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1975 in television

The year 1975 involved some significant events in television. Below is a list of television-related events which happened that year.

Events

  • January 3
  • The original Jeopardy! ends its run after almost 11 years and 2,753 episodes on NBC
  • Also on NBC, the biggest prize in American daytime television game shows at the time is won on Jackpot, $38,750, split between two contestants
  • January 6
  • Another World becomes the first American soap opera to start airing hour-long telecasts
  • Wheel of Fortune airs its first episode on NBC's daytime schedule with host Chuck Woolery and assistant Susan Stafford
  • ORTF is split-up into 7 companies: TF1, Antenne 2, FR3, INA, SFP, Radio France & TDF
  • January 11 – On All in the Family (CBS), a tearful Edith Bunker says goodbye to her neighbor Louise Jefferson as The Jeffersons moves on up to their own sitcom
  • March 1 – "C-Day" in Australia: Full-time color television production takes effect today
  • March 4
  • The first People's Choice Awards presentation on CBS
  • Television cameras are first permitted in the Parliament of Canada
  • March 18 – McLean Stevenson's character dies in the M*A*S*H episode "Abyssinia, Henry", its third season finale
  • The pilot episode of airs on ABC introducing Jim Henson's characters to Prime Time with adult humor.
  • April 1 – The New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation is dissolved; NZBC TV is renamed Television One
  • April 3 – Meg Richardson (Noele Gordon) marries Hugh Mortimer (John Bentley) on British soap opera Crossroads
  • April 4 - The pilot episode of "Black Bart" is aired on CBS, based on the same screenplay that became "Blazing Saddles"
  • April 5 – The Super Sentai series makes its debut on TV Asahi with Himitsu Sentai Gorenger
  • April 12 – On The Jeffersons, Mike Evans makes his last appearance (until 1979), with Damon Evans (no relation to Michael) joining the cast
  • April 21 – Days of Our Lives becomes the second American soap opera to expand from thirty minutes to an hour in length
  • April 25 – ' airs on ABC
  • April 28 – Tom Snyder interviews John Lennon on NBC's The Tomorrow Show
  • June 5 – Fred Silverman becomes the head of ABC Entertainment, whose programming choices resulted in ABC achieving ratings dominance (and initiating an era of what is disparagingly called "T&A" or "Jiggle television")
  • June 30 – TV2 launches in New Zealand, becoming the country's second television network
  • September 5 – A bomb explodes in the wine bar/delicatessen on Australian soap opera Number 96 in an attempt to shake up the cast and earn back lost viewers
  • September 8 – In the United States:
  • The Price is Right is expanded to an hour in length, with six games and two Showcase Showdowns, for one week as an experiment; the format is made permanent two months later
  • Match Game starts airing weekly episodes in syndicated primetime as Match Game PM
  • September 29 – WGPR-TV, channel 62 in Detroit, becomes the first television station in the U.S. to be owned and operated by blacks (It later becomes CBS-owned WWJ-TV)
  • October 1 (10:00 a.m. local time; September 30 in the Americas) – Home Box Office cable television becomes the first pay-per-view television network to deliver a continuous signal via satellite by broadcasting the "Thrilla in Manila" boxing title fight (in which Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in Manila, Philippines) live to the United States. The fight is watched live by well over 100 million and perhaps as many as one billion viewers worldwide including the 500,000 on HBO and 100 million viewers watching on closed-circuit theatre television. It is broadcast in the Philippines by KBS and in the United Kingdom by the BBC
  • October 11 – The premiere episode of Saturday Night Live is broadcast on NBC
  • October 16 – The "Balibo Five" Australian television journalists are killed at Balibo by Indonesian Army special forces in the buildup to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor
  • October 21 – NBC broadcasts the now legendary 12-inning long sixth game of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds. The game ends with Boston catcher Carlton Fisk's home run to send the series to a climatic seventh game. In what becomes an iconic baseball film highlight, the NBC left-field game camera catches Fisk wildly waving his arms to his right after hitting the ball and watching its path while drifting down the first base line, as if he is trying to coax the ball to "stay fair". The ball indeed stays fair and the Red Sox tie the Series. (According to the NBC cameraman Lou Gerard, located inside the left field wall scoreboard, cameramen at this time are instructed to follow the flight of the ball. Instead, Gerard is distracted by a rat nearby, thus he loses track of the baseball and instead decides to capture the image of Fisk "magically" waving the ball fair). The game is ranked Number 1 in MLB Network's 20 Greatest Games.
  • October 25 – The classic "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show airs on CBS
  • October 28 – A James Bond film is shown on British television for the first time, Dr. No on ITV
  • November – Sony introduces the Betamax video recorder in the US, which comes in a teakwood console with a 19" color TV set and retails for $2,495
  • November 7 – The New Original Wonder Woman TV movie airs as a pilot for the series Wonder Woman (which premieres in 1976)
  • November 10 – The Guiding Light on CBS changes its name to Guiding Light, in an attempt to modernize the show's image (The show's announcer, however, continues to call the series The Guiding Light in his announcements until the early 1980s)
  • November 23 – Memories of the "Heidi Game" return to haunt NBC as that network is forced to join Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in progress at the conclusion of an overtime NFL game
  • December 1 – Top-rated As the World Turns, bowing to competition from NBC, expands to one hour in length; The Edge of Night moves to ABC
  • December 25 – World television premiere of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, on BBC1

Programs

Debuts

Ending this year

Changes of network affiliation

Births

Deaths

Television debuts

See also

References