1998 in American television

In American television in 1998, notable events included television series debuts, finales, cancellations, and channel initiations, closures and rebrandings, as well as information about controversies and disputes.

Date	Event
3	Jim McKay announces that Wide World of Sports has been cancelled by ABC after 37 years.
12	CBS acquires the rights to the AFC of the NFL as part of a $4 billion, eight-year contract; Fox and ABC renew their agreements for the NFC and Monday Night Football, respectively (Super Bowl XXXII, broadcast on January 25, would be NBC's last NFL game until 2006).
15	Many of Sinclair's stations that were previously affiliated with UPN were converted to affiliates of The WB.
30	CBS affiliate in Orlando, WCPX-TV changes its name to WKMG-TV following its purchase by Post-Newsweek.

Date	Event
2	Cartoon Network introduces a new on-air branding package produced by Primal Screen, which frequently incorporated Raymond Scott's song "Powerhouse", and would last for six years.
18	A wanted child molester named Matthew Fenwick appears as a contestant on the game show Wheel of Fortune and wins $4,400. At the time of the episode's airing, Matthew was on the run after being accused of molesting two underage girls, ages 8 and 10, who discovered Matthew on the game show after a warrant was issued for him in November 1997 by the police. He was arrested two days after his appearance on the game show and subsequently pled guilty in July 1998 for two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child.
29	World Wrestling Federation wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin defeats Shawn Michaels, winning his first WWF World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XIV. With this, it has been cited to be the full beginning of the "Attitude Era".

Date	Event
4	The 1998 Kids' Choice Awards air on Nickelodeon, hosted by Rosie O'Donnell. Television winners included Kenan & Kel (for "Favorite TV Show"), Jonathan Taylor Thomas (of Home Improvement for "Favorite TV Actor"), Melissa Joan Hart (of Sabrina the Teenage Witch for "Favorite TV Actress") and Rugrats (for "Favorite Cartoon"). A half-hour sneak preview of CatDog follows the ceremony.
6	Long-running British children's television series Teletubbies begins its U.S. television debut on PBS Kids.
9	The Price Is Right's 5,000th episode is broadcast on CBS. On the show, every pricing game is played for a car (something Price had only done once before. It has been repeated only once since then). At the beginning of the show, CBS announces it has renamed Studio 33 (the studio at CBS Television City where The Price Is Right has taped since its 1972 return) the Bob Barker Studios in honor of the show's then-host and executive producer.
11	The National Cable Television Association announces they will discontinue the CableACE awards, due to the Emmy Awards recognizing cable programming.
30	Seven television stations broadcast the suicide of maintenance worker Daniel V. Jones on live television. The incident causes many to criticize Los Angeles television stations' practice of airing police pursuits live and calls for proposed changes in the way live coverage of events are handled in the future.

Date	Event
7	The infamous Seinfeld episode, "The Puerto Rican Day" is broadcast on NBC. In it, Cosmo Kramer accidentally burns and then stomps on the Puerto Rican flag. NBC was forced to apologize and had it banned from airing on the network again. Also, it was not initially part of the syndicated package. In the summer of 2002, the episode started to appear with the flag-burning sequence intact.
14	76.3 million people tune in to The Finale of Seinfeld on NBC.
28	Former Saturday Night Live actor and comedian Phil Hartman, then featuring on the NBC sitcom NewsRadio, the Fox animated sitcom The Simpsons, and announcer of Cartoon Network is shot and killed by his wife (who then kills herself).

