Tonight Show. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 16 | Walter Cronkite succeeds Douglas Edwards as anchorman of "The CBS Evening News." | Ref: 70 |
| May 15 | After five years on Wagon Train, Robert Horton let his performing contract expire and left the popular TV series. Robert Fuller replaced Horton as the trail scout who rode with wagon master Chris Hale, played by actor John McIntire. | Ref: 4 |
| May 31 | "Tell It To Groucho" last airs on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 11 | First transatlantic TV transmission via satellite (Telstar I). | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 23 | ABC's first color TV series-The Jetsons premiers. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 26 | “Come and listen to the story ’bout a man named Jed...” The Beverly Hillbillies aired on CBS-TV. U.S. audiences were enchanted with Jed, Ellie Mae, Granny, Jethro, Miss Jane and that banker feller. Enchanted, as in a trance, in fact, for 216 shows. Bluegrass stars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs had the honor of composing and recording the theme song and hit record, The Ballad of Jed Clampett. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 01 | Johnny Carson hosts his first Tonight Show on NBC-TV, succeeding Jack Paar. Joan Crawford guests. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 01 | The Lucy Show premiers. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 11 | First appearance of a Gabor sister on the Merv Griffin Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 04 | James Caan makes his TV acting debut in A Fist of Five, an episode of The Untouchables on ABC-TV, starring Robert Stack, today’s Unsolved Mysteries host. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 31 | "Match Game" debuts on NBC with host Gene Rayburn. | Ref: 5 |
- 1963
| Jan 06 | "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" with Marlin Perkins premiers on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 12 | Bob Dylan cancels "Ed Sullivan Show" television appearance. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 01 | Soap operas "General Hospital" & "The Doctors" premier on TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 09 | The TV program Ready Steady Go! premiered on the BBC in London, England. The show gave exposure to such music luminaries as Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 11 | The Kingston Trio are the mystery guest on "What's My Line?". | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 02 | CBS & NBC expand network news from 15 to 30 minutes. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 07 | Japanese cartoon "Astro Boy" premiered in the U.S. | Ref: 73 |
| Sep 13 | "The Outer Limits" premiers. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 16 | "Outer Limits" premiers on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 17 | "The Fugitive" premiers on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 18 | The Patty Duke Show premiers on ABC-TV. (XDG, p 4A, 9/18/2003) | Ref: 83 |
| Dec 23 | Beach Boys first appearance on "Shindig". | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 30 | "Let's Make A Deal," debuts on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
- 1964
| Jan 08 | As of 1995, the 6th highest rated television show is this evening's episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies" with an average audience of 44.0%. | Ref: 34 |
| Jan 10 | US version of "That Was The Week That Was" premieres. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 29 | NBC-TV agreed to pay $36 million for the broadcast rights to the American Football League games during the 1965-1969 seasons. Not that they had much choice. CBS had already locked in the National Football Conference. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 08 | As of 1995, the 9th highest rated television show is this evening's episode of "Bonanza" with an average audience of 41.6%. | Ref: 34 |
| Mar 30 | Jeopardy, developed by Merv Griffin, airs on NBC-TV for the first time, hosted by Art Fleming. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 30 | TV sets would be drastically different after a ruling by the FCC stating that all TV receivers should be equipped to receive both VHF (channels 2-13) and the new UHF (channels 14-83). | Ref: 4 |
| May 04 | "Another World" & "As the World Turns" premiere on TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 22 | Barbra Joan Streisand signed a 10-year contract with CBS-TV worth about $200,000 a year. Both CBS and NBC had been bidding for Streisand’s talents. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 16 | Shindig premiered on ABC-TV. The program had go-go girls and the biggest rock bands of the day in a dance party environment. Regulars were Jimmie O’Neill and the Shindig Dancers. The first show featured Sam Cooke, The Everly Brothers, The Righteous Brothers, The Wellingtons, Bobby Sherman and comic Alan Sues. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 17 | "Bewitched" premiers on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 22 | Robert Vaughn starred as Napoleon Solo when The Man From U.N.C.L.E. debuted on NBC-TV this night. Solo’s trusty side-kick in this James Bond spoof was Illya Kuryakin, played by David McCallum. The show was a hit for 3½ seasons. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 24 | "The Munsters" premiers. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 26 | Gilligan’s Island began its 98-show run on CBS. The TV show starred Bob Denver in the title role, Jim Backus as Mr. Howell, Natalie Schafer as Lovey Howell, Alan Hale as the Skipper, Russell Johnson as the Professor and Dawn Wells and Tina Louise as Mary Ann and Ginger, respectively. (Brooks, Tim & Earl Marsh, "The Complete Directory to Prime Time TV Shows, 1946 - Present", (c) 1949, ISBN 0-345-31864-1) | |
| Dec 03 | "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" first airs on TV. | Ref: 5 |
- 1965
| Jan 12 | The NBC-TV pop-music show Hullabaloo made its debut. A competitor of ABC’s successful Shindig show, Hullabaloo tried to attract a wider audience by featuring both rock music and Las Vegas-type acts. Guests on the first show included the New Christy Minstrels, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Zombies and Woody Allen. Hullabaloo lasted on the air through Aug 29, 1966. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 16 | "Outer Limits" last airs on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 23 | "The King Family Show" (musical variety) premieres on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 28 | The Who make their first appearance on British TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 17 | Comedienne Joan Rivers makes the first of many guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on NBC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 28 | Barbra Streisand stars on "My Name is Barbra" special on CBS. | Ref: 5 |
| May 02 | Ed Sullivan had said he would not have this British rock group on his CBS-TV Sunday night show again. This night, however, Ed softened up -- and allowed Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones to make a second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 22 | Till Death Us Do Part debuted on England’s BBC-TV. The show was so popular that it became a TV series in Great Britain and was the forerunner of the 1971-92 CBS-TV hit, All in the Family, starring Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 13 | Today Show's first totally color broadcast. | Ref: 5 |
-
| Sep 15 | It was a grand time in Hooterville. Oliver (Wendell) Douglas and his socialite wife Lisa; storekeeper Sam Drucker; Arnold the Pig and a whole bunch of funny neighbors showed up at Green Acres on CBS-TV. Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor headed a memorable cast in this, the first of six seasons on the network. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 15 | "Lost in Space" premiers. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 16 | The Dean Martin Show debuted on NBC-TV. It was a weekly variety show that continued on the network for nine years. Regulars over the years were The Goldiggers, Ken Lane, The Ding-a-Ling Sisters, Tom Bosley, Dom DeLuise, Nipsey Russell, Rodney Dangerfield and Les Brown and His Band. The theme song? Everybody Loves Somebody. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 17 | "Hogan's Heros" debuts on CBS-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 17 | "The Smothers Brothers Show", a sitcom, debuted on CBS-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 18 | Larry Hagman (Captain Tony Nelson) and Barbara Eden (Jeannie) starred in the first episode of I Dream of Jeannie on NBC-TV. Capt. Nelson had been forced to make a parachute landing on a desert island. He happened upon an old bottle that had washed up on the shore. He popped the top and bingo! Out popped Jeannie, a 2000-year-old, very pretty genie. Jeannie took to Tony and started making weekly magic that lasted until September 1, 1970. | Ref: 4 |
-
| Nov 08 | "Days of Our Lives" debutes on NBC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
- 1966
| Jan 08 | Who & the Kinks perform on the last "Shindig" TV show on ABC. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 11 | "Daktari" African adventure series premieres on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 12 | Batman debuts -- on ABC-TV. Adam West starred as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 30 | Barbra Streisand stars on "Color Me Barbra" special on CBS | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 25 | Dark Shadows began its popular run as a daily serial on ABC-TV. The show became a popular late-afternoon favorite for several seasons, then reappeared as a prime-time revival for a short, two-month run in 1991. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 27 | First sci-fi soap opera, "Dark Shadows," premiers. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 29 | Mia Farrow withdrew from the cast of the ABC-TV prime time drama Peyton Place, after starring for two years. With Farrow’s exit, her character, Allison, was dropped. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 07 | The final episode of the original The Dick Van Dyke Show was seen on CBS-TV. Van Dyke played Rob Petrie, the head comedy writer for The Alan Brady Show. Rob worked with two other comedy writers, Sally (Rose Marie) and Buddy (Morey Amsterdam), both of whom were good friends of Rob and his wife Laura (Mary Tyler Moore). The Dick Van Dyke Show can still be seen in syndication. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 08 | "That Girl" starring Marlo Thomas premiers on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 12 | "The Monkees" makes its NBC-TV debut. (XDG, p 4A, 9/12/2001) | Ref: 83 |
| Oct 17 | "Hollywood Squares"TV game show premieres. | Ref: 10 |
| Nov 06 | First entire lineup televised in color (NBC). | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 24 | First TV station in Congo, Kinshasa (Zaire). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | Chuck Jones' holiday classic, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", first aired. | Ref: 73 |
| Dec 23 | Britain's rock TV show, "Ready Steady Go", last program. | Ref: 5 |
- 1967
| Jan 03 | "Tonight Show" is shortened from 105 to 90 minutes. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 06 | "Milton Berle Show" last airs on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 07 | The "Newlywed Game" premieres on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 10 | PBS (the National Educational TV) begins as a 70 station network. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 12 | “This is the city...” One of broadcasting’s greatest hits, Dragnet, returned to NBC-TV after being off the network schedule for eight years. Harry Morgan was Jack Webb’s sidekick in the renewed series. “Just the facts, ma’am.” | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 13 | Rolling Stones appear on Ed Sullivan Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 05 | "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" premieres on CBS (later ABC, NBC). | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 28 | Raymond Burr starred in a TV movie titled Ironside. The show, about a wheelchair-bound detective, became very popular as a weekly series in the fall of 1967. Burr, known to millions as determined lawyer, Perry Mason (a past TV hit), played the part of Robert Ironside in the new show. He was joined by characters, Detective Sgt. Ed Brown (Don Galloway), Eve Whitfield (Barbara Anderson), Mark Sanger (Don Mitchell) and Commissioner Dennis Randall (Gene Lyons). | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 04 | Johnny Carson quit The Tonight Show. He returned three weeks later with an additional $30,000 a week! Hi yo! | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 12 | Jim Brown made his TV acting debut in Cops and Robbers on the NBC show I Spy, starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp. I Spy aired from 1965 through 1968. The primary characters, Cosby and Culp, were secret agents posing as a top-notch tennis star and his trainer-companion. I Spy was the first television series to co-star a black actor. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 17 | Comedian Joey Bishop got the opportunity to attempt to unseat the king of late night, Johnny Carson. The Joey Bishop Show made its debut on ABC-TV this night. Bishop, Regis Philbin (announcer) and Johnny Mann (music) couldn’t beat Carson, but held out until December 26, 1969 (the show’s last broadcast). | Ref: 4 |
