| List of years in American television: |
|---|
| 1975–76 United States network television schedule |
| 1976–77 United States network television schedule |
| List of American television programs currently in production |
This is a list of American television-related events in 1976.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 1 | 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. |
| January 11–12 | Eleanor and Franklin , a two-part miniseries starring Jane Alexander and Edward Herrmann, airs on ABC. |
| January 17 | The Blues Brothers make their debut on NBC's Saturday Night Live , singing Slim Harpo's song "I'm a King Bee" in their Killer Bees costumes. Their first appearance as The Blues Brothers proper occurred in 1978. |
| February 1 | The miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man debuts on ABC, becoming a critical and ratings success over its 12-episode run. |
| February 2 | Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows, and Art Carney reunite in an ABC special, The Honeymooners – The Second Honeymoon. |
| February 10 | The controversial "Episode 847" of Sesame Street featuring Margaret Hamilton reprising her role as The Wicked Witch of the West from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz is broadcast. The episode was subsequently pulled from broadcast due to a barrage of complaints leveled at the Children's Television Workshop from parents who felt that Hamilton's performance was too traumatizing for their children. |
| February 16 | ABC airs the James Bond film On 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] |
| February 29 | The movie The Sound of Music is televised for the first time, on ABC. |
| 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] | |
| April 1–2 | Helter Skelter , a two-part adaptation of Vincent Bugliosi's book about the Charles Manson case, airs on CBS, with Steve Railsback portraying Manson. |
| April 12 | ABC airs its first Monday Night Baseball broadcast, taking over the package from NBC. |
| April 24 | 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] |
| June 7 | After several years providing commentaries for the show, David Brinkley joins John Chancellor as co-anchor of NBC Nightly News , an attempt by the network to bolster ratings against the CBS Evening News and to harken back to the success it had with The Huntley-Brinkley Report . |
| June 15 | NBC affiliate in Dayton, WLWD change its call letters to WDTN after Grinnell College bought out the station. [15] |
| June 21 | Deidre Hall makes her debut as Marlena Evans on Days of Our Lives . |
| June 26 | Japanese pro wrestler Antonio Inoki and American boxer Muhammad Ali fight each other in "The War of the Worlds". |
| July 1 | The pay TV network Showtime makes its debut, appearing only on a Dublin, California cable system. The network would expand nationally in 1978. |
| July 4 | U.S. television networks present extensive coverage of nationwide events commemorating the country's bicentennial. |
| July 11 | KYCU-TV of Cheyenne, Wyoming (and its satellites) drop all NBC programs and switch to a primary ABC affiliation, which will last until 1984. |
| July 12 | Family Feud premieres on ABC and would become daytime television's number 1 game show within the next few years and beyond. |
| September 6 | In an experiment, New York City station WOR-TV replaces its normal programming for 5 exclusive nights of British shows from Thames Television. |
| September 16 | WECA-TV in Tallahassee, Florida begins broadcasting, giving the Tallahassee market its first full-time ABC affiliate. |
| September 23 | The first of three debates between U.S. presidential candidates Gerald 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. |
| October 4 | Newly arrived from NBC, Barbara Walters joins Harry Reasoner as co-anchor of the ABC Evening News . The pair have a noticeable lack of on-air chemistry, and by 1978 Reasoner would leave ABC to return to CBS and 60 Minutes . |
| October 11 | Jane Pauley makes her debut on NBC's Today . |
| October 15 | The first ever vice presidential debate takes place between senators Bob Dole and Walter Mondale. |
| October 29 | WGTQ in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan signs-on as a full satellite of ABC affiliate WGTU in Traverse City, bringing the full ABC schedule to the Eastern Upper Peninsula. |
| November 7–8 | 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. |
| November 13 | The Carol Burnett Show airs Went with the Wind! , a movie parody of Gone With the Wind , five days after the film's network TV debut. TV Guide ranked the sketch #53 on its list of "Top 100 Episodes of All Time". [16] |
| December 10 | Rudolph's Shiny New Year premiered on ABC at the time when Christmas is around, with voice casts such as Billie Mae Richards as the voice of Rudolph, with special guest stars like Red Skelton, Morey Amsterdam and more |
| December 14 | Barbara Walters airs her first interview special for ABC, with guests Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Barbra Streisand, and Jon Peters. |
| December 17 | At 1:00 p.m. (ET), Atlanta, Georgia station WTCG-TV begins satellite transmission of its regular programming to four cable systems, thus becoming the first superstation. |
| December 31 | President Gerald Ford presents the last of the Bicentennial Minutes on CBS; the vignettes had been airing nightly on the network since July 4, 1974. |
| Also in 1976 | CBS' Match Game is the #1 rated game show on daytime television for the fourth consecutive year. |
| The Olympics, broadcast from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, draw an estimated one billion viewers worldwide. | |
| Matsushita introduces the VHS home video cassette recorder to compete with Sony's Betamax system. |
^[e] signifies that this show has a related event in the Events section above.
