1972 in Television - Events

Events

• January 21 – The first convention of Star Trek fans is held in New York City's Statler-Hilton hotel.
• Mid-February – John Lennon and Yoko Ono cohost an entire week on The Mike Douglas Show.
• February 19 – Sammy Davis Jr. makes a guest appearance on All in the Family.
• March 18 – After losing a 15-year court battle over the legality of its business relationship with The Herald-Traveler, CBS' Boston, Massachusetts affiliate WHDH-TV Channel 5 signs off the air. At 3 a.m. on March 19, WCVB takes over the Channel 5 frequency, simultaneously switching affiliations to the ABC network following CBS' loss of interest in the channel during the long legal wrangle.
• April 4 – After a three-year courtship, Emily Nugent married Ernest Bishop on Coronation Street.
• July 21 – Victoria Wyndham makes her first appearance as vixen (and later, good girl) Rachel Davis on the soap opera Another World.
• August 1 - Three years after it was first filmed, the Israel Broadcasting Authority finally agrees to screen Barricades, a controversial documentary film that offered a sympathetic portrayal of Palestinians expelled from their homes in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
• August 26 – Effective with this issue, TV Guide discontinues the practice of using a "C" to indicate color programs, and instead starts using a "BW" for monochrome, saving a lot of printer's ink in the process. At the time about half of the TV households in the U.S. had color sets.
• September 9 – The Lawrence Welk Show opens its 18th season on location in Hawaii.
• October 27 – The 5000th episode of Captain Kangaroo airs.
• November 8 – Home Box Office (HBO) is launched, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
• November 21 – In the second part of a two-part story which began the previous week, Beatrice Arthur's character, Maude Findlay, on the television sitcom Maude, decides to go through with an abortion, in a move that shocked CBS executives and Maude advertisers. (Rue McClanahan made her first appearance as Vivian Cavender in this two-parter; she would become a regular cast member the following season.)
• December 31 – ORTF 3ème Chaîne launches in France for the first time.