| May 22 | "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" debuts on NET (now PBS). | Ref: 5 |
| May 22 | The final To Tell the Truth program was seen on CBS-TV. It had been on the air for over 10 years. The show began syndication sometime later, in a slightly different format. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 03 | "News at 10" premieres on English TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 29 | As of 1995, the 3rd highest rated television show is the final episode of "The Fugitive" with an average audience of 45.9%. | Ref: 34 |
| Sep 03 | After 17 years, What’s My Line aired for the final time on CBS-TV. The host of the show was John Daly. Panelists on the first show were: Dorothy Kilgallen, Louis Untermeyer, Dr. Richard Hoffman and New Jersey Governor Harold Hoffman. Arlene Francis and Bennett Cerf joined the show a short time later. Kilgallen, Cerf and Francis were the continuing regulars for fifteen years. Fred Allen, Hal Block and Steve Allen served as panelists for short stints at different times. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 09 | Jay Ward's "George of the Jungle" 'toon hits the airwaves. | Ref: 73 |
| Sep 11 | "The Carol Burnett Show" premiered on CBS. | Ref: 70 |
| Sep 11 | Television pilot/special changes face of TV comedy Rowan and Martin's "Laugh-In" premieres. | Ref: 10 |
| Sep 17 | "Mission Impossible" premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 09 | Coming out of the NBC Tonight Show Orchestra to become musical director of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Doc Severinsen replaced Skitch Henderson. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 17 | Barbra Streisand stars on "Belle of 14th Street" special on CBS. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 06 | Phil Donahue began a TV talk show in Dayton, Ohio. Later, the show moved to Chicago, was syndicated by Multimedia Productions and was highly rated for years. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 15 | Joe Garagiola joins the Today Show panel. | Ref: 5 |
- 1968
| Jan 01 | Netherlands gets color TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 07 | "GE College Bowl" quiz show premieres on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 08 | Jacques Cousteau's first undersea special on US network TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 12 | Nighttime version of "Hollywood Squares" premieres on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 22 | Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, debuts “from beautiful downtown Burbank” . | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 19 | "Mister Roger's Neighborhood" premiers on PBS | Ref: 62 |
| Mar 14 | ABC-TV showed the last episode of Batman, starring Adam West and Burt Ward as Robin. | Ref: 4 |
| May 02 | Israeli television begins transmitting. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 15 | ABC-TV first presented the serial, One Life to Live. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 10 | Hanna Barbera's "Space Ghost" and "Dino-Boy" premiered. | Ref: 73 |
| Sep 16 | The Andy Griffith Show was seen for the final time on CBS-TV. Sheriff Andy Taylor (Griffith), Opie (Ron Howard), Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), Barney Fife (Don Knotts), Goober Pyle (George Lindsey), Floyd Lawson (Howard McNear), and the rest of the gang from Mayberry, NC, are still seen regularly on TV through syndication. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 24 | The longest-running newsmagazine on television began on CBS-TV. 60 Minutes started on this, a Tuesday, night in 1968. During its first three years on the tube, 60 Minutes ran on an alternate-week schedule with CBS News Hour, moving to Sundays (all by itself) in early 1972. 60 Minutes debuted with two correspondents: Mike Wallace and Harry Reasoner. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 24 | "That's Life" premiers-A Broadway musical type TV show. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 26 | Hawaii Five-O debuts as an hourly program on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
- 1969
| Feb 05 | For one of the few times in television history, a scheduled series (usually 13 or 26 weeks of shows) turned into a one-night wonder. ABC-TV premiered Turn On, a show in the NBC Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In mold. TV critics called the show, “offbeat and distasteful.” The show never aired again. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 07 | Tom Jones, ‘The Prince of Wales’, premiered on ABC-TV after the network acquired the rights to the singing sensation’s popular United Kingdom show. The network paid a British production company an estimated $20 million for those rights. And they cried in one of Tom’s hankies all the way to the bank. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 09 | A young lady named Roslyn Kind made her quiet TV debut this night on The Ed Sullivan Show. Ed said she’s “...America’s teenager who wasn’t protesting or playing a guitar.” She only appeared once. Her sister appeared many times. Roslyn Kind is the sister of Barbra Streisand. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 26 | Marcus Welby, M.D., a TV movie, was seen on ABC. It later became a television series. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 03 | "The Smother's Brothers" TV show is canceled by CBS for their controversial political comedy. | Ref: 62 |
| Apr 04 | CBS Television cancels Smothers Brothers, probably for anti Vietnam War parodies. | Ref: 10 |
| May 23 | BBC orders 13 episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus. | Ref: 5 |
| May 26 | Dick Cavett began a prime time summer TV series three nights a week on ABC. | Ref: 4 |
| May 27 | Jerry Lewis Show second run, last airs on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 15 | "Hee Haw" with Roy Clark & Buck Owens premiers on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 29 | To compete with Johnny Carson (NBC) and Joey Bishop (ABC), CBS-TV presented Merv Griffin on late-night TV. Johnny ruled -- staying on top for almost 23 years to come. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 21 | Last episode of "The Prisoner" airs. | Ref: 51 |
| Sep 26 | The Brady Bunch, a typical 1970s scrubbed-face American family sitcom first airs. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 29 | "Love American Style," premiers on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 05 | "Monty Python's Flying Circus" made its debut on BBC Television. | Ref: 70 |
| Oct 15 | Madison Square Garden TV Network begins (Rangers vs North Stars). | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 26 | Charles Kuralt heads off "on the road". He will wear out seven mobile homes and log over one million miles | Ref: 62 |
| Nov 10 | “Can you tell me how to get ... how to get to Sesame Street?” The classic, Sesame Street debuted on 170 Public Broadcasting stations and 20 commercial outlets. Created by the Children’s Television Workshop, the show starred endearing characters including Gordon, Susan, Bob, Bert, Ernie, the Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch and, of course, Big Bird! | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 17 | An estimated 50 million TV viewers watched singer Tiny Tim marry his fiancee, Miss Vicky, on NBC's "Tonight Show." | Ref: 5 |
- 1970
| Jan 04 | Walter Cronkite ends hosting weekly documentary. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 05 | The ABC daytime drama, All My Children, premiers. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 15 | The Bob Hope Christmas Show is the 9th highest rated non-series show with an audience of 46.6%. | Ref: 34 |
| Jan 21 | ABC-TV presented The Johnny Cash Show in prime time. Previously, the show had been a summer replacement. The regular season series was a big boost for country music. Johnny wore black in the all-color show, however, like he still does today. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 07 | "Hollywood Palace" last airs on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 21 | Pathet Lao conquerors Xieng Khuang & Muong Suy. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 30 | Television dramas were added to the daytime lineups of both ABC and NBC. The Best of Everything was first seen on ABC as was A World Apart. On NBC, the dramas, Somerset and Another World, debuted. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 22 | Mike Dann resigned as senior vice-president of CBS to join the Children’s Television Workshop, the Sesame Street people. Dann became the first major commercial TV industry leader to join forces with a non-commercial operation such as the CTW. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 29 | NBC presented an evening of exciting and entertaining TV with the award-winning Liza Minnelli Special. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 01 | Hanna Barbera's primetime animated series "Where's Huddles? | Ref: 73 |
| Jul 30 | Chet Huntley retires from NBC, ends "Huntley-Brinkley Report". | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 31 | Chet Huntley retires from NBC, ending 'Huntley-Brinkley Report' (No more "Goodnight, David" "Goodnight, Chet") | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 01 | The final episode of "I Dream of Jeannie" airs on NBC-TV. | |
| Sep 11 | The last of the Get Smart series on CBS-TV was aired. The show, featuring dimwitted, secret agent Maxwell Smart, played by Don Adams, and his sidekick, Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), aired on NBC in 1965 before moving to CBS. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 19 | "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" debuts on CBS-TV. | Ref: 70 |
| Sep 27 | After 22 years on television, the curtain closed on The Original Amateur Hour on CBS. | Ref: 4 |
-
| Oct 24 | Nancy Walker creates Ida Morgenstein role on Mary Tyler Moore Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 04 | Frank Reynolds was seen co-hosting the ABC Evening News with Howard K. Smith for the final time this night. Reynolds commented on the switch to a new co-host (Harry Reasoner) saying, “Due to circumstances beyond my control, the unemployment statistics rose yesterday.” | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 06 | Harry Reasoner, who had left CBS News weeks before, joined Howard K. Smith for The ABC Evening News with Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner. The Smith-Reasoner team lasted almost five years. | Ref: 4 |
- 1971
| Jan 10 | "Masterpiece Theatre" premiered on PBS with host Alistair Cooke introducing a drama series, "The First Churchills." | Ref: 70 |
| Jan 12 | The ground-breaking situation comedy "All in the Family" debuts on CBS-TV. Carroll O’Connor starred as Archie Bunker, Rob Reiner as Meathead, Sally Struthers as Gloria and Jean Stapleton as Edith. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 21 | "Alias Smith & Jones" premieres on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 09 | Probably first gay theme TV episode All in the Family. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 14 | Movie "Ben Hur" first shown on television. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 23 | James Franciscus starred in Longstreet, a made-for-TV movie that became a series in the fall of 1971. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 14 | Barbra Streisand appears on "The Burt Bacharach Special" on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 15 | CBS television announces it was dropping "The Ed Sullivan Show" from its program line-up after 23 years on the network. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 26 | William Conrad starred as Cannon on CBS-TV. It later became a television series. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 26 | "Benny Hill Show" tops TV ratings. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 02 | Sci-fi soap opera "Dark Shadows" concludes an almost 5 year run | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 01 | Ed Sullivan's final TV show | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 06 | Ed Sullivan show on CBS TV plays last performance after 22 years 11 1/2 months. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 06 | Karen and Richard Carpenter hosted the summer series, Make Your Own Kind of Music, on NBC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 01 | CBS presents Masterpiece Theatre's 6 Wives of Henry VIII. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 03 | The Lawrence Welk Show was seen for the last time on ABC-TV. ABC felt the show attracted “too old an audience ... not good for attracting advertisers.” Syndication allowed the champagne music to continue until 1982 as a weekly favorite for millions of people. Welk charted a half-dozen tunes on the pop music charts between 1956 and 1961, including the number one song, Calcutta, in 1960. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 04 | The Lawrence Welk Show was seen for the last time on ABC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 07 | After nine years and 216 shows, The Beverly Hillbillies was seen for the final time on CBS-TV. Not to weep for Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebson), Granny (Irene Ryan), Elly Mae (Donna Douglas), Jethro Bodine (Max Baer, Jr.), Mr. Drysdale (Raymond Bayley), Miss Hathaway (Nancy Kulp) or the rest of the Hillbillies’ crew, however. The show has been in syndication since it left the network. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 11 | The "Jackson Five" Saturday morning cartoon show premieres. | Ref: 73 |
