| Date | Event |
| January 3 | After being canceled by CBS at the end of the 1984–85 season, Charles in Charge resurfaces in first-run syndication, where it would run for an additional four seasons. |
| January 5 | Remington Steele is resumed by NBC after a six-month hiatus. During the hiatus, the series' main actor Pierce Brosnan won the film role of James Bond, only to lose the role when NBC unexpectedly renewed the television series. Remington Steele adopts a TV-movie length format but only runs for a few installments before being canceled permanently. |
| January 17 | NBC announces purchase of CBS affiliate WTVJ, and stripped off WSVN, thus the switch did not take effect until two years later. |
| January 22 | R. Budd Dwyer shoots and kills himself at a televised press conference. The decision by some companies to broadcast the footage results in a debate concerning journalistic ethics. |
| January 25 | CBS' broadcast of Super Bowl XXI becomes the first NFL game to be broadcast in Dolby Surround sound and in stereo.[1] CBS also debuted the theme music (composed by Lloyd Landesman) that would later be used for their college football coverage during this game, as well as its open that was used through 1990. |
| February 2 | PBS broadcasts the critically acclaimed series Eyes on the Prize. |
| February 7 | In the very special episode of Valerie titled "Bad Timing", David and a former girlfriend debate whether to have sex.[2][3] The episode featured the first use of the word condom on a prime time television program.[4] Parental advisory warnings were issued in ads for the episode and NBC placed an advisory warning before the episode aired stating that parents may want to watch the episode with their children. Because of the episode's subject matter, some of NBC's affiliates either aired the show outside of prime time or refused to air it at all. The episode was later released to home video, especially for teachers and health educators to use as a tool to promote safe sex. |
| February 14 | Pee-wee Herman guest stars on the NBC sitcom 227. |
| February 15 | Amerika, the science-fiction drama miniseries, showing life ten years after the United States is defeated and occupied by the USSR, was broadcast on ABC. |
| February 20 | David Hartman anchors ABC's Good Morning America for the final time. He would be succeeded by Charles Gibson, who would anchor the program alongside Joan Lunden. |
| February 24 | James Coco makes his final recurring appearance as Tony Micelli's father–in–law, Nick Milano on the ABC sitcom Who's the Boss? Just one day later, Coco would die of a heart attack at the age of 56. The Season 4 episode "A Farewell to Nick" would later be produced in Coco's honor. |
| February 25 | Frank Sinatra makes a guest appearance on Magnum P.I., in what would be his last credited screen performance. |
| March 9 | KETK-TV in Jacksonville, Texas signs on the air, giving the Tyler market its first full-time NBC affiliate. (NBC had previously been shared on KLTV with CBS (until KLMG-TV signed on in 1984), and later ABC which KLTV retains as a full-time affiliate.) |
| March 12 | "A, My Name is Alex", a special hour-long episode of Family Ties is broadcast on NBC. The second half-hour was broadcast without commercials. The episode would win numerous awards, including a Primetime Emmy Award, a Humanitas Prize and a Writers Guild of America Award for writing as well as a DGA Award. |
| March 19 | Televangelist Jim Bakker resigns as the host of The PTL Club after involvement in a sex scandal. |
| March 23 | The first ever Soul Train Music Awards is broadcast in syndication. |
| The soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful debuts on CBS. |
| March 27 | On CBS, The Price Is Right surpasses Concentration as the longest-running daytime game show in history. |
| March 28 | The forerunner to the Kids' Choice Awards, dubbed 'The Big Ballot', airs on Nickelodeon. The Big Ballot was actually aired over four consecutive weeks (with the movie winners, TV winners, music winners, and finally sports winners being announced for each week) as part of the movie review program Rated K: For Kids by Kids. |
| March 29 | In front of 93,173 fans Hulk Hogan retains the WWF World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 3 at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan defeating his former friend André The Giant. |
| March 30 | CBS Sports uses the song "One Shining Moment" for the first time during the highlight package at the end of their coverage of NCAA men's basketball tournament final. |
| March 31 | On Moonlighting, Maddie and David consummate their relationship after two and a half years of romantic tension. |
| April 5 | The Fox TV network makes its prime-time debut, marking the first time since 1955 that there were four U.S. networks with prime-time programming. The network debuted two shows, Married... with Children and The Tracey Ullman Show, which are broadcast three times each during the night so that viewers watching other networks can switch over and sample the shows. |
| April 6 | During an episode of the ABC late-night news program Nightline devoted to the upcoming 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut in Major League Baseball, Los Angeles Dodgers general manager Al Campanis makes racially insensitive comments when asked about the scarcity of black field or general managers in MLB. Campanis would be fired two days later. |
