1988 in American television
The year 1988 in television involved some significant events. This is a list of notable events in the United States.
| List of years in American television: |
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| 1987–88 United States network television schedule |
| 1988–89 United States network television schedule |
| List of American television programs currently in production |
Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 1 | The season finale of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series airs in syndication with "Shredder & Splintered". The series will return for a second season in fall. |
| Australia Live, a 4-hour TV special about Australia's Bicentennial, airs on A&E. | |
| NBC broadcasts the Rose Bowl Game for the final time, ending a 37-year partnership. ABC Sports picked up rights to broadcast the game the following year. | |
| January 3 | WFYF in Watertown, New York begins broadcasting, giving the Watertown market its first full-time ABC affiliate. |
| January 4 | Nick Jr. begins as a block of Nickelodeon programming for younger children. |
| Blackout, hosted by Bob Goen, premieres on CBS. The game show runs for only thirteen weeks, after which The $25,000 Pyramid, the show it replaced, returns to the air on April 4 while CBS develops a revival of Family Feud. | |
| January 8 | The ABC sitcom I Married Dora had low ratings and was canceled halfway into its only season. The final episode ended with a scene, known as "breaking the fourth wall," that ranked number 49 on TV Land's list of The 100 Most Unexpected TV Moments. The cameras pulled back to show the entire stage as the cast and crew waved goodbye and performed curtain calls. |
| January 16 | Due to comments he made about breeding practices during slavery leading to blacks becoming superior athletes, CBS fires Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, who had been a regular on NFL Today since 1976. |
| January 22 | KYMA in Yuma, Arizona signs-on the air, returning ABC programming to the Yuma market for the first time since KECY-TV dropped its affiliation to rejoin CBS in 1985. |
| January 24 | The inaugural Royal Rumble event airs live on the USA Network. |
| January 31 | The pilot for The Wonder Years airs following ABC's coverage of Super Bowl XXII. |
| February 2 | Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, involved with a sex scandal, admits to being with prostitutes and temporarily ends his television ministry. |
| February 5 | Wrestlers Hulk Hogan and André the Giant compete on The Main Event on NBC, marking the return of professional wrestling to network prime-time for the first time since 1955. |
| February 6 | UK animated television series for children Count Duckula (a spinoff of Danger Mouse) begins on Nickelodeon prior to airing in its homeland which will start on September 6 of the same year. |
| February 13 | ABC broadcasts the Opening Ceremonies for the Winter Olympic Games from Calgary. This is ABC's tenth and final Olympic Games that they would broadcast to date. |
| February 23 | Future Grammy Award-winning recording artist Lauryn Hill (The Fugees frontwoman) makes her television debut on Showtime at the Apollo as a contestant of Amateur Night, where the 13-year-old Hill performed "Who's Lovin' You" by Motown Records singer Smokey Robinson, and gets booed by the audience. |
| February 26 | Tom Hardy marries Simone Ravelle on the ABC soap opera General Hospital, the first interracial wedding on American daytime television. |
| March 18 | In what would turn out to be her final television appearance, Gilda Radner guest stars on It's Garry Shandling's Show. |
| March 19 | "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" experiences a surge of popularity caused by television commercials featuring claymation raisin figures. The California Raisins' version of the song peaks at #84 on the Billboard Hot 100. |
| March 27 | The first edition of Clash of the Champions airs on TBS opposite WrestleMania IV on pay-per-view. |
| April 3 | In Jacksonville, Florida, NBC affiliate WJKS (now CW affiliate WCWJ) and ABC affiliate WTLV swap affiliations, reversing a swap that took place in 1980. NBC will later dub this swap one of its most successful affiliation switches ever. |
| April 4 | James Brown appears on CNN after allegedly assaulting his wife with a lead pipe and shooting at her car. During the interview with Sonya Friedman, Brown shouted song titles of his own songs instead of answering questions. |
| April 8 | Ana Alicia's character, Melissa Agretti, dies in a house fire on the CBS drama Falcon Crest. |
| April 13 | Geraldo Rivera's live special Murder: Live from Death Row is broadcast in syndication; a highlight is Rivera's pre-taped interview with Charles Manson. |