| Sep 12 | "Lassie" is seen on CBS-TV for the last time. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 11 | Hugh Downs left the Today show and Concentration, “...to spend the next year or so just milling around.” He’d come back as a mainstay on ABC’s successful newsmagazine, 20/20, which he has hosted since the program’s second show. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 11 | Frank McGee becomes news anchor of the Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 19 | CBS airs "Homecoming A Christmas Story" (introducing the Waltons). | Ref: 5 |
- 1972
| Jan 08 | As of 1995, the 11th highest rated television show is this evening's episode of "All In The Family" with an average audience of 40.7%. | Ref: 34 |
| Jan 14 | Comedian Redd Foxx, whose last name was really Sanford, debuts on NBC-TV in Sanford & Son. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 22 | "Emergency" with Robert Fuller premieres on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 13 | The Merv Griffin Show, starring perennial game show and late-night TV host, singer and pianist, Merv Griffin, debuted in syndication for Metromedia Television. Joining Merv were sidekick, Arthur Treacher and Mort Lindsey and his orchestra. Griffin had a number one song with the Freddy Martin Orchestra in the 1940s. I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts launched him to fame and fortune. Griffin battled against Johnny Carson on CBS-TV late night. Merv lost. He also went against Joey Bishop over on ABC late night. Again, Merv lost; but won big in the Metromedia show; and in ownership of stations such as WPIX-TV in New York, WPOP Radio in Hartford, CT. Later, he devised Wheel of Fortune and the formula for the popular, syndicated show, Jeopardy; making him one of the richest entertainment moguls in the world. Griffin also owns hotels in Atlantic City, NJ and Beverly Hills. | Ref: 4 |
| May 18 | "Me & The Chimp" last airs on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 19 | NBC-TV presented The Midnight Special for the first time. John Denver was the host for the first show. Wolfman Jack was the show’s announcer. The Midnight Special proved to be a ratings success. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 14 | The family drama series "The Waltons" premiered on CBS. | Ref: 70 |
| Sep 16 | First TV series about mixed marriage-Bridgit Loves Bernie. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 16 | Penny Marshall appears on the CBS-TV premier of The Bob Newhart Show in "Fly Unfriendly Skies". | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 17 | Hit series M*A*S*H premieres on CBS-TV starring Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers. | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 08 | Cable programming begins with HBO | Ref: 62 |
| Nov 24 | A Friday night show that would compete head-to-head with NBC?s Midnight Special premiered. In Concert featured Chuck Berry, Alice Cooper, Blood Sweat and Tears, Seals and Crofts and Poco. Robert W. Morgan of KHJ, Los Angeles was the offstage announcer for the ABC-TV show that was staged before a live audience. In Concert was the creation of the guy who dreamed up the fictitious group The Archies and brought fame to The Monkees: rock promoter, Don Kirshner. (In Concert was aired as part of ABC-TV's Wide World of Entertainment.) | Ref: 4 |
- 1973
| Jan 15 | Gene Shalit joins the Today Show panel. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 16 | NBC presents 440th & final showing of "Bonanza". | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 18 | John Cleese's final episode on "Monty Python's Flying Circus" on BBC. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 21 | Leslie Nielsen appears on M*A*S*H in "Ringbanger". | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 28 | CBS-TV presented the first program of Barnaby Jones (a Quinn Martin Production). Lee Meriwether (Miss America 1955) played the detective’s lovely daughter-in-law assistant. Buddy Ebsen played the detective, Jones. Ebsen, who started in show biz back in the 1920s, was also selected to play the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, but had bowed out. And he shot the first film used in the animation tests for a Walt Disney character named Mortimer Mouse (aka Mickey Mouse). Ebsen is best known, however, for playing Jed Clampett on another CBS-TV series, The Beverly Hillbillies. “Weee doggies!” | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 28 | Ron Howard appears on M*AS*H in "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet". | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 02 | "Midnight Special" rock music show debuts on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 23 | Concentration, the longest-running game show in television history, starring Hugh Downs, left the air after 15 years on NBC. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 23 | After a 5½ year run, soap "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" ends. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 23 | First TV soap opera to focus on youth premieres on CBS "The Young and the Restless.” | Ref: 10 |
| Mar 26 | Soap opera "The Young and the Restless" premieres. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 26 | "Benny Hill Show" tops TV ratings. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 30 | Valerie Perrine becomes the first woman to bare her breasts in an American dramatic TV show, PBS's Steambath | Ref: 62 |
| May 04 | First TV network female nudity-Steambath (PBS)- Valerie Perrine. | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, last airs on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 28 | Exactly a year after their first date, TV’s Six Million Dollar Man, Lee Majors, married one of Charlie’s Angels, Farrah Fawcett. The new Farrah Fawcett-Majors was named one of the 10 most beautiful women on the campus of the University of TX. Farrah, famous for her blonde mane and brilliant smile, and Majors were divorced February 16, 1982. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 06 | After one of the biggest promotional blitzes in TV history, writer/reporter Sally Quinn joined Hughes Rudd as co-host of the CBS Morning News. Not long after her TV debut, Quinn found that she wasn’t suited so much for TV and went back to writing for The Washington Post. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 13 | Teri Garr appears on Bob Newhart Show in "Emily in for Carol". | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 15 | “From those of us working the late shift in Southern CA, sweet dreams.” Tom Snyder would use this phrase to close his late-night show, Tomorrow, which debuted on NBC-TV this night. Tom would yuk it up with some of TV’s most interesting chatter -- right after the Tonight show. NBC would later add critic Rona Barrett to the show. Tomorrow ran until January of 1982. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 20 | Mariette Hartley appears on Bob Newhart in "Have You Met Miss Dietz". | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 02 | "Barbra Streisand ...and Other Musical Instruments" airs on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 03 | Good Morning America premiers on ABC (David Hartman & Nancy Dussault). | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 17 | Teri Garr plays the role of a stripper on "The Nurse". | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 24 | Following over two years of retirement, Frank Sinatra went back to work again with a TV special on NBC titled, Ol' Blue Eyes is Back. Despite the fact that the show finished third in the ratings (in a three-show race), at least one critic called the program, 'The best popular music special of the year.' | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 06 | Sally Quinn, writer for The Washington Post, author, and co-host of CBS Morning News, left the program after only three months, never to return to television. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 09 | "Marshall Efron's Illustrated, Simplified and Painless Sunday School" first aired over CBS television. This religious series was broadcast on Sunday mornings until August 1977. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 19 | Johnny Carson pulled a good one before a nationwide late-night audience on NBC. Carson started a fake toilet-paper scare. In his Tonight Show monologue, he told his huge audience that a Wisconsin congressman had warned that toilet paper was disappearing from supermarket shelves. Toilet paper soon became a scarce commodity in many areas of the United States after the gag. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 23 | "The Young and the Restless" premiers on TV. | Ref: 5 |
- 1974
| Jan 05 | Raul Julia appears on Bob Newhart Show in "Oh, Brother". | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 06 | "Upstairs Downstairs" premiers, a serial TV program taking the Belamy household from 1903-1930 in four seasons | Ref: 62 |
| Jan 11 | ABC airs final episode of "Love, American Style". | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 15 | "Happy Days" begins an 11 year run on ABC -TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 18 | "The $6 Million Man" starring Lee Majors premieres on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 01 | "Good Times" (spinoff from "Maude") premieres on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 08 | "Good Times," debuts on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 08 | Soap opera "The Secret Storm" ends a 20 year run. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 23 | Teri Garr appears on Bob Newhart Show in "Confessions of an Orth". | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 12 | Wonder Woman, the TV movie, came to ABC-TV, starring ... are you ready??? Cathy Lee Crosby. In November 1975, another Wonder Woman TV movie aired starring Lynda Carter. Eventually, after a series of specials, Wonder Woman became a regular CBS-TV show, still starring Lynda Carter in the title role. Wonder Woman’s real name, for those who have lost sleep wondering about such trivia, was Yeoman Diana Prince. As a bonus, Wonder Girl, Diana’s kid sister Druscilla, was played by Debra Winger. How about that? | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 28 | A streaker (i.e.: someone running around naked), ran onto the set of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. The clever NBC censors decided to blackout the lower half of the TV screen on the videotape to prevent an ‘X’ rating. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 22 | Barbara Walters becomes news co-anchor of the Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 29 | Phil Donahue’s TV show was on the move. Donahue was moving to Chicago, IL, where it would remain until 1985. The show was originally based in Dayton, OH. Following more than a decade in the Windy City, the show again moved, this time to New York City. During its stay in Chicago, Donahue earned nine Emmy Awards. | Ref: 4 |
| May 24 | After nine years on TV, the last Dean Martin Show was seen on NBC. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 27 | NBC-TV removed Dinah’s Place from its daytime programming roster. The move brought Dinah Shore’s 23-year association with the Peacock Network to a close. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 29 | Jim Hartz was named to join Barbara Walters as co-host of the Today show on NBC. Hartz had been the original host of the popular morning TV show. Others who have hosted the show which has aired since 1952 include Dave Garroway, John Chancellor, Hugh Downs, Frank McGee, Tom Brokaw, Bryant Gumbel, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 30 | The Brady Bunch, a typical 1970s scrubbed-face American family sitcom which first aired on TV Sept. 26, 1969, came to an end on this day. This original series starred Robert Reed as the architect-widower with three sons (played by Barry Williams as Greg, Christopher Knight as Peter and Mike Lookinland as Bobby), who married a widow (Florence Henderson). The new Mrs. Brady had three daughters (played by Maureen McCormick as Marcia, Eve Plumb as Jan and Susan Olsen as Cindy). Alice (Ann B. Davis) played a housekeeper. | Ref: 4 |
-
