List of years in American television: |
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1972–73 United States network television schedule |
1973–74 United States network television schedule |
List of American television programs currently in production |
This is a list of American television -related events in 1973.
Date | Event | Ref. |
---|---|---|
March 11 | Charlottesville, Virginia finally receives a television station when NBC affiliate WVIR-TV signs-on. | |
March 23 | Concentration , the longest-running game show at the time, airs for the 3,796th and final time on NBC, ending its run after 14 years and seven months. The show was the longest-running daytime game show to date until 1987, when the record was eclipsed by The Price is Right , which began its run in 1972. | |
April 3 | WIIL-TV (now WAWV-TV) signs on the air, giving the Terre Haute market its first full-time ABC affiliate. | |
April 16 | A TV documentary about the career of Paul McCartney, entitled James Paul McCartney , airs on ABC in the U.S. | |
May 10 | ABC concludes its initial run at broadcasting the National Basketball Association, marking the last NBA broadcast on ABC until the network regained the rights prior to the 2002–03 season. CBS would take over the over-the-air rights as the NBA's broadcast television partner the next season. ABC's final NBA broadcast sees the New York Knicks defeat the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 5 of the NBA Finals 102-93, which clinched the Knicks’ NBA Championship. | |
May 17 | Daytime television on ABC is interrupted by news coverage of the hearings pertaining to the Watergate scandal. Following ABC's coverage on this day, CBS televises the next day's hearings, followed the day after that by NBC. The three networks continue cycling coverage in this way until August 7. | |
July 2 | CBS debuts the 1970s version of Match Game , which will become the #1-rated daytime television program for 1973, 1974, and 1975, and the #1 game show for its first four years on the air. | |
September 15 | The fourth season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show premieres on CBS with Betty White making her first appearance on the show as Sue Ann Nivens. | |
September 20 | Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in a televised tennis match held at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. Billed as The Battle of the Sexes , the global television audience, including viewers watching on ABC in the United States, is estimated at 90 million viewers in 36 countries. | |
October 4 | WMBB in Panama City, Florida signs-on the air, returning NBC to the market after WJHG-TV dropped that affiliation to become a full-time ABC affiliate the previous year. | |
October 8 | WHFV signs-on the air from Fredericksburg, Virginia as an NBC affiliate. | |
November 20 | The animated Thanksgiving special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving premieres on CBS. It ends up winning an Emmy Award the following year. | |
December 12 | On CBS, Kojak ’s trademark lollipop makes its debut in the episode “Dark Sunday”. | |
December 19 | After reading a news item that said the federal government had fallen behind in getting bids to supply toilet tissue, Johnny Carson inadvertently triggers an unprecedented three-week panic when he announces, on NBC's The Tonight Show , that there is an acute shortage of toilet paper in the United States. The panic was settled in January 1974. | |
December 28 | CBS affiliate KZTV in Corpus Christi, Texas signs-on satellite station KVTV, bringing CBS programming into the Laredo market. | |
Date | Title | Network |
---|---|---|
January 6 | Schoolhouse Rock! | ABC |
January 28 | Barnaby Jones | CBS |
March 20 | Police Story | NBC |
March 26 | The Young and the Restless | CBS |
March 26 | The $10,000 Pyramid | CBS |
July 17 | The Wizard of Odds | NBC |
July 17 | The New Treasure Hunt | Syndicated |
September 8 | Star Trek: The Animated Series | NBC |
September 8 | Super Friends | ABC |
September 10 | Lotsa Luck | NBC |
September 14 | Adam's Rib | ABC |
September 21 | Needles and Pins | NBC |
October 15 | The Tomorrow Show | NBC |
October 24 | Kojak | CBS |
Greatest Sports Legends | Syndicated |
Date | Show | Debut |
---|---|---|
January 16 | Bonanza | 1959 |
March 23 | Love is a Many Splendored Thing | 1967 |
Where the Heart Is | 1969 | |
March 30 | Ghost Story | 1972 |
Mission: Impossible | 1966 | |
May 20 | Laugh-In | 1968 |
August 24 | The Mod Squad | |
September 9 | The Doris Day Show | |
Bridget Loves Bernie | 1972 | |
Runaround | ||
October 27 | The New Scooby-Doo Movies | |
December 28 | Needles and Pins | 1973 |
Network | Type | Launch date | Notes | Source |
---|---|---|---|---|
Trinity Broadcasting Network | Cable/satellite and over-the-air | Unknown date | Founded by Paul Crouch, the station began after he purchased KLXA-TV to start a religious television network by converting the former independent station into the network's flagship, which eventually became KTBN-TV. | |
Date | City of License/Market | Station | Channel | Affiliation | Notes/Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
February 22 | Greensboro, North Carolina | WUNL-TV | 26 | PBS via UNC-TV | |
March 11 | Charlottesville, Virginia | WVIR-TV | 29 | NBC | |
April 3 | Terre Haute, Indiana | WIIL-TV | 38 | ABC | |
May 30 | Youngstown, Ohio | WNEO | 45 | PBS | |
June 2 | Montclair, New Jersey | WNJN | 50 | PBS | Part of the New Jersey Network |
New Brunswick/Trenton, New Jersey | WNJB | 58 | |||
June 29 | Las Cruces, New Mexico | KRWG-TV | 22 | PBS | |
July 26 | Zanesville, Ohio | WOUC-TV | 44 | PBS | Satellite of WOUB-TV in Columbus, Ohio |
September 16 | Eagle Butte, South Dakota | KPSD-TV | 13 | PBS | Part of South Dakota Public Broadcasting |
October | Portsmouth, Ohio (Huntington, West Virginia/Ashland, Kentucky) | WPBO-TV | 42 | PBS | |
October 4 | Panama City, Florida | WDTB-TV | 13 | NBC | |
October 8 | Fredericksburg, Virginia | WHFV | 69 | NBC | |
November 5 | Los Angeles, California | KLCS | 58 | PBS | |
November 18 | New York City | WSNL-TV | 67 | Independent | |
December 28 | Laredo, Texas | KVTV | 13 | CBS | |
Date | City of license/Market | Station | Channel | Old affiliation | New affiliation | Notes/Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
October 4 | Panama City, Florida | WJDM-TV | 7 | NBC (primary) ABC (secondary) | ABC (exclusive) | Rejoined NBC in 1982 |