| April 25 | Nickelodeon debuts the first Kids Choice Awards ceremony. |
| Lieutenant Tasha Yar is killed off in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation after actress Denise Crosby asked to be released from her contract. | |
| May 1 | Magnum, P.I. broadcasts its 2-hour series finale on CBS. |
| May 13 | In the season finale of the CBS drama Dallas, character J.R. Ewing pushes over the railing of his high-rise office building the character Nicholas Pierce, and Sue Ellen is so enraged that she fires three shots at Ewing. |
| May 15 | Beverly Hills Cop makes its broadcast network television debut on ABC. |
| May 18 | The Late Show on Fox hosts a reunion of the entire cast of Gilligan's Island. This would prove to be the last time that all of the regular cast members appeared together as Jim Backus, who was suffering from Parkinson's disease at the time, died the following year. |
| May 22 | NBC broadcasts The Incredible Hulk Returns, a continuation of the TV series that aired on CBS from 1978-1982. |
| May 28 | The series finale of St. Elsewhere reveals that the entire series was the product of an autistic boy's imagination. |
| May 30 | After rejecting an offer to join CBS News, Peter Mansbridge replaces Knowlton Nash as anchorman of CBC Television's series The National. |
| June 14 | The CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless tops the daytime ratings (deposing longtime winner General Hospital).[1] |
| June 21 | Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Detroit Pistons airs on CBS. With a 21.2 rating / 37 share, it would prove to be the highest-rated NBA game in the 17 years that CBS broadcast the NBA (1973-1990). It's also the only NBA game that scored more than 20 ratings points for the network. |
| July 4 | Three years after its cancellation by ABC, CBS resurrects Family Feud for its daytime lineup, featuring new host Ray Combs. A syndicated nighttime version would premiere later in the autumn. |
| July 11 | The day before the Major League Baseball All-Star Game from Cincinnati, TBS televised the annual All-Star Gala[2] from the Cincinnati Zoo. Larry King hosted the broadcast with Craig Sager and Pete Van Wieren handling interviews. The broadcast's big draw would've been the Home Run Derby, which TBS intended on taping during the afternoon, and later airing it in prime time during the Gala coverage. The Gala coverage also had some canned features such as highlights from previous All-Star Games, a segment on Cincinnati's baseball history, a video recap of the season's first half and, a slow-motion highlight montage set to "This Is the Time" by Styx frontman Dennis DeYoung. Unfortunately, the derby and a skills competition were canceled due to rain. As a result, TBS scrambled to try to fill nearly an hour of now-open airtime. For example, the Gatlin Brothers, the event's musical guests, who had already played a full concert, were asked to come back out and play some more. |
| July 14 | The first ever edition of "Shark Week" airs on Discovery Channel. |
| August 9 | As a special prime time edition of the Game of the Week, NBC broadcasts the first official night game at Chicago's Wrigley Field between the Cubs and New York Mets. |
| August 27 | Fox affiliate WWPC-TV in Altoona, Pennsylvania (a satellite of WWCP-TV in Johnstown) breaks from its simulcast with WWCP-TV to become an ABC affiliate, returning ABC to Altoona/State College (and giving Johnstown its first full-time ABC affiliate) after Altoona/State College's previous ABC affiliate WOPC-TV went dark in 1982. |
| August 29 | The World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) telecasts the inaugural SummerSlam event on pay-per-view. |
| September 10 | In Knoxville, Tennessee, CBS affiliate WBIR-TV swaps affiliations with NBC affiliate WTVK in time for NBC Sports' coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games. Shortly after the switch, WTVK moves to channel 8, one of the last remaining VHF channel allocations in the U.S., and becomes WKXT-TV (now WVLT-TV).[3] |
| October 3 | TNT, the fourth cable network owned by Turner Broadcasting, commences programming with a broadcast of the movie Gone with the Wind. |
| The Bonus Round in Wheel of Fortune now adopts a Three-and-a-vowel format which was used till this day, with letters "R", "S", "T", "L", "N" and "E" provided immediately, and the time limit was reduced from 15 seconds to 10. | |
| October 4 | As did Cher, actress Shirley MacLaine calls David Letterman an "asshole" during a taping of the NBC talk show Late Night. |
| As part of a television special hosted by Patrick Stewart, called The Star Trek Saga: From One Generation to the Next, the first pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, called "The Cage" is broadcast in its entirety for the first time. In some markets, the airing of this special was delayed until October 15, 1988. Prior to this, footage of "The Cage" was incorporated into the Season 1 two-parter episode "The Menagerie". | |