| Oct 19 | The late-night TV market welcomed Lloyd Dobins, Garrick Utley and Linda Ellerbee to the aptly named, Weekend news program, which debuted on NBC this day. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 27 | ABC hit pay dirt this day with the first televised showing of the box office hit, The Poseidon Adventure. The movie featured a cast of notables, including Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Jack Albertson, Carol Lynley, Red Buttons and Roddy McDowall, in an upside down ship. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 28 | Rhoda Morgenstern made TV history as she married Joe Girard on Rhoda on CBS. The show was a spin-off from the hugely successful The Mary Tyler Moore Show. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 16 | NBC-TV began a two-night showing of the award-winning motion picture, The Godfather, starring Marlon Brando. The film represented the highest price paid for a movie shown on TV. NBC paid Paramount Pictures $10 million for the showing of the picture, a deal Paramount “...just couldn’t refuse.” | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 05 | "Monty Python's Flying Circus" last shown on BBC. | Ref: 5 |
- 1975
| Jan 06 | "Wheel Of Fortune," debuts on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 06 | "AM America" premieres on ABC-TV with Bill Beutel as host. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 18 | "The Jeffersons" spin-off from "All in the Family" premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 23 | Barney Miller makes his debut on ABC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 24 | "Hot l Baltimore" situation comedy premieres on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 17 | NBC-TV paid a whopping $5,000,000 for the rights to show Gone with the Wind just one time. It was the top price paid for a single opportunity to show a film on television. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 07 | TV soap opera "Ryan's Hope" premieres. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 01 | "Gunsmoke"goes off the air after 19 years 11 3/4 months of continuous broadcast. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 26 | Tom Brokaw becomes news anchor of the Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 03 | Actor David Hartman became coanchor of ABC’s Good Morning America. Hartman’s co-host was actress Nancy Dussault. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 22 | Dr. Zhivago appeared on TV for the first time. The production, including Somewhere My Love, had earned $93 million from theatre tickets over ten years. NBC paid $4 million for the broadcast rights. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 16 | The 1st broadcast of "One Day at a Time" on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
- 1976
| Jan 01 | Talk about ‘N’o Brainers: NBC Television, decided it had nothing better to do, so they debuted a new abstract capital ‘N’ -- a corporate symbol that replaced the familiar peacock logo after 20 years. The cost of the new NBC logo was estimated to be between $750,000 and $1 million. After much ridicule, it took two more years before they got the really bad news. Nebraska Public Television went after NBC for copying its logo; which it had broadcast for several years. The cost... $35 dollars. NBC paid the costs and the ‘N’ stayed around for a short time before being replaced by... the peacock. NBC shipped the abstract goofiness to Nebraska Public TV and told them to put it to good use. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 05 | "MacNeil-Lehrer Report" premiers on PBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 14 | "The Bionic Woman" with Lindsay Wagner debuts on ABC (later NBC). | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 16 | "Donny & Marie" [Osmond] musical variety show premieres on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 27 | "Laverne & Shirley" spin-off from "Happy Days" premiers on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 01 | "Rich Man, Poor Man" mini-series premieres on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 01 | Sonny & Cher resume TV show, despite real-life divorce. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 02 | "Honeymooners Second Honeymoon" airs on TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 02 | "Rich Little Show" debuts on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 22 | Barbara Walters becomes the first female nightly news anchor on network television. | Ref: 2 |
| May 11 | Last broadcast of "Marcus Welby, MD" on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 07 | The NBC Nightly News, with John Chancellor and David Brinkley, aired for the first time. The partnership lasted until Brinkley moved to ABC News. Chancellor then held the lone, anchor spot until retiring. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 14 | "Gong Show" premieres on TV (syndication) | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 30 | Tom Brokaw becomes news anchor of the Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 04 | TV audiences watched as Barbara Walters joined Harry Reasoner at the anchor desk of the ABC Evening News for the first time. Walters made the switch with a million-dollar paycheck, becoming the first woman to anchor a network evening newscast. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 30 | Jane Pauley becomes news co-anchor of the Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 07 | Gone With the Wind was aired (over two nights) on NBC-TV. The showing was the highest-rated TV show in history with an audience of 47.7%. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 08 | Gone With the Wind was aired (over two nights) on NBC-TV. This second night showing was the second highest-rated TV show in history (to that date) with an audience of 47.4%. | Ref: 34 |
| Nov 27 | "Laverne & Shirley" spin-off from "Happy Days" premieres on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 17 | WTCG-TV, Atlanta, Georgia, owned by Ted Turner, changed call letters to WTBS, and was uplinked via satellite, to become the first commercial TV station to cover the entire U.S. WTBS started on four cable systems, available in 24,000 homes. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 18 | "Wonder Woman" debuts on ABC. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 22 | The last deal was made as production ended for Let’s Make A Deal. TV’s big dealer, Monty Hall, gave away an estimated $35 million in prizes and over 20,000 kisses during the 3,200 shows. Most of the prizes were behind door number... We forget. We do remember that Jay Stewart was the announcer and Carol Merrill was the spokesmodel. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 28 | Genie Francis joins "General Hospital" as Laura Vining. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 31 | TV soap "Somerset" ends 6 year run. | Ref: 5 |
- 1977
| Jan 23 | Alex Haley's Roots begins a record-breaking eight-night broadcast on ABC. | Ref: 2 |
| Jan 27 | 1st broadcast of "Roots" mini-series on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 28 | Roots, Part VI, is the 14th highest rated non-series show with an audience of 45.9%. | Ref: 34 |
| Jan 30 | 8th (final) part of "Roots" is most-watched entertainment show ever with an audience of 51.1%. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 02 | Future Tonight Show host Jay Leno debuts with host Johnny Carson. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 15 | The first episode of "Eight is Enough" is aired on ABC-TV. Mark Hamill starred in the opening show and, for a very few shows, as son, David. He left to star in the motion picture, Star Wars as Luke Skywalker, gaining considerable notoriety from the George Lucas film epic. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 18 | The staff of WJM-TV had a going-away party, as the last episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show was broadcast. Everyone was fired except the inept Ted Baxter. The show had been a popular hit for seven years. Syndication continues to keep Mary, Lou, Murray, Ted, Rhoda and the rest of the crew going with what was called “the best television of the 1970s.” | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 19 | The last episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show is broadcast. | Ref: 4 |
| May 25 | "Brady Bunch Hour" last airs on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 03 | "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" was seen for the last time on CBS-TV. | |
| Sep 13 | First TV viewer discretion warning-Soap. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 16 | 90 minute pilot of "Logan's Run" premiers on TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 23 | Cheryl Ladd replaces Farrah Fawcett on Charlie's Angels. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 24 | The Love Boat set sail -- on ABC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
- 1978
| Jan 15 | Super Bowl XII is the 7th highest rated non-series show with an audience of 47.2%. | Ref: 34 |
| Jan 20 | Fred Silverman quit as head honcho of programming for ABC-TV. He accepted an offer to be president of NBC. Silverman had developed shows like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Charlie’s Angels and Three’s Company to earn ABC its highest ratings ever. His magic, however, didn’t work as well at NBC. Silverman’s Waterloo, so to speak, was a most expensive TV bomb: Super Train, starring Steve Lawrence. Grant Tinker replaced Silverman and took the Peacock Network to number one in a few years. Silverman went on to become one of Hollywood’s top, independent producers. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 28 | "Fantasy Island" starring Ricardo Montalban premieres on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 30 | Mutual Broadcasting Network begins airing Larry King Show on radio. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 02 | First broadcast of "Dallas" on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 22 | Rutle's "All You Need is Cash" is shown on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 27 | Rutles "All You Need is Cash" is shown on British TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 30 | Ellen Corby returned to Walton’s Mountain more than a year after she left in an ambulance, the victim of a stroke. The episode was called, Grandma Comes Home. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 02 | TV show "Dallas" premiers on CBS (as a 5 week mini-series) | Ref: 5 |
| May 08 | ABC TV airs "The Stars Salute Israel at 30" | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 06 | The ABC-TV newsmagazine 20/20 debuted. Producer Bob Shanks, realizing that the first show was a disaster, fired the co-hosts, magazine editor Harold Hayes and Australian art critic Robert Hughes. The next week, Shanks tapped former Today and Concentration host Hugh Downs, formerly of NBC, to take over the show. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 14 | French TV announced a rating of "0" for a program about an Armenian's woman's 40th birthday, (comp: Napoleonic drama-67%, Knockout-33%). | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 12 | Situation comedy "Taxi" premiers on ABC television. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 14 | The first show of the TV series Mork & Mindy, starring the irrepressible Robin Williams as Mork and actress Pam Dawber as Mindy, aired on ABC-TV. Mork had made an earlier (February, 1978) appearance, landing on earth during an episode of Happy Days. Na nu, na nu. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 14 | First TV movie from a TV series-"Rescue from Gilligan's Island". | Ref: 5 |
- 1979
| Jan 08 | Today Show gets a new theme song. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 21 | Super Bowl XIII is the 8th highest rated non-series show with an audience of 47.1%. | Ref: 34 |
| Jan 26 | "The Dukes of Hazzard" premiers on CBS-TV. | Ref: 3 |
| Feb 04 | "Co-Ed Fever", TV Comedy, debut & cancelled that outing on CBS. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 07 | "Supertrain", TV Anthology, Superbomb of 1979, debuts on NBC. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 09 | ABC airs "Heroes of Rock N Roll" special. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 15 | Temple City Kazoo Orchestra appears on Mike Douglas Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 18 | Miniseries "Roots The Next Generations" premieres on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 26 | The situation comedy Flatbush debuted on CBS-TV. It featured the exploits of five, recent, high-school graduates living in a middle-class, Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn’s Flatbush area. The ethnic stereotypes offended Brooklyn’s Borough president. He demanded that the series be removed from the air before it gave Brooklyn a bad name. (As you recall, Brooklyn, in 1979, was known as the garden spot of the U.S.) CBS beat the prez to it, however, and canceled the show after 3 episodes -- before Flatbush gave the network a bad name. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 04 | 200th episode of "All in the Family". | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 08 | 204th & final episode of "All in the Family". | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 18 | "Real People" premieres on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 20 | Johnny Carson was said to be leaving The Tonight Show. Newspapers around the country gave details about why the comedian and late-night host was said to be unhappy after 17 years on the show. Guess what? More moola, more vacation time and a four-day week (not working Mondays) was enough for the ‘Great Carsoni’ to hang around NBC for another 12 years. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 03 | Johnny Carson, the Tonight Show host, graced the cover of the Burbank, CA telephone directory. You know you’ve made it when you’re on the cover of the phone book. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 07 | The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) made its cable TV debut. | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 08 | A new late-night news program debuted on ABC-TV. The program, The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage, was expected to be on the schedule only temporarily, according to ABC News chief Roone Arledge. Instead, the program, with Ted Koppel hosting, evolved into Nightline in March of 1980. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 15 | ABC-TV announces it would broadcast nightly specials on Iran hostage. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 30 | Ted Koppel becomes anchor of nightly news on Iranian Hostages (ABC). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 27 | "Knots Landing" premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | "Knots Landing" premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
