1998 in American Television - Events

Events

Date Event
January 5 An affiliation swap occurs in Sacramento, California: KMAX-TV switches its affiliation to UPN after its purchase by Paramount Stations Group, while KMAX's affiliation with The WB moves to KQCA.
January 12 CBS acquires the AFC package of NFL games in an $4 billion, 8-year contract. The move, combined with renewals by Fox and ABC, leaves NBC out of the NFL picture (Super Bowl XXXII, broadcast on January 25, would be NBC's last NFL game until 2006).
March 29 BBC Worldwide launches BBC America in the United States as a digital cable and satellite channel.
April 9 The Price Is Right airs its 5,000th episode on CBS. On that show, every pricing game is played for a car; something Price has never done before or after that.
April 18 Toon Disney, a United States cable network devoted to carrying animated series and films owned and produced by The Walt Disney Company 24 hours a day, launches.
April 24 A second special episode of Dallas airs on CBS seven years after the original series finished, titled Dallas: War of the Ewings.
May 11 ZDTV, a technology-based cable channel, is launched in the United States.
May 14 76.3 million people tune in to the series finale of Seinfeld.
May 18 Murphy Brown airs it's controversial series finale.
May 28 Former Saturday Night Live actor & comedian Phil Hartman, then starring in the NBC sitcom NewsRadio, is shot and killed by his wife in Encino, California.
June 1 Discovery Home and Leisure is launched.
June 29 Lifetime Movie Network is launched in the United States.
June 30 Request TV, a defunct Pay-Per-View channel renews after Tele-Communications Inc. and then, parent company Liberty Media, a co-parent.
July 31 Former child star Gary Coleman is charged with assaulting a young female bus driver in a California shopping mall.
August 15 Over a year after its acquisition by News Corporation's Fox Kids Worldwide, Inc., The Family Channel is relaunched as Fox Family Channel, with the network now targeting a younger family-oriented audience than that of its predecessor.
A pre-season game in Vancouver between the 49ers and Seahawks is CBS' first NFL football broadcast since January 1994.
August 31 Pax TV, a family-oriented broadcast network owned by Paxson Communications, launches (the network would later change its name to i in 2005, and since 2007, is now known as Ion Television).
September 13 The Practice and Frasier won Outstanding Comedy & Drama series at the 50th Primetime Emmy Awards.
September 14 The revived edition of Hollywood Squares returns to Syndication.
October 2 Kimberlin Brown makes her final contractual appearance as the villainess Sheila Carter on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. Brown will return for non-contractual encores to reprise the character in 2002 and 2003.
October 4 UPN adds two additional nights of programming to its schedule with primetime series added to Thursday and Friday nights, including a movie block called UPN Thursday Night at the Movies.
November 2 The Hardcore Championship is added to the list of championships in the World Wrestling Federation. (what is now WWE)

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