NBC officially replaces its snake and peacock logos with a "modern N," composed of blue and red trapezoids—and nearly identical to the logo for Nebraska Educational Telecommunications' TV network, prompting NET to sue NBC for trademark infringement.
ABC airs the James Bond filmOn Her Majesty's Secret Service. The film was broadcast in two parts, totaling in 90 minutes each. The second part would air on February 23. The first part begins with Bond's escape from Piz Gloria on skis, which was actually in the middle portion of the film. Meanwhile, a disembodied voice (who is meant to be Bond, but not performed by George Lazenby) provides narration to explain the backstory. The edit ends at the scene in Piz Gloria, where Bond flirts with Ernst Stavro Blofeld's girls.
February 19
CBS affiliate KXLY-TV in Spokane, Washington is given a "notice of termination" by the network, stripping KXLY-TV of its affiliation effective August 19. CBS cites business reasons (KXLY-TV had been airing several network programs out of pattern in recent years) as the reason they stripped KXLY-TV. In the end, CBS decides to affiliate with ABC affiliate KREM-TV, while KXLY-TV joins ABC. The move takes effect August 8 at the request of KREM-TV, who wanted to air ABC Sports' entire coverage of the 1976 Summer Olympics.[1][2][3][4][5]
CBS affiliates KRSD-TV in Rapid City, South Dakota and KDSJ-TV in Lead both shut down after a 5-year struggle over their unsatisfactory technical operations, which had rendered complaints from viewers, NBC (its former affiliation before 1970), and the Federal Communications Commission. Dakota Broadcasting Company assumes a construction permit for new stations on KRSD-TV's channel 7 and KDSJ-TV's channel 5, which respectively sign-on as KEVN and KIVV-TV on July 11. This in turn will give the Rapid City area its first full-time ABC affiliate (A full-time CBS affiliate will return to Rapid City in 1981 when the network's Sioux Falls affiliate KELO-TV signs-on translator station K15AC (now KCLO-TV)).[6][7][8][9][10]
Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels makes an on-air offer to pay The Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were apparently watching the show together in New York City and considered walking down to the studio to accept the check. Michaels would raise his offer to $3,200 on SNL's May 22 episode.
June 4
CBS broadcasts Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Phoenix Suns. This triple-overtime contest, which ended in the Celtics defeating the Suns 128-126, has since been heralded as the greatest NBA game ever played.[11][12][13][14]
The first of three debates between U.S. presidential candidatesGerald Ford and Jimmy Carter air in prime time; they are the first presidential debates ever televised in color, as well as the first debates between major party nominees for U.S. president since 1960.
The film Gone with the Wind makes its broadcast television debut on NBC; it would be the highest-rated program ever aired on a single network, only to be surpassed by Roots the following January.
November 9
The Museum of Broadcasting opens on the first 3 floors of the Paley Foundation building in New York City. The museum would later be renamed The Paley Center for Media.
At 1:00p.m. (ET), Atlanta, Georgia station WTCG-TV begins satellite transmission of its regular programming to four cable systems, thus becoming the first superstation.
↑ Cox, Jim (2008). This Day in Network Radio: A Daily Calendar of Births, Debuts, Cancellations and Other Events in Broadcasting History. McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN978-0-7864-3848-8.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