| ABC under the guidance of new executive producer Geoffrey Mason,[4] debuts fatter and wider graphics that gave off a cleaner, sharper look complete with a black border for their Major League Baseball coverage. ABC also debuts a new energetic, symphonic-pop styled musical theme,[5][6] composed by Kurt Bestor,[7] which would become an all-compassing theme of sorts for ABC Sports during this time period. | |
| October 8 | A young Countess Vaughn (winner of Star Search) joins the cast of the NBC comedy 227 as Alexandria DeWitt, a young 11-year-old talented college student, whom the Jenkins' have as a houseguest for a year. |
| October 11 | Turner Broadcasting purchases Jim Crockett Promotions and subsequently rebrands it as World Championship Wrestling. The sale would be completed on November 2, 1988. Three days later, on NWA World Championship Wrestling, "Nature Boy" Ric Flair cut a promo and pointed out a large group of Turner executives in the crowd. This was a subtle nod to Ted Turner purchasing Jim Crockett Promotions. |
| October 15 | Kirk Gibson hits his now iconic walk-off home run off of Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics. Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola are in the broadcast booth for NBC Sports. During the same game at the second inning, NBC affiliate WMGT-TV in Macon, Georgia is hijacked for 10 seconds replacing parts of the second inning with an adult movie. The technician was later fired, and Production Manager L. A. Sturdivant reported to The Atlanta Constitution at the incident was an accident. [8] |
| October 27 | The last of Harding Lemay's "comeback" episodes are broadcast on the NBC soap opera Another World. In the final minutes of the episode, Australian actress Carmen Duncan assumed the role of the legendary bitch Iris Cory Wheeler, after the role had been vacated for many years by Beverlee McKinsey. |
| November 3 | Talk show host Geraldo Rivera's nose is broken during a taping of his show when a fight begins on the set between guests. The theme of the episode was "Young Hate Mongers," and the fight originated between white supremacist Tom Metzger and liberal activist Roy Innis. |
| November 21 | CBS broadcasts Inside the Sexes, a documentary produced by The Body Human's Alfred R. Kelman that features explicit content about human sexuality (including detailed visuals inside human reproductive organs), which prompts several CBS affiliates to broadcast the program with a parental warning at the beginning of the program, at a later time of the day. Some affiliates canceled their broadcast of the program. |
| November 24 | Mystery Science Theater airs for the first time on KTMA-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota. |
| December 8 | Tichina Arnold (later of Martin and Everybody Hates Chris fame) joins the cast of the ABC soap opera Ryan's Hope for what will prove to be its final season. |
| December 11 | Roots: The Gift, the third installment of the Roots series is broadcast on ABC. |
| December 13 | The American Wrestling Association airs its first and only pay-per-view card, SuperClash III. |
| December 14 | CBS pays Major League Baseball approximately US$1.8 billion[9] for exclusive over-the-air television rights for over four years (beginning in 1990). CBS paid about $265 million each year[10] for the World Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the Saturday Game of the Week. CBS replaces ABC (which had broadcast Monday and later Thursday night baseball games from 1976 to 1989) and NBC (which had broadcast Major League Baseball in some shape or form since 1947 and the Game of the Week exclusively since 1966) as the national broadcast network television home of Major League Baseball.[11] It was one of the largest agreements[12] (to date) between the sport of baseball and the business of broadcasting. The cost of the deal between CBS and Major League Baseball was about 25% more[13] than in the previous television contract with ABC and NBC.[14] The deal with CBS was also intended to pay each team (26 in 1990 and then, 28 by 1993) $10 million a year. |
| December 18 | A Very Brady Christmas airs on CBS and with a 25.1 rating and a 39 share, becomes the second highest rated television film of the year. Its success would soon lead to the creation of a new Brady Bunch series called The Bradys, which only lasts for six episodes. |
| December 26 | The Young and the Restless becomes the number 1 daytime drama on television, where it remains to this very day.[15] |
Programs
Debuting this year
The following is a list of shows that premiered in 1988.