| April 17 | Bill Murray announces a Chicago Cubs-Montreal Expos game at Wrigley Field on WGN. Working alongside color analyst Steve Stone, Murray was filling in while broadcaster Harry Caray was recovering from a stroke. Caray would eventually return to the booth on May 19. |
| April 19 | Matt Groening's The Simpsons debuts as a series of short animated segments as part of The Tracey Ullman Show on Fox. |
| April 29 | Independent station in New York City, WOR-TV changes its call sign to WWOR-TV. |
| May 4 | Valerie Harper makes her final appearance as Valerie Hogan on what was initially called Valerie. After Harper was fired from the series following contractual disputes, the series was renamed Valerie's Family and finally, The Hogan Family come the fourth season. |
| May 6 | Mr. Belvedere is canceled after three seasons; however criticism causes ABC executives to rethink the decision and renew the series for a fourth season. (Since the fall programming schedules were already set, Mr. Belvedere would not premiere until late October.) |
| May 7 | Shelley Long makes her final regular appearance as Diane Chambers on Cheers. She would appear once more in the series finale in 1993. |
| May 15 | Pamela Ewing's car speeds out of control, crashes into a tanker, and explodes on the season finale of the CBS drama Dallas. |
| Joan Rivers makes her final appearance as host of Fox's talk show The Late Show following her recent firing by the network. For the final show, the set is vandalized with toilet paper, slime, and shaving cream. Her guests are Howie Mandel, Pee-Wee Herman, then-fledgling comedian Chris Rock, Wendy O. Williams, and show stage manager Michelle Aller as her alter-ego Mavis Vegas Davis.[5][6] Soon afterward, the program is renamed The Late Show and features rotating guest hosts including Suzanne Somers, Richard Belzer, and Robert Townsend. After firing prospective guest host Frank Zappa, producer John Scura replaces him with Arsenio Hall, who would make his debut as a talk show host. Eventually, Hall is named the permanent replacement host in mid-1987. |
| May 17 | The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, which features Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner reprising their roles as Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers respectively, airs on NBC. This would be followed by two more television movies, Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989) and Bionic Ever After? (1994). |
| June 4 | CBS becomes the last American network to cease a chime intonation at the beginning of telecasts; satellite feeds have made the tones obsolete (their function was to signal to the affiliates to start broadcasting the network feed in synchronization with the others). |
| June 30 | U.S. daytime television was interrupted for the Iran-Contra hearings. |
| July 15 | Genie Francis, of General Hospital fame, starts a new soap opera role as Diana Colville on the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives, which she will play until 1989. |
| July 17 | The initial pilot for Good Morning, Miss Bliss airs on NBC. One year later, the series proper would air on the Disney Channel, becoming the first program to be produced by a major television network for cable TV. After one season on Disney Channel, Good Morning, Miss Bliss would be retooled into Saved by the Bell, which would air as part of NBC's Saturday morning line-up. |
| July 28 | Actor Crispin Glover appears on Late Night with David Letterman to promote River's Edge.[7] To the surprise of Letterman and the audience, Glover appears wearing platform shoes and a wig. During the interview, Glover behaves erratically and nearly kicks Letterman in the face, causing Letterman to walk off the set.[7][8] Four years later, the film Rubin & Ed premiered, in which Glover has a starring role as titular character Rubin Farr. After the release of Rubin & Ed, some speculated that Glover was acting in-character as Rubin Farr during his appearance on Late Night.[7][8][9][10] |
| July 31 | Movietime, forerunner to E!, goes on the air. |
| August 1 | ABC affiliate KRCR-TV in Redding, California launches full-time satellite KAEF-TV in Arcata, California, giving the Eureka market its first full-time ABC affiliate. |
| August 31 | CBS airs the special Michael Jackson: The Magic Returns, which features the broadcast premiere of Jackson's 18 minute long music video "Bad". |
| August 31 | Columbus independent station WWAT-TV goes in the air. |
| September 5 | Dick Clark's American Bandstand is broadcast for the 2,751st and last time by ABC, after 30 years on the network. (It continued in syndication, then on cable for 2 more years.) |
| September 7 | The original series of Disney's well known animated series DuckTales begins airing on ITV in the UK before being shown in its normal country. |
| September 7 | CBS begins broadcasting its prime time programs with stereo sound dubbed CBS StereoSound. |
| September 11 | Dan Rather of the CBS Evening News leaves the newscast when a televised tennis match runs two minutes over. He is missing for six minutes. |