Unknown date | Fayetteville, Arkansas | KNAC-TV | 5 | NBC (exclusive) | NBC (primary) ABC (secondary) | |
Fontana, California/Los Angeles, California | KLXA-TV | 40 | Bilingual independent | TBN (O&O) | Licensed reassigned to Santa Ana in 1983, became KTBN-TV in 1977 | |
Date | City of license/Market | Station | Channel | Affiliation | Sign-on date | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
December 7 | Fayetteville, Arkansas | KGTM-TV | NBC | February 8, 1969 | ||
Unknown date | LaSalle, Illinois | WEEQ | 35 | NBC | November 7, 1957 | Satellite of WEEK-TV/Peoria, Illinois |
The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, California, on Riverside Drive, directly across the street from Walt Disney Studios and adjacent to the Roy E. Disney Animation Building. The network's secondary offices, and headquarters of its news division, are in New York City, at its broadcast center at 77 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
BBC America is an American basic cable network that is jointly owned by BBC Studios and AMC Networks. The channel primarily airs sci-fi and action series and films, as well as selected programs from the BBC.
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Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, but also increasingly via digital terrestrial and streaming television. In the United States, subscription television began in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the form of encrypted analog over-the-air broadcast television which could be decrypted with special equipment. The concept rapidly expanded through the multi-channel transition and into the post-network era. Other parts of the world beyond the United States, such as France and Latin America have also offered encrypted analog terrestrial signals available for subscription.
The following is the 1972–73 network television schedule for the three major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1972 through August 1973. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1971–72 season. All times are Eastern and Pacific, with certain exceptions, such as Monday Night Football.
The following is the 1973–74 network television schedule for the three major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1973 through August 1974. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1972–73 season. All times are Eastern and Pacific, with certain exceptions, such as Monday Night Football.
The 1974–75 network television schedule for the three major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States covers primetime hours from September 1974 through August 1975. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1973–74 season.
In the United States, there are three major traditional commercial broadcast television networks — NBC, CBS, and ABC — that due to their longevity and ratings success are informally referred to as the "Big Three". They dominated American television until the 1990s and are still considered major U.S. broadcast companies to this day.
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The following is the 1958–59 network television schedule for the four major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1958 through March 1959. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1957–58 season.
The following is the 1953–54 network television schedule for the four major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1953 through March 1954. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1952–53 season.
The 1972–73 daytime network television schedule for the three major English-language commercial broadcast networks in the United States covers the weekday and weekend daytime hours from September 1972 to August 1973. All times are Eastern and Pacific.
The 1973–74 daytime network television schedule for the three major English-language commercial broadcast networks in the United States covers the weekday and weekend daytime hours from September 1973 to August 1974. All times are Eastern and Pacific. By 1974, the networks in the Pacific Time Zone would shift to a Central Time Zone schedule altogether.
Boxing from St. Nicholas Arena was an American sports program originally broadcast on NBC from 1946 to 1948, and later on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network from 1954 to 1956.
A television show, TV program, or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable. This includes content made by television broadcasters and content made for broadcasting by film production companies. It excludes breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed between shows. Television shows are most often scheduled for broadcast well ahead of time and appear on electronic guides or other TV listings, but streaming services often make them available for viewing anytime. The content in a television show is produced by one of two production methodologies: live taped shows such as variety and news magazine shows shot on a television studio stage or sporting events The other production model includes animation and a variety of film productions ranging from movies to series. Shows not produced on a television studio stage are usually contracted or licensed to be made by appropriate production companies.
ABC's Wide World of Entertainment is a late night television block of programs created by the ABC television network. It premiered on January 8, 1973, and ended three years later. The title was based on the long-running broadcast ABC's Wide World of Sports; there was also an ABC's Wide World of Mystery broadcast from 1973 to 1978.
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Crystal City, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational programs to public television stations in the United States, distributing shows such as Frontline, Nova, PBS NewsHour, Arthur, Sesame Street, and This Old House.
Boxing from Eastern Parkway was an American sports program broadcast by the DuMont Television Network from May 1952 to May 1954. The program aired boxing matches from Eastern Parkway Arena in Brooklyn, New York. The program aired Monday nights at 10pm ET and was 90 to 120 minutes long. During the 1953-1954 season, the program aired Mondays at 9pm ET.
The Great American Beauty Contest is a 1973 American satirical comedy–drama television film, starring JoAnna Cameron and featuring Eleanor Parker, Robert Cummings, Louis Jourdan and Farrah Fawcett in an early film appearance.