Resuming this year
| Title | Final aired | Previous network | Returning network | Date of return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Family Feud | 1985 | ABC | CBS | July 4 |
| The Gong Show | 1980 | Syndication | Same | September 12 |
| Gumby | 1968 | NBC | Syndication | Fall 1988 |
Changing networks
Entering syndication
A list of programs (current or canceled) that have accumulated enough episodes (between 65 and 100) or seasons (3 or more) to be eligible for off-network syndication and/or basic cable runs.
| Show | Seasons | |
|---|---|---|
| The Cosby Show | 4 | |
| Kate & Allie | 4 |
Ending this year
Made-for-TV movies and miniseries
| Title | Network | Premiere date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank | CBS | April 17 | |
| Case Closed | CBS | April 9 | |
| David | ABC | October 28 | |
| Goddess of Love | NBC | November 20 | |
| Inherit the Wind | NBC | March 20 | Emmy Award winner |
| Internal Affairs | CBS | November 6 | |
| Jack the Ripper | CBS | October 21 | |
| Lincoln | NBC | March 27 | Miniseries, based on Gore Vidal’s novel |
| The Murder of Mary Phagan | NBC | January 24 | Emmy Award winner |
| The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story | NBC | May 2 | |
| War and Remembrance | ABC | November 13 | Miniseries; sequel to The Winds of War |
Television stations
Station launches
Stations changing network affiliation
| Market | Date | Station | Channel | Prior affiliation | New affiliation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Columbia, South Carolina | June 11 | WACH | 57 | Independent | Fox |
| Concord, New Hampshire | February 1 | WNHT | 21 | Independent | CBS |
| Davenport, Iowa | January 6 | KLJB-TV | 18 | Fox | Independent |
| Erie, Pennsylvania | May 23 | WETG | 66 | Independent | Fox |
| Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina (Anderson, South Carolina) | August 29 | WHNS | 21 | ||
| WAXA | 40 | Fox | Independent | ||
| Jacksonville, Florida | April 3 | WTLV | 12 | ABC | NBC |
| WJKS-TV | 17 | NBC | ABC | ||
| Johnstown/Altoona, Pennsylvania | August 27 | WATM-TV | 23 | Fox | ABC |
| Omaha, Nebraska | August 28 | KPTM | 42 | Independent | Fox |
| Knoxville, Tennessee | September 10 | WBIR-TV | 10 | CBS | NBC |
| WTVK | 26 | NBC | CBS | ||
| Laredo, Texas | October 31 | KLDO-TV | 27 | ABC | Univision |
| Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota | August 29 | KMSP-TV | 9 | Fox | Independent |
| KITN-TV | 29 | Independent | Fox | ||
| Portland, Oregon (Vancouver, Washington) | KPTV | 12 | Fox | Independent | |
| KPDX | 49 | Independent | Fox | ||
| Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida | WFTS-TV | 28 | Independent | Fox | |
| WTOG | 44 | Fox | Independent | ||
Station closures
| Date | City of license/Market | Station | Channel | Affiliation | Sign-on date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 8 | Natchez, Mississippi | WNTZ-TV | 33 | Independent | November 16, 1985 | Would return to the air in 1991 as a Fox affiliate |
| May 31 | Hot Springs, Arkansas | KRZB-TV | 26 | Independent | February 7, 1986 | |
Notes
- WTJA was previously on the air from 1966 to 1969 as WNYP-TV.