- 1980
| Jan 10 | Last broadcast of "Rockford Files" on NBC. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 20 | Super Bowl XIV is the 12th highest rated non-series show with an audience of 46.3%. | Ref: 34 |
| Feb 01 | Soap opera "Love of Life" ends a 28 year run. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 14 | Walter Cronkite announces his retirement from the CBS Evening News. Dan Rather is the new anchor. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 10 | Willard Scott becomes the weathercaster on the Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 24 | ABC's nightly Iran Hostage crisis program renamed "Nightline". | Ref: 5 |
| May 06 | NBC came to terms with its superstar, Johnny Carson, on this day. Johnny signed a new three-year contract for approximately $5-million a year. Carson also reduced his Tonight Show to one hour from ninety minutes and cut his work week to four nights. Plus, he got billing in the show's title, as it became The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 01 | Ted Turner's Cable News Network begins broadcasting. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 17 | Roger Mudd began working as chief Washington correspondent for NBC. Mudd had left CBS after being passed over as Walter Cronkite’s replacement on The CBS Evening News. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 17 | WHHM Television in Washington, D.C., becomes the first African-American public-broadcasting television station. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 19 | CBS TV bans Calvin Klein's jeans ad featuring Brooke Shields. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 21 | The largest TV audience ever, an estimated 82 million people, watched as Sue Ellen’s sister, Kristin Shepard, shot J.R. Ewing on Dallas. The jilted mistress was seen holding the smoking gun after a summer of viewers asking that haunting question, “Who Shot J.R.?” Eighty percent of all viewers watched the show. As of 1995, this is the 2nd highest rated television show with an average audience of 53.3%. | Ref: 34 |
| Dec 01 | Mel Harris appears on MASH in "Cementing Relationships". | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 08 | "Bravo" network premieres on cable TV. | Ref: 5 |
- 1981
| Jan 05 | "Nightline" with Ted Koppel extended from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 12 | "Dynasty", a prime time soap opera inspired by Dallas, starring Joan Collins, premieres on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 15 | "Hill Street Blues" premieres on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 06 | "Brady Brides" debuts on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 06 | Walter Cronkite, the dean of American television newscasters, said “And that’s the way it is” for the final time, as he closed the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. An audience estimated at 17,000,000 viewers saw ‘the most trusted man in America’ sign-off. Cronkite retired after more than 30 years in broadcasting. He was replaced by Dan Rather at the anchor desk. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 09 | Dan Rather makes his debut as principal anchorman of "The CBS Evening News." | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 22 | RCA put its Selectravision laser disc players on the market. Soon, the product was called “the Edsel of the entertainment field.” The units cost $500 and the videodisks about $15 each. The combination failed to catch the consumer’s fancy. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 23 | CBS Television announced plans to reduce Captain Kangaroo to a 30-minute show each weekday morning. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 20 | Final performance of TV show "Soap" airs. | Ref: 5 |
| May 15 | SCTV Network 90, sequel to Second City Television debut on NBC. | Ref: 5 |
| May 15 | "Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" airs. | Ref: 5 |
| May 30 | "Nightline" extends from 4 nights to 5 nights a week (Friday). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 30 | Grant Tinker, head of MTM Enterprises, was named to succeed Fred Silverman as president of NBC-TV. Silverman was known as a programming wonder-boy in previous successes with CBS and ABC but would find it rough-going at the Peacock Network. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 18 | Jerry Lewis appears on "Donahue" to defend Telethons. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 19 | Charlie’s Angels, starring Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and the voice of John Forsythe as Charlie, was seen for the last time on ABC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 31 | The 30-year contract between ‘Mr. Television’, Milton Berle, and NBC-TV expired. Uncle Miltie had received $6 million for NOT being on the air since his show, The Texaco Star Theatre, went off the air in the mid-1950s. NBC held Berle to the contract to keep him from appearing on competing networks. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 03 | David Brinkley ended an illustrious 38-year career with NBC News this day. ABC had offered him an opportunity too good to refuse. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 04 | Newscaster David Brinkley is released by NBC | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 07 | Judge Wapner & the People's Court premier on TV | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 14 | Entertainment Tonight premiers on TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 04 | Olympic star Bruce Jenner added the title of actor to his resume. He joined singer Harry Belafonte in their first dramatic roles on NBC-TV’s Grambling’s White Tiger. The story line involved Jenner as an object of reverse discrimination upon his enrollment at the famous all-black southern college. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 17 | Luke Spencer married Laura Baldwin in what was called "the wedding of the year" on the TV serial General Hospital. An audience of 14 million viewers watched as vows were exchanged on the ABC program. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 04 | "Falcon Crest" premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 12 | "Dynasty", a prime time soap opera inspired by Dallas, starring Joan Collins, premieres on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 31 | CNN Headline News debuts. | Ref: 5 |
- 1982
| Jan 04 | Some say this was one of broadcasting’s strangest days, as Bryant Gumbel moved from NBC Sports to the anchor desk. He joined Jane Pauley as co-host of the Today show on NBC. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 04 | Chris Wallace becomes co-anchor of the Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 07 | "Fame" premieres on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 24 | Super Bowl XVI is the 2nd highest rated non-series show with an audience of 49.1%. | Ref: 34 |
| Feb 01 | "Late Night with David Letterman" premiers on NBC TV. | Ref: 70 |
| Feb 02 | "Late Night with David Letterman" premieres on NBC. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 11 | ABC-TV’s presentation of The Winds of War concluded on this night. The 18-hour miniseries cost $40 million to produce and was the most-watched television program in history at the time -- topping another ABC presentation, Alex Haley’s Roots. An audience estimated at 140 million people watched one or more nights of the program. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 25 | Final episode of "The Lawrence Welk Show" airs. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 07 | NCAA Tournament Selection televised live for first time. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 12 | PLO chief Yassar Arafat appears on "Nightline". | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 28 | 12th Easter Seal Telethon raises $19,500,000. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 29 | The oldest soap opera on network television, Search for Tomorrow, changed from CBS to NBC. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 03 | John Chancellor stepped down as anchor of the The NBC Nightly News. Roger Mudd and Tom Brokaw assumed roles as coanchors. | Ref: 4 |
| May 10 | Elliott Gould made his dramatic television debut after 30 movies in 17 years. He starred in The Rules of Marriage which aired on CBS-TV. Elizabeth Montgomery, formerly of Bewitched, co-starred with Gould in the film about marriage and divorce. | Ref: 4 |
| May 20 | TV's Barney Miller was seen for the last time in its original network run on ABC-TV. Hal Linden as Barney, Abe Vigoda as Fish and a talented cast continue to bring the fictional 12th Precinct to TV screens through syndication. | Ref: 4 |
| May 28 | Leonard Maltin's first appearance on Entertainment Tonight. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 27 | John Palmer becomes news anchor of the Today Show | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 30 | The gang down at the Boston Beacon Street neighborhood bar called Cheers brought their antics into our homes beginning this night. Cheers was the place “Where Everyone Knows Your Name” as the theme song, written by Judy Hart Angelo and Gary Portnoy, told us. And we got to know everyone’s name like they were family. The original cast included owner/bartender Sam Malone, played by Ted Danson, his helper Ernie ‘Coach Pantusso’ (Nicholas Colasanto), waitresses Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) and Carla Tortelli LeBec (Rhea Perlman), and the regulars -- Norm Peterson (George Wendt) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger). Cheers, created by Glen and Les Charles and James Burrows, became an American institution and was still the number one TV show when it ended its eleven-year run on August 19, 1993. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 08 | The Federal Communications Commission approved the move of WOR-TV, Channel 9 in NY City to lovely Secaucus, New Jersey. The move, complete with new call letters WWOR, gave the Garden State its first VHF television station ... and a Super Station at that! | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 31 | TV soap "The Doctors" ends 19 year run. | Ref: 5 |
- 1983
-
| Jan 23 | The A-Team debuts on NBC-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 23 | Cerebral Palsy telethon raises $14,700,000. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 30 | Super Bowl XVII is the 3rd highest rated non-series show with an audience of 48.6%. | Ref: 34 |
| Feb 28 | Final TV episode of "MASH" airs (CBS); record 125 million watch a 2 1/2 hour special. As of 1995, this is the highest rated television show with an average audience of 60.2%. | Ref: 34 |
| Mar 07 | TNN (The Nashville Network) begins on Cable TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 27 | 13th Easter Seal Telethon. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | "Nightline" expands from ½ hour to a full hour. | Ref: 5 |
| May 10 | "Laverne & Shirley" last airs on ABC-TV | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 26 | "Loving" premiers on TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 29 | "Friday Night Videos" premiers on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 05 | The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on PBS (Public Broadcasting System) became the first hourlong network news show. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 26 | Filmation's "He Man and the Masters of the Universe" premiered. | Ref: 73 |
| Nov 20 | 100 million watch ABC-TV movie "The Day After," about nuclear war. It is the 13th highest rated non-series show with an audience of 46.0%. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 25 | First live telecast of Christmas Parade. | Ref: 5 |
- 1984