Date	Event
1	The anime Sailor Moon debuts on Cartoon Network's after school programming block, Toonami.
11	United Video Satellite Group, parent company of the Prevue Channel (now Pop), acquires TV Guide from News Corporation for $800 million and 60 million shares of stock worth an additional $1.2 billion. In recognition of this, Prevue Channel will rebrand to the TV Guide Channel on February 1, 1999.^[1]^[2]
14	Game 6 of the NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Utah Jazz is broadcast on NBC. The game registered a 22.3 Nielsen rating and 38 share with average 35.9 million viewers. This made it the highest rated and most watched game in the history of the National Basketball Association. 72 million people in the US watched at least part of the game.^[3] The previous record was a 21.2 rating and 37 share for Game 7 of the 1988 NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Detroit Pistons on CBS.^[4]

1998 in American television

Events

January

February

March

April

May

June

August

September

October

November

December

Programs

Debuts

Ending this year

Entering syndication this year

Milestone episodes and anniversaries

Returning this year

Changes of network affiliation

Made-for-TV movies

Miniseries

Networks and services

Network launches

Network conversions

Closures

Television stations

Station launches

Stations changing network affiliation

Births

Deaths

See also

References

External links

Wikiwand - on

Date	Event
3	The feud between UPN and Sinclair Broadcast Group has been ended, with many of the Milwaukee, Birmingham, Raleigh and Charleston stations that were temporary independent stations went back to being UPN affiliates.
15	A pre-season football game in Vancouver, British Columbia between the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks is CBS's first NFL football broadcast since January 1994.
16	KATH-LP in Juneau, Alaska signs on the air, giving the Juneau market its first full-time NBC affiliate. The sign-on was delayed for a month due to delays in receiving the equipment required to place the station on the local GCI cable system (Sister station KSCT-LP in Sitka, the market's former Fox affiliate, had already switched to NBC).^[5]^[6]

Date	Event
4	UPN adds two additional nights of programming to its schedule with primetime series added to Friday nights, including a movie block on Thursday nights.
21	Fox broadcasts the Game 4 of its second World Series. The New York Yankees defeat the San Diego Padres, winning their 24th championship and second since 1996.
19	Fox Family Channel debuts its new annual event 13 Nights of Halloween.

Date	Event
8	The Milwaukee, Raleigh, Birmingham and Charleston stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group air many Star Trek: Voyager episodes viewers left out of the last season, with the permission of UPN and Paramount Television.
16	Sesame Street's 30th season premiere introduces a revised set, the human character Alan, and the segment Elmo's World.
20	The Rugrats Movie, based on Nickelodeon's hit series Rugrats is released in theaters. The movie introduces the character of Dil Pickles, who became a main character in Rugrats the following January. The Rugrats Movie was a commercial success, making a grand total of $100,494,675 domestically and another $40,400,000 in international markets.^[7] To promote the movie, Nickelodeon put all Rugrats episodes on hiatus for the week. It was the first time since 1994 that Rugrats was not part of Nick's daily schedule.

Date	Show	Debut
January 1	413 Hope St.	1997
January 1	Living Single	1993
January 3	Newton's Apple	1983
January 4	Inspector Gadget's Field Trip	1996
January 10	Jungle Cubs	1996
January 12	Jenny	1997
January 13	Dellaventura	1997
January 15	The Secret World of Alex Mack	1994
January 16	The Visitor	1997
January 22	Union Square
January 24	Cracker
January 29	Ask Harriet	1998
January 31	Spider-Man	1994
February 5	The Ink and Paint Club	1997
February 7	Wheel 2000	1997
February 8	Muppets Tonight	1996
February 9	Fired Up	1997
February 10	Make Me Laugh	1958
February 13	Teen Angel	1997
February 17	Grace Under Fire	1993
February 20	Channel Umptee-3	1997
February 23	Bobby's World	1990
February 27	The Gregory Hines Show	1997
March 2	Sparks	1996
March 2	Big Bad Beetleborgs	1996
March 3	Four Corners	1998
March 4	101 Dalmatians: The Series	1997
March 6	Hiller and Diller	1997
March 7	Gadget Boy & Heather	1995
March 7	USA Up All Night	1989
March 14	Nothing Scared	1997
March 15	The Tom Show
March 16	George & Leo
March 20	Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation
March 21	Fame L.A.
March 25	Significant Others	1998
March 27	Big Bag	1996
April 17	Players	1997
April 25	The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police	1997
April 26	You're the One	1998