Births
Deaths
| Date | Name | Age | Notability |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 3 | William Cagney | 82 | Actor |
| February 1 | Heather O'Rourke | 12 | Actress (Poltergeist, Happy Days) |
| February 17 | Alexander Bashlachev | 27 | Soviet singer |
| March 10 | Andy Gibb | 30 | Singer (Solid Gold) |
| April 5 | Alf Kjellin | 68 | Actor and director |
| April 25 | Carolyn Franklin | 43 | Singer |
| April 27 | David Scarboro | 20 | English actor (EastEnders) |
| May 15 | Andrew Duggan | 64 | Character actor (Lancer) |
| May 21 | Sammy Davis Sr. | 87 | Dancer |
| May 18 | Daws Butler | 71 | Voice actor (The Jetsons, several animated commercials) |
| May 27 | Florida Friebus | 78 | Actress (The Bob Newhart Show, Dobie Gillis) |
| June 25 | Hillel Slovak | 26 | Israeli-American musician (Red Hot Chili Peppers) |
| July 21 | Jack Clark | 62 | Game show announcer (Wheel of Fortune) |
| July 25 | Judith Barsi | 10 | Child actress |
| July 31 | Trinidad Silva | 38 | Actor (Jesus Martinez on Hill Street Blues), in a car accident |
| September 11 | John Sylvester White | 68 | Actor (Welcome Back, Kotter) |
| September 29 | Charles Addams | 76 | Cartoonist whose drawings inspired (The Addams Family) |
| October 11 | Wayland Flowers | 48 | Puppeteer (Madame's Place) |
| October 31 | John Houseman | 86 | Actor (The Paper Chase, Silver Spoons) |
| December 6 | Timothy Patrick Murphy | 29 | Actor (Dallas) |
| December 12 | Dick Clair | 57 | Comedy writer (The Carol Burnett Show, The Facts of Life) |
| December 20 | Max Robinson | 49 | ABC World News correspondent |
| December 27 | Jess Oppenheimer | 75 | Comedy writer who created (I Love Lucy) |
References
- "Y&R Marks 26 Years As The Number #1 Daytime Drama!". michaelfairmansoaps.com.
- "The last time Cincinnati hosted the MLB All-Star Game, things got weird". The Sporting News. Archived from the original on 2018-07-21.
- "About WBIR in Knoxville". wbir.com.
- Nidetz, Steve (September 23, 1988). "ABC SPORTS HONCHO IS IN PURSUIT OF GRAPHIC CHANGES". Chicago Tribune.
- The ABC baseball theme, 1988-'89 on YouTube
- Foster, Jason (September 19, 2015). "The 9 best network baseball theme songs of all time, ranked". Sporting News.
- Robinson, Doug (October 28, 2002). "Kurt Bestor: Private discord, public acclaim". Deseret News.
- "WMGT-41's World Series hijacking incident". The Atlanta Constitution. October 15, 1988. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
- "A Billion-Dollar Bid By CBS Wins Rights To Baseball Games". The New York Times. December 15, 1988.
- Downey, Kevin (18 April 2002). "Waning days of big $ TV sports". Media Life. Archived from the original on 25 February 2015.
- "Baseball to CBS; NBC Strikes Out : ABC Also Falls Short as 4-Year Package Goes for $1 Billion". The Los Angeles Times. December 15, 1988.
- Shames, Laurence (23 July 1989). "CBS HAS WON THE WORLD SERIES......NOW IT COULD LOSE ITS SHIRT". The New York Times.
- Erardi, Luckhaupt, John, Joel (29 September 2010). The Wire-to-Wire Reds: Sweet Lou, Nasty Boys, and the Wild Run to a World ... p. 40. ISBN 9781578604661.
- Ernest Cashmore (1994). And There Was Television. p. 146. ISBN 9780415091305.
- "Y&R Celebrates 27 Consecutive Years As Daytime's No. 1 Drama". CBS.com.
- 1992 Television Factbook, page B-91.
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