| Jan 04 | "Night Court" starring Harry Anderson premiers on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 09 | “WHERE’S THE BEEF?” Clara Peller was first seen by TV viewers this day in the famous and successful commercial campaign for Wendy’s fast-food chain. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 09 | "TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes" premieres on NBC TV (Whoops). | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 10 | Clara Peller first asks, "Where's the Beef?". | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 13 | TV anchor Christine Craft wins $325,000 in her case against KMBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 22 | Super Bowl XVII is the 10th highest rated non-series show with an audience of 46.4%. | Ref: 34 |
| Feb 09 | NBC Entertainment president, Brandon Tartikoff, gave an interviewer the "10 Commandments for TV Programmers. Number 1: Never schedule a show because you like it. Number 10: All hits are flukes and never forget it!" | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 09 | "TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes" premieres on NBC TV (Whoops). | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 19 | "Kate & Allie" premieres. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 01 | 14th Easter Seal Telethon raises $24,600,000. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 04 | Bob Bell retired as Bozo the Clown on WGN-TV in Chicago, IL. Bell was an institution in the Windy City since making his first appearance in 1960. Pinto Colvig was the original Bozo. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 21 | "Nightline" reverts back from 1 hour to ½ hour. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 27 | The Federal Communications Commission moved to deregulate US commercial TV by lifting most programming requirements and ending day-part restrictions on advertising. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 26 | NBC took a giant step back to the way things were done in the 1950s. NBC started shooting 15-minute episodes of Punky Brewster to use when football games spilled over into the Punky time. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 30 | Soap opera "Santa Barbara," premieres on NBC. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 01 | Singer Jermaine Jackson made a guest appearance on the TV soap opera, As the World Turns. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 23 | South Fork Ranch, the home of the fictitious Ewing clan of the CBS-TV show "Dallas", was sold. The ranch, a 200-acre spread near Dallas, was to be transformed from a tourist site into a hotel, according to the new owners. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 23 | The gang from the PBS series Sesame Street was seen in a feature film. The plot of the movie, starring Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, revolved around Big Bird leaving Sesame Street and joining a family of dodo birds. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 27 | Diane Sawyer joins "60 Minutes". | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 03 | Jerry Lewis smashed all previous records for charity fund-raising. A total of $32,074,566 was pledged on the annual Labor Day Telethon for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 06 | Today Show begins live remote telecasts from Moscow. | Ref: 5 |
-
| Sep 20 | NBC-TV debutes "The Cosby Show". | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 28 | Saluting his 34 years in television, Bob “If There’s an Honor I’ll Be There” Hope showed outtakes of his years in television on (where else?) NBC. When he began in television’s infancy, back in 1950, Hope said he got into the new medium “...because the contract was so delicious, I couldn’t turn it down.” | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 23 | NBC airs BBC footage of Ethiopian famine. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 09 | Donna Reed joined the cast of Dallas as J.R. Ewing’s new mamma, on CBS-TV. This was Reed’s first return to television since her own successful show ended in 1966. However radiantly beautiful, Reed would not score well with viewers who had become attached to Barbara Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie. Reed was written out of the script and Bel Geddes returned in 1985. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 22 | Fred Rogers of PBS’ Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood presented a sweater, knitted by his mother, to the Smithsonian Institution as “a symbol of warmth, closeness and caring,” according to museum officials. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 28 | Leaving Chicago behind, Phil Donahue headed to NY for his daily talk show that reached an estimated 7 million people each day. To that time, Phil and actress-wife Marlo Thomas had commuted for four years to be together in matrimony. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 28 | TV soap "The Edge of Night" ends a 28 year run. | Ref: 5 |
- 1985
| Jan 01 | VH-1 made its broadcasting debut. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 07 | Dayton, Ohio’s Phil Donahue, broadcast the first of his long-running talkfests from New York City, his new home base. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 14 | Former Miss America Phyllis George joined Bill Kurtis as host of The CBS Morning News. It was a bomb. Kurtis went back to WBBM-TV in Chicago as a news anchor and Phyllis stuck around a little longer, encouraging people to give hugs, until she was axed. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 20 | Super Bowl XIX is the 10th highest rated non-series show with an audience of 46.4%. | Ref: 34 |
| Jan 21 | Actor, Patrick Duffy, announced plans to leave the CBS show Dallas at the end of the TV season. He asked that the character of Bobby Ewing not be replaced by another actor. Good thing. Bobby showed up in the new season, miraculously rising from the dead; taking a shower; after being in a tremendous car crash the previous season. And Duffy returned to continue in the role of Bobby Ewing through the final episode in 1991. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 08 | The Dukes of Hazzard ended its 6-1/2 year run on CBS television. The series was credited with using more stunt men than any other TV series in history. The show had used as many as eight cars per episode when the crash sequences got complicated. Waylon Jennings did the theme song, The Dukes of Hazzard (Good Ol’ Boys). | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 12 | Johnny Carson surprised his audience by shaving the beard he had been sporting on The Tonight Show. Carson quipped: “I had to do it when a little old lady said that she had confused me for one of the Smith Brothers.” There was silence from the studio audience, until Johnny timed it perfectly by saying, "You know, the cough drop guys." Uproarious laughter. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 16 | Telly “Who Loves Ya Baby!” Savalas brought his Kojak character back to network television after an absence of seven years. The show, Kojak: The Belarus File, was a special on CBS-TV, the network that launched Kojak to stardom. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 19 | BBC Television launches landmark soap opera Eastenders. | Ref: 10 |
| Feb 23 | Breaking with tradition, the TV show, Gimme a Break, was broadcast live before a studio audience. It was the first TV sitcom to be seen live since television’s Golden Age in the 1950s. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 28 | Bill Cosby broke more records with The Cosby Show on NBC-TV. The program was the highest-rated program of any network series since 1983. It was also the first show in over a decade to nab the top Nielsen Ratings from the Academy Awards presentation (seen the same night). The Cosby Show became the highest-rated series since 1978 when Mork and Mindy, starring Robin Williams and Pam Dawber, premiered on ABC. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 31 | 15th Easter Seal Telethon raises $27,400,000 | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 31 | A reunion of stars lit up Beverly Hills, California, as ABC-TV celebrated the 200th episode of The Love Boat. The network also honored the 1,000th guest star: Lana Turner. She was joined by Mary Martin, who was the 700th guest star to set sail on the show. Ginger Rogers was the 300th, Robert Guillaume #500 and we could go on but we won’t. The Love Boat had as a crew: Captain Merrill Stubing (Gavin MacLeod), Dr. Adam Bricker (Bernie Kopell), Yeoman-Purser Burl ‘Gopher’ Smith (Fred Grandy, who went on to become a U.S. Congressman), Bartender Isaac Washington (Ted Lange) and Photographer Ashley Covington Evans (Ted McGinley). Singer Jack Jones provided the vocal to the opening theme song and Ernie Anderson was the distinctive voice for the millions of network promos before each show. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 07 | First live telecast of Easter Parade. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 17 | Many fans of the TV soap opera, Days of Our Lives, lined up in Hollywood, CA in hopes of getting the hottest tickets in town -- for the wedding of Bo and Hope on the popular soap. It was the first soap wedding open to fans. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 23 | This was a big day for the flamboyant Liberace. Lee, as he was called by those close to him, first appeared on the TV soap opera, Another World. The sequined and well-furred pianist appeared as a fan of Felicia Gallant, a romance novelist. Later in the day, Liberace was a guest video jockey on MTV! | Ref: 4 |
| May 18 | First remote location for "Nightline" (South Africa). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 03 | After five years, the characters of Nancy and Chris Hughes returned to As the World Turns. CBS-TV brought the couple back to the daytime serial to add more “homespun values” to the show. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 16 | The last episode of the television show "Dukes of Hazard" airs concluding a successful five-year run. | |
| Sep 13 | John Williams introduces the new Today Show theme. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 01 | National Coalition against violence on TV says the average U.S. child will see 50000 attempted murders on TV by age 16. | Ref: 62 |
| Nov 01 | Nostalgia Television begins on cable. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 01 | Noraly Beyer becomes Netherlands' first black TV newscaster. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 29 | Phil Donahue and a Soviet radio commentator hosted the ‘Citizens’ Summit’ via satellite TV. It was a way for people from the U.S. and the former Soviet Union to question each other about politics and policies. | Ref: 4 |
- 1986
| Jan 19 | Cerebral Palsy telethon. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 26 | Super Bowl XX is the 4th highest rated non-series show with an audience of 48.3%. | Ref: 34 |
| Mar 09 | 16th Easter Seal Telethon raises $30,100,000. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 09 | "Dallas" announces it will revive the killed Bobby Ewing character. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 27 | A video pirate calling himself "Captain Midnight" (John R MacDougall) interrupted a movie on Home Box Office with a printed message protesting de-scrambling fees. (Captain Midnight turned out to be John R. MacDougall of Florida, who was fined and placed on probation.) | Ref: 5 |
| May 06 | Comedienne, Joan Rivers, announces that she is leaving The Tonight Show as permanent guest host to begin her own late-night gabfest on the new FOX TV Network. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 29 | The former American Bandstand studio, at the original home of WFIL-TV in Philadelphia, PA, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The studio is located at 4548 Market Street. We expect that any day now, Bandstand host Dick Clark will also be placed on the National Register. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 05 | After 23 years, Merv Griffin airs his final program for Metromedia Television. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 09 | Ted Turner presents the first of his colorized films -- on his superstation WTBS in Atlanta, GA. The first Hollywood classic to get the new look was Yankee Doodle Dandy. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 23 | NBC-TV won the ratings race for the 52-week season (1985-1986). The Cosby Show and Family Ties rated #1 and #2 respectively that year. NBC repeated the feat the following year and The Cosby Show remained number one through the 1989-1990 season. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 26 | Dallas, on CBS-TV, smashed NBC’s Miami Vice in the overnight ratings. The episode, from Southfork Ranch, had Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) returning from the dead -- in the shower, no less! Pam Ewing (Victoria Principal) was a bit perplexed. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 05 | Figuring that the booming 1980s were prime time for a business news show, ABC broke ground with Business World. The half-hour program was hosted by correspondent Sander Vanocur. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 09 | Joan Rivers debuted her new The Late Show on the fledgling FOX network -- opposite former boss Johnny Carson on NBC. Reportedly, Rupert Murdoch paid up to $25,000 a week for Joan’s lovely gowns. Carson quipped, “The show proves that all that glitters is not watched.” | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 06 | WOR-TV in Secaucus, NJ paid $182,000 per episode of The Cosby Show -- for the fall, 1988 season. The price was a record offering for a syndicated show. It beat the previous mark of $80,000 per show (for Cheers). | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 16 | The first comic miniseries was presented. Fresno poked fun at soap operas -- on CBS-TV. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 18 | For the first time since his departure from his own late-night TV show, Jack Paar was a guest of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. One of TV’s great lines came from the show, when Carson quipped (after one of Paar’s long, long spiels), “Why is it that I feel I’m guesting on your show?” | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 08 | Santa Claus was really TV’s Ed McMahon (at least at the White House). Johnny Carson’s straight man arrived in D.C. for a Christmas bash. He and First Lady Nancy Reagan exchanged kisses and, according to Ed, “She gave me a kiss, and I gave her a Hershey.” Always the pitchman, that McMahon guy. At least it wasn’t Alpo ... or Budweiser. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 26 | TV’s longest-running drama was seen for the last time. Search for Tomorrow ended its 35-year run on television. The program, seen on CBS, included show veterans, Wayne Rogers, Jill Clayburgh, Morgan Fairchild and Don Knotts. | Ref: 4 |
