Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January 4 | The Nick Jr. programming block begins airing on Nickelodeon. |
| February | Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, the focus of a sex scandal, admits to being with prostitutes and temporarily steps back from his television ministry. |
| February 5 | Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant compete on The Main Event on NBC, the first professional wrestling broadcast in network prime-time since 1955. |
| 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 on Amateur Night, where a 13-year-old Hill sung "Who's Lovin' You" by Motown star Smokey Robinson, and gets booed by the audience. |
| February 26 | Tom Hardy marries Simone Ravelle on General Hospital, a milestone event for American daytime television as it is the first interracial wedding. |
| March 1 | Nickelodeon debuted The First Annual Kids Choice Awards. |
| March 19 | The song "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" experiences a surge in popularity sparked by television commercials featuring claymation raisin figures. The California Raisins version of the song peaks at #84 on the Billboard Hot 100. |
| April | Ana Alicia's character, Melissa Agretti, dies in a house fire on Falcon Crest. |
| April 13 | Geraldo Rivera's live special Murder: Live from Death Row airs in syndication; a highlight is Rivera's pre-taped interview with Charles Manson. |
| May 1 | Thomas Magnum and his red Ferrari head into the sunset as Magnum, P.I. airs its 2-hour series finale on CBS. |
| May 13 | J.R. Ewing pushes Nicholas Pierce over the railing of his high-rise office building, and Sue Ellen is so enraged that she fires three shots at him, on the season finale of Dallas. |
| May 30 | After rejecting an offer to join CBS News, Peter Mansbridge replaces Knowlton Nash as anchor of CBC Television's The National. |
| June 14 | The Young and the Restless tops the daytime ratings (deposing longtime winner General Hospital), starting an unbeaten streak of #1 victories that still continue to this day. |
| July 4 | Three years after its cancellation by ABC, CBS resurrects the hit game show Family Feud for its daytime lineup, featuring new host Ray Combs. A syndicated nighttime version would premiere in the fall. |
| September 19 | Square One TV returns for its second season. |
| October 3 | TNT, the fourth cable network owned by Turner Broadcasting, commences programming with an airing of Gone with the Wind. |
| October 4 | Following in Cher's footsteps, actress Shirley MacLaine calls David Letterman an "asshole", on the air during a taping of Late Night. |
| October 8 | A young Countess Vaughn (winner of Star Search) joins the cast of 227 as Alexandria DeWitt, a young 11-year old talented college student, whom the Jenkins' have as a houseguest for a year. |
| October 27 | The last of Harding Lemay's "comeback" episodes air on Another World. In the final minutes of the episode, Australian actress Carmen Duncan took over 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 erupts on the set between guests. The theme of the episode was "Young Hate Mongers," and the fight originated between white supremacist Tom Metzger and civil rights activist Roy Innis. |
| November 21 | CBS airs Insides 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 leads to several CBS affiliates deciding to air the program at a later hour or not at all (despite a parental warning at the beginning of the show). |
| December 8 | Tichina Arnold (of Martin and Everybody Hates Chris fame) joins the cast for the final season of Ryan's Hope on ABC. |
Read more about this topic: 1988 In American Television
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