| Date | Show | Debut |
|---|---|---|
| January 5 | Mobile One | 1975 |
| January 25 | McCoy | 1975 |
| February 20 | Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (returned in 1979) | 1968 |
| February 25 | Clyde Frog Show | 1974 |
| March 3 | Cannon | 1971 |
| March 12 | The Magnificent Marble Machine | 1975 |
| March 28 | Bronk | 1975 |
| March 30 | The Rookies | 1972 |
| March 31 | The Dumplings | 1976 |
| April 4 | Ellery Queen | 1975 |
| April 13 | The Adams Chronicles | 1976 |
| April 29 | Harry O | 1974 |
| May 7 | Sara | 1976 |
| June 14 | Jigsaw John | 1976 |
| July 9 | Rhyme and Reason | 1975 |
| July 29 | Marcus Welby, M.D. | 1969 |
| September | The Letter People | 1974 |
| September 6 | Comedy Theatre (returned in 1979) | 1976 |
| Medical Center | 1969 | |
| Viva Valdez | 1976 | |
| October 16 | Shazam! | 1974 |
| October 28 | Gemini Man | 1976 |
| October 30 | Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (returned in 1979) | 1972 |
| December 4 | Land of the Lost | 1974 |
| December 10 | Gambit (returned in 1980 on NBC as "Las Vegas Gambit") | 1972 |
| December 11 | Clue Club | 1976 |
| December 18 | Ark II | 1976 |
| December 18 | Jabberjaw | 1976 |
| December 30 | Gibbsville | |
| December 31 | Bicentennial Minutes | 1974 |
| December 31 | Somerset | 1970 |
| Network | Type | Launch date | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobil Showcase Network | Cable television | Unknown | ||
| Showtime | Cable television | July 1 | ||
| WTCG-TV | Cable television | December 17 | ||
There are no conversions and rebrandings for Cable and satellite television channels in this year.
| Network | Type | Launch date | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MGM Family Network | Cable and satellite | September 9 |
| Date | City of License/Market | Station | Channel | Old affiliation | New affiliation | Notes/Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 19 | Spokane, Washington | KREM-TV | 2 | ABC | CBS | |
| KXLY-TV | 4 | CBS | ABC | |||
| March 1 | Salem, Oregon | KVDO-TV | 3 | Independent (commercial) | PBS/OEPBS | Not effective until September 20 because tower was deliberately collapsed |
| July 11 | Cheyenne, Wyoming | KYCU-TV | 5 | NBC (primary) ABC (secondary) | ABC (exclusive) | |
| Date | City of License/Market | Station | Channel | Affiliation | First air date | Notes/Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 29 | Lead, South Dakota | KDSJ-TV | 5 | CBS | January 1960 | Satellite of KRSD-TV/Rapid City |
| Rapid City, South Dakota | KRSD-TV | 7 | CBS | January 21, 1958 | Channels of KRSD-TV and KDSJ-TV reoccupied that July by KEVN and KIVV | |
| June 30 | Columbus, Ohio | WGSF | 31 | PBS | March 18, 1963 | |
| Date | Name | Age | Notability |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 25 | Jay Jostyn | 74 | Radio and TV actor [18] |
| August 28 | Anissa Jones | 18 | Actress (Buffy on Family Affair ) |
| December 12 | Jack Cassidy | 49 | Actor ( He & She ) |
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