- 1987
| Jan 18 | For the first time in its history, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) was seen by over 100 million viewers. The audience was measured during the week of January 12-18. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 22 | Phil Donahue became the first talk show host to tape a show from inside the Soviet Union. Donahue appeared in Leningrad, Kiev and Moscow. The shows were seen by Russian TV audiences later in the year. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 22 | As of 1995, the 10th highest rated television show is this evening's episode of "The Cosby Show" with an average audience of 41.3%. | Ref: 34 |
| Jan 25 | Super Bowl XXI is the 15th highest rated non-series show with an audience of 45.8%. | Ref: 34 |
| Jan 28 | ABC-TV moved reporter, Charles Gibson, into the coanchor chair next to Joan Lunden for the start of another era of Good Morning America. Eleven-year host, David Hartman, retired as original host of the popular show, known also as ‘GMA’. | Ref: 4 |
| Jan 28 | Roger Mudd left NBC news after seven stormy years. Previously, Mudd had been an icon at CBS news. When it was announced that Dan Rather would replace Walter Cronkite as anchor of The CBS Evening News, Mudd felt that he had been passed over. He went on to find yet another network home at PBS, where he contributed to The MacNeil Lehrer News Hour. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 15 | ABC-TV begins broadcasting "Amerika" mini-series. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 20 | After 11 years on the job, David Hartman exited ABC’s Good Morning America. He introduced new co-host, Charles Gibson who, with Joan Lunden, would co-host the morning television program into 1998. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 27 | The longest-running program on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), Washington Week In Review, celebrated its 20th anniversary. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 08 | 17th Easter Seal Telethon raises $35,184,425. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 20 | Soap opera "Capitol" final episode. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 23 | Soap opera "Bold & Beautiful" premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 05 | Fox TV network premiers showing Married With Children & Tracey Ullman. | Ref: 5 |
| May 07 | Shelly Long made her last appearance as a regular on the popular TV show, Cheers. Long, who played cocktail server, Diane Chambers, to often hilarious results, left the hit comedy to pursue a movie career. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 27 | After spending a decade with NBC News, Linda Ellerbee gave her last “And So It Goes.” NBC had tried to encourage Ellerbee to take a 40 percent cut in pay. And so she went. She wrote a most interesting book on her broadcasting career titled And So It Goes. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 21 | TV personality Mary Hart of Entertainment Tonight made news as she had her legs insured by Lloyd’s of London for $2 million. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 30 | NBC’s L.A. Law was nominated for 20 Emmy Awards, one shy of the record for nominations. Hill Street Blues was the recordholder (in the 1981-1982 season). L.A. Law had only been on the air a year when it earned four out of the 20 Emmys. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 11 | CBS went black for six minutes after anchorman Dan Rather walked off the set of "The CBS Evening News" because a tennis tournament being carried by the network ran overtime. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 10 | "Nightline" is seen in the USSR for first time. | Ref: 5 |
- 1988
| Jan 19 | "48 Hours" premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 24 | Cerebral Palsy telethon. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 07 | The Fox Television Network premiered "America's Most Wanted," a program that featured dramatizations of crimes committed by federal and state fugitives. | Ref: 14 |
| Feb 29 | Day by Day, a situation comedy, premiered on this date on NBC-TV. It was one of the "yuppie sitcoms" that were all over the TV dial in the late ’80s. This particular one was about a suburban overachieving couple who dropped out and opened up a daycare center in their home to spend more quality time with their children. The quality time lasted just under five months. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 06 | 18th Easter Seal Telethon raises $35,200,000. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 07 | Howard Stern's first pay-per-view "Underpants & Negligee Party". | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 04 | Last broadcast of "Crossroads" on British TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | "Nightline" goes on location to Jerusalem Israel. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 20 | Price is Right model Janice Pennington is knocked out by a TV camera | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 22 | NBC premieres "Later" with Bob Costas (1st guest Linda Ellerbee). | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 05 | Jerry Lewis' 23rd Labor Day telethon raises record $41,132,113. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 19 | Senate passes bill curbing ads during children`s TV shows. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 03 | Talk-show host Geraldo Rivera's nose is broken as Roy Innis brawls with skinheads at TV taping. | Ref: 5 |
- 1989
| Jan 09 | "Pat Sajak Show" premieres on CBS. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 13 | Soap opera "Ryan's Hope" final episode after 13½ year run. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 15 | Cerberal Palsy telethon raises $22,600,000. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 09 | "Pat Sajak Show" premieres on CBS. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 10 | Miami Vice's 100th episode seen on TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 22 | First Spanish commercial on network TV (Pepsi-Cola-CBS Grammy Award). | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 28 | Memo by Bryant Gumbel criticizing Today Show co-workers becomes public. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 05 | 19th Easter Seal Telethon raises $37,002,000. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 24 | Mary Martin in "Peter Pan", first time seen on TV since 1973. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 27 | First half-black soap opera, "Generations" premieres on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 05 | David Letterman becomes 1st network TV series to use dolby stereo. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 30 | Critics Siskel & Ebert film their 500th TV movie-review show. | Ref: 5 |
| May 11 | 217th & final episode of "Dynasty" is aired | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | "Entertainment Tonight" performs their 2,000th TV performance. | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | Final TV episode of "Family Ties" airs. | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | "Moonlighting", TV Crime Drama, last airs on ABC. | Ref: 5 |
| May 15 | Maxwell House coffee runs ads during "Roe vs Wade" movie despite threat of boycott by right to lifers. | Ref: 5 |
| May 19 | Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) last appearance on Dallas. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 23 | FOX-TV tops ABC, NBC & CBS for first time (America's Most Wanted). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 03 | The ABC news magazine Primetime Live debuted, with Sam Donaldson and Diane Sawyer reporting/starring. Just one of many creations of ABC News president Roone Arledge, the show ran through Sep 9,.1998 , when it was merged with ABC’s 20/20. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 05 | Deborah Norville becomes news anchor of the Today Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | "I Love Lucy" Christmas episode, shown for first time in over 30 years. | Ref: 5 |
- 1990
| Jan 01 | FCC implements "SYNDEX" giving independent stations more rights over cable TV outlets for exclusive syndicated programs. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 01 | Sports News Network begins operation on cable TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 14 | "Simpsons" premiered on Fox-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 08 | CBS News suspended resident humorist Andy Rooney for racial comments he supposedly made to a gay magazine, comments Rooney denied making. | Ref: 70 |
| Feb 09 | "The Bradys" return to TV for 6 episodes on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 04 | 20th Easter Seal Telethon. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 21 | "Normal Life" starring Moon Unit & Dweezil Zappa premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 21 | "Sydney" starring Valerie Bertinelli premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 31 | "Carol & Company" starring Carol Burnett premieres on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 01 | "Ha!" the commedy Channel on cable tv begins transmitting. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 04 | "The Marshall Chronicles" premiers on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 08 | "Twin Peaks" with Peggy Lipton premiers on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 09 | "Capital News" starring Lloyd Bridges premiers on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 13 | Final episode of Pat Sajak's late night TV show on CBS. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 15 | "In Living Color" premiers on FOX-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 18 | "Return To Green Acres" TV movie airs. | Ref: 5 |
| May 19 | "General Elvis", TV Drama last airs on ABC. | Ref: 5 |
| May 21 | Last episode of "Newhart" airs on CBS-TV; It was all a dream. | Ref: 5 |
| May 28 | Dave Thomas Comedy Show, debuts on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 31 | Seinfeld starring Jerry Seinfeld, debuts on NBC as Seinfeld Chronicles. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 01 | The Cowboy Channel on cable TV begins transmitting. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 23 | A rally to save Alien Nation from cancellation held at Stat of Liberty. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 25 | NBC decides to air episodes of "Quantum Leap" for 5 straight days | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 16 | Rick Dee's "Into the Night," premiers on ABC-TV | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 26 | General Hospital tapes its 7,000th episode. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 04 | Jerry Lewis' 25th Muscular Dystrophy telethon raises $44,172,186. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 13 | "Law and Order" premiers on NBC-TV. (XDG, p 4A, 9/13/2000) | Ref: 83 |
| Sep 23 | PBS begins an 11 hour miniseries on The Civil War. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 31 | The Sci-Fi Channel on cable TV begins transmitting. | Ref: 5 |
- 1991
| Jan 06 | "Real Life With Jane Pauley" premieres on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 07 | "Nia Peeples Party Machine" premieres on TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 08 | Davis Rules with Jonathan Winters & Randy Quaid premieres on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 14 | "Barbara DeAngelis Show" premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
-
