Date
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Event
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Ref.
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January 31
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CBS broadcasts The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, a multi-Emmy-winning adaptation of Ernest J. Gaines’ novel of the same name which follows the 110-year life of a former slave from the American Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. Cicely Tyson is tapped to play the title role.
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February 1
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KIVI-TV signs-on the air, giving the Boise market its first full-time ABC affiliate.
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February 8
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After 20 years and 5,195 episodes, The Secret Storm ends its run on CBS’s daytime schedule. Ten days later, the show is replaced by Tattletales, a Bert Convy-hosted game show that is devoted to celebrity gossip.
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March 11
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The children's special Free to Be… You and Me, produced by comedic actress Marlo Thomas, airs on ABC.
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March 13
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The Execution of Private Slovik, a made-for-TV film telling the story of Pvt. Eddie Slovik, the only American soldier to be executed for desertion after the American Civil War, airs on NBC.
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March 18
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CBS's cancellation of Here's Lucy marks the end of the television reign of Lucille Ball, which lasted 23 consecutive years beginning with the 1951 premiere of I Love Lucy.
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March
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Chuck Scarbarough joins WNBC-TV and revamps its format as NewsCenter 4, signaling the debut of the NewsCenter format.
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[1]
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April 5
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The Dean Martin Show ends its run on NBC after 264 hour-long episodes. NBC will continue to air periodic editions of The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast over the next 10 years.
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April 26
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KPVI signs-on the air, giving the Idaho Falls market its first full-time ABC affiliate.
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July 15
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Christine Chubbuck, a television reporter for WXLT in Sarasota, Florida commits suicide via a gunshot from behind her right ear during a live newscast on Suncoast Digest.
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[2][3][4]
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August 8
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U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his pending resignation live on television, effective at 12 Noon EDT the next day, at which time Vice President Gerald Ford is sworn in as President.
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WEVU (now WZVN-TV) signs-on the air, giving the Fort Myers market its first full-time ABC affiliate.
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August 25
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Al Ham's music theme Part of Your Life made its debut on WBTV-TV in Charlotte.
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[5]
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September 10
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Born Innocent, a controversial film starring Linda Blair, airs on NBC. The film, which involved a fourteen-year-old being sent to what the television preview deemed a women's prison (when in reality it was a reform school), drew heavy criticism due to an all-female rape scene, the first ever seen on American television. The scene was deleted in subsequent re-airings after a group of girls assaulted an eight-year-old with a pop bottle, influenced by the scene in the film.
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October 6
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Monty Python's Flying Circus, the British sketch comedy series that aired its final episode this year, is first shown on American television when PBS member station KERA-TV in Dallas, Texas airs it at 10 p.m. Central Daylight Time.[6][7]
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November 28
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For the fourth time this year, ABC aligns with a new station as WOPC-TV in Altoona, Pennsylvania brings full-time ABC service to the Altoona-State College market. WOPC-TV struggles for viewers and goes dark in 1982; ABC would return to Altoona (and channel 23) in 1988 when Fox affiliate WWPC-TV (then a satellite of WWCP-TV in Johnstown) breaks from its simulcast with WWCP-TV.
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