| Jan 23 | "Seinfeld" debuts on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 25 | Soap opera "Generation's" last episode after a 2½ year run. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 28 | "A Closer Look" with Faith Daniels premieres on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 26 | Rockline on MTV premiered. The host, Martha Quinn, gave eager viewers a chance to talk to the stars. Opening night guest: MC Hammer. | Ref: 4 |
| Apr 12 | 2,500th episode of Entertainment Tonight airs. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 22 | Johnny Carson announces he will retire next year from Tonight Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 26 | "Dinosaurs" premieres on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 03 | 356th & final episode of CBS 2nd longest running series Dallas, 2nd only to Gunsmoke. | Ref: 5 |
| May 09 | Michael Landon appears on Tonight Show to talk about his cancer. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 01 | Court TV was born. The cable TV network broadcasts entire trials, both famous and low profile. It was a unique addition to the already changing climate of TV information/entertainment. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 30 | MTV announces it will split into 3 channels in 1993 | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 02 | Jerry Lewis' 26th Muscular Dystrophy telethon raises $45 Million. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 15 | "The Party Machine with Nia Peeples" final show. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 24 | "Good & Evil" & "Sibs" premiers on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 25 | "Good & Evil" premiers on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 27 | "Princesses" premiers on CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 08 | The Carol Burnette Show premieres on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 12 | "Full House" 100th episode-The twins are born. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 14 | Michael Jackson's "Black or White" video premiers on FOX TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 10 | Jackie Martling walks off of Howard Stern show for 1 day. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 17 | Soap opera "One Life To Live" airs its 6,000th episode. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 27 | "Carol Burnett Show" last airs on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | "Carol Burnett Show" last airs on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
- 1992
| Jan 19 | Cerebral Palsy telethon raises 23,500,000. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 10 | "Dangerous Women" final episode on WWOR-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 15 | 100th episode of "Cops" airs on the Fox Network. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 08 | 22nd Easter Seal Telethon. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 30 | CBS TV premieres overnight news program "Up To The Minute". | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 15 | Jay Leno's final appearance as permanent guest host of Tonight. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 20 | 100th episode of "Murphy Brown" airs. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 26 | "Who's The Boss," final episode after 8 years. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 26 | Final episode of "Growing Pains" airs on ABC-TV | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 26 | "Growing Pains", final episode on ABC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 30 | 208th & final episode of "The Cosby Show" on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 09 | Final episode of "Golden Girls" airs on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 13 | Final episode of "Night Court" airs on NBC-TV | Ref: 5 |
| May 22 | Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show for the last time. It was the end of three decades of late nights spent with Carson and his sidekick, Ed McMahon and bandleader, Doc Severinsen. Comedian Jay Leno replaced Carson. | Ref: 4 |
| May 25 | Jay Leno made his debut as permanent host of NBC's "Tonight Show," succeeding Johnny Carson. | Ref: 70 |
| May 31 | 5th Children's Miracle Network Telethon raises $1,060,000 | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 01 | NBC's "Saturday Today" premieres. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 01 | The Cartoon Network cable channel starts. | Ref: 73 |
| Dec 08 | NBC announces that "Cheers" will go off the air in May 1993. | Ref: 5 |
- 1993
| Jan 05 | Price is Right model Janice Pennington sues CBS for show accident. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 08 | NBC offers "Tonight Show" to David Letterman. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 14 | David Letterman announces his show is moving from NBC to CBS. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 15 | Soap opera "Santa Barbara" final show on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 24 | 14th annual star-athon $24,000,000. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 31 | Super Bowl XXVII is the 16th highest rated non-series show with an audience of 45.1%. | Ref: 34 |
| Feb 10 | "Michael Jackson Talks To Oprah Winfrey" airs on ABC & drew an astounding 39.3 rating/56 share, 90 million people. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 07 | 23rd Easter Seal Telethon. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 12 | Entertainment Tonight's 3,000th show. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 26 | NBC announces Conan O'Brien to replace David Letterman. | Ref: 5 |
| May 10 | Last TV appearance of Mies Bouwman. | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | Last broadcast of "Cheers" on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | Last broadcast of "Knots Landing" on CBS-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | Final episode of 6 year run of ABC's "Wonder Years" in Netherlands. | Ref: 5 |
| May 13 | Arsenio Hall's 1,000th show retrospective seen in Netherlands. | Ref: 5 |
| May 13 | CBS' Knots Landing ends 14 year run with 334th show in Netherlands. | Ref: 5 |
| May 20 | An estimated 93 million people tuned in for the 274th & final first-run episode of "Cheers" on NBC-TV. As of 1995, this is the 4th highest rated television show with an average audience of 45.5%. | Ref: 34 |
| Aug 19 | Cheers ends an 11-year run. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 30 | Late Show with David Letterman debuted on CBS-TV. CBS remodeled the Ed Sullivan Theater (on 54th Street in NY City) for Letterman, who had just spent over a decade on NBC (Late Night with David Letterman). The first musical guest to appear on the new show was Billy Joel. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 10 | "X-Files" premiers on Fox-TV. (XDG, p 4A, 9/10/2003) | Ref: 83 |
| Sep 12 | "Lois and Clark" debuts on ABC-TV. (Daniels, Les, "Superman", 1998, ISBN 0-8118-2162-5) | |
| Dec 16 | Shannen Doherty (Brenda) is fired from Beverly Hills 90210. | Ref: 5 |
- 1994
| Feb 04 | 10th Soap Opera Digest Awards Days of Our Lives wins. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 05 | "Where On Earth Is Carmen San Diego" debuts on Fox TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 18 | Arsenio Hall announces he will end his show in May 1994. | Ref: 5 |
| May 06 | Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait sets fire to the couch on Tonight Show. | Ref: 5 |
| May 08 | 500th commentary by Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes | Ref: 2 |
| May 19 | Final Episode of LA Law after 8 year run. | Ref: 5 |
| May 27 | Final broadcast of Arsenio Hall talk show. | Ref: 5 |
| May 28 | "Cafe American" last airs on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 06 | Warner Brothers announces a 5th TV network to begin on Jan 11, 1995. | Ref: 5 |
- 1995
| Jan 10 | "Late Late Show" with Tom Snyder premieres on CBS at 12 30 AM. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 30 | Belgium's TV channel 2 in Flanders goes on the air. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 30 | Kevin Eubanks officially becomes band leader of "Tonight Show". | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 01 | Belgium's TV channel VT4 goes on the air. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 19 | First broadcast of "Woman of Independent Means" on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 29 | Final TV broadcast of "Empty Nest" on NBC TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 06 | Classic Sports Network begins on cable TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 22 | Laverne & Shirley 20th anniversary reunionn special, televised. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 10 | President Clinton embraces mandatory ratings for TV programs and legislation to put parental-control chips in new TV sets. (XDG, p 4A, 7/10/2000) | Ref: 83 |
| Dec 13 | US Federal Court votes that Cable companies must carry local stations. | Ref: 5 |
- 1996
| Mar 03 | 26th Easter Seal Telethon. | Ref: 5 |
| May 30 | John Tesh's final day as host of "Entertainment Tonight" | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 15 | MSNBC, a 24-hour all-news network, made its debut on cable TV and the Internet. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 18 | TV industry executives agree to adopt a ratings system. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 19 | The television industry unveiled a plan to rate programs using tags such as "TV-G," "TV-Y" and "TV-M." | Ref: 64 |
- 1997
| Jan 03 | Bryant Gumbel co-hosted his final "Today" show on NBC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 10 | 4,000th episode of "Entertainment Tonight". | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 19 | Cerebral Palsy telethon. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 23 | NBC TV shows "Schindler's List", completely uncensored, 65 million watch. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 17 | CNN begins Spanish broadcasts. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 28 | "City" soap opera's final episode on ABC-TV | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 31 | "Daytime to Remember" a series showing old soaps premieres on ABC-TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 20 | 27th Easter Seal Telethon raises $47,392,682. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 30 | ABC aired the "coming out" episode of the sitcom "Ellen," in which the title character, played by Ellen DeGeneres, admitted she is a lesbian. | Ref: 70 |
| May 05 | "Married With Children" final episode on Fox TV. | Ref: 5 |
| May 23 | Mel Karmazin replaces Peter Lund as CEO of CBS TV. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 19 | MTV drops video "Smack My Bitch Up" by Prodigy | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 22 | Hunter Tylo awarded $4 million in Melrose Place breach of contract. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 22 | Nancy Kerring & Tonya Harding pre-record a show to air on FOX on Feb 5 | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 25 | Jerry Seinfeld says this is the final season of his TV show | Ref: 5 |
- 1998
| Jan 14 | NBC agreed to pay Warner Bros. $13 million per episode to retain the top-rated TV show, "ER." | Ref: 70 |
| Jan 14 | 100th episode of "Ellen" airs. | Ref: 5 |
-
| Jan 20 | Warner Brothers TV Network begins Tuesday night programming | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 26 | A jury in Amarillo, Texas, rejected an $11 million lawsuit brought by Texas cattlemen who blamed Oprah Winfrey's talk show for a price fall after a segment on mad-cow disease. | Ref: 70 |
| May 14 | The hit TV series "Seinfeld" aired its final episode, in front of 108 M viewers, after nine years on NBC (commercials are $2 million for 30 seconds). | Ref: 70 |
| Jun 19 | 28-year-old Rick Schroder signed on with ABC’s NYPD Blue as Detective Danny Sorenson. Young Schroder/Sorenson stepped into the opening created by the painful death of Detective Bobby Simone/Jimmy Smits. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 13 | NBC's "Frasier" won a record fifth consecutive Emmy as TV's best comedy series. | Ref: 70 |
- 1999
| May 07 | A jury in Pontiac, Mich., ordered "The Jenny Jones Show" to pay $25 million to the family of a gay man who was shot to death after revealing a crush on a male guest on the talk show. | Ref: 70 |
| Sep 07 | Jerry Lewis raises $52M for Muscular Dystrophy at the 34th MDA telethon. | |
- 2000
| Feb 15 | Fox aired "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?," a TV special that drew huge ratings and much notoriety. | Ref: 70 |
| Aug 23 | An estimated 51 million viewers tuned in for the finale of CBS' reality series "Survivor," in which contestant Richard Hatch won the $1 million prize. | Ref: 70 |
- 2001
| May 03 | ~3.4M tune in to watch Tennessee nurse Tina Wesson win "Survivor: The Australian Outback" on CBS-TV. (XDG, p 4A, 5/03/2002) | Ref: 83 |
- 2002
| Sep 04 | Texas cocktail waitress and aspiring pop star Kelly Clarkson was voted the first "American Idol" on the Fox TV series. | Ref: 70 |
- 2003
| Feb 17 | An estimated 40M viewers tune in to the finale of Fox's reality show, "Joe Millionaire", in which Evan Marriott chose Zora Andrich. (XDG, p 4A, 2/17/2004) | Ref: 83 |
- 2006
| Dec 31 | American television networks must vacate existing frequences and go digital. | Ref: 10 |
|
Television Chronology