| September 12 | The final episode of Down and Out in Beverly Hills, an adaptation of the 1986 film of the same name, airs on Fox. It has the distinction of being the first ever show to be cancelled by Fox; 5 of the 13 produced episodes did not air.[11] |
| September 14 | Filmation's final animated series BraveStarr has its broadcast premiere in syndication. |
| September 18 | DuckTales finally begins airing in the U.S. for the first time ever in syndication. |
| September 19 | NBC debuts a weekday package of sitcoms for its owned-and-operated stations called "Prime Time Begins at 7:30". The shows included are Marblehead Manor (airing Mondays), She's the Sheriff (airing Tuesdays), a series adapted from the George S. Kaufman play You Can't Take It with You (airing Wednesdays), Out of This World (airing Thursdays), and a revival of the short-lived 1983 NBC series We Got It Made closing out the week on Fridays. |
| September 21 | Following its cancellation by ABC after four seasons, the sitcom Webster is relaunched in first-run syndication, where it would run for two additional seasons. |
| September 22 | Long-running sitcom Full House created by Jeff Franklin debuts on ABC. |
| September 24 | Kirstie Alley makes her debut as Rebecca Howe in the sixth-season premiere of Cheers. |
| September 26 | The pilot episode for the sitcom Second Chance airs on Fox. In the opening scene, as a throwaway joke, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is shown being judged after his death, with the date given as July 29, 2011. In the year after the Berlin discotheque bombing and the U.S. response, the 1987 pilot was playing off Gaddafi's prominent negative perception by the American public. Twenty-four years later, by coincidence, Gaddafi's death (on October 20, 2011) occurred within three months of the "predicted" date and was from the same cause (multiple gunshot wounds).[12] |
| September 28 | The pilot episode for Star Trek: The Next Generation premieres in syndication. |
| October 3 | Once a Hero, the show's lowest rated program of the season holds its last aired episode on ABC. The following week, specials replaced it until the debut of Sable in its time period on November 7. |
| October 4 | On the final day of the Major League Baseball season, the Detroit Tigers clinch the American League East title against their divisional rivals the Toronto Blue Jays. The game was broadcast on Sunday afternoon on ABC with Al Michaels, Jim Palmer and Tim McCarver on the call. |
| October 12 | Valerie Harper files a lawsuit against NBC and Lorimar for breach of contract after being dismissed from her sitcom Valerie. |
| October 14 | CNN quickly reports on the story of 18-month-old toddler Jessica McClure falling down a well in Midland, Texas, and the event helped make its name. |
| October 15 | Bob Barker stops dyeing his hair brown and appears on The Price is Right for the first time with white hair. He is given a minute-long standing ovation by the audience. |
| October 16 | Max Headroom makes its final airing on its Friday night timeslot on ABC. The previously unaired episodes will later burn off in its Thursday night time slot during the 1988 WGA strike on ABC, replacing Probe. The fourth season opener of Mr. Belvedere and the premiere of Pursuit of Happiness will replace Headroom two weeks later, on October 30 on its Friday night time period. |
| October 24 | ABC allows Game 6 of the World Series between the Minnesota Twins and St. Louis Cardinals to be played at 3 p.m. CT (4 p.m. ET) on Saturday afternoon – the only day game of the series, and the last World Series game to date to be played in the daytime (although as the game was played in the Metrodome, the game took place under artificial illumination all the same). |
| October 26 | ABC airs a special, secondary edition of Monday Night Football for the Minneapolis and Denver markets. The game between the Vikings and Broncos was moved from Sunday, October 25 to the following Monday night because the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome was being used for Game 7 of the World Series. Gary Bender and Lynn Swann would call this special contest from Minnesota while the rest of the nation sees the Los Angeles Rams face off against the Cleveland Browns. |
| October 30 | The third season of Punky Brewster begins after the series was off the air for over a year and a half. After NBC cancelled it at the end of the 1985–86 season, the show would continue production throughout the 1986–87 season leading up to its return to the air via first-run syndication. |
| November 8 | ESPN broadcasts its first ever Sunday night National Football League game, a contest between the New York Giants and New England Patriots. It marked the first time that a cable television outlet broadcast an NFL game. |
| November 9 | Fox's Salt Lake City affiliate KSTU moves its channel allocation from UHF channel 20 to VHF channel 13.[13] |
| November 13 | Sonny & Cher reunite for a performance on NBC's late-night talk show Late Night with David Letterman. |
| November 15 | The animated crossover The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones premieres in syndication. |
| November 22 | During a showing of the Doctor Who story "Horror of Fang Rock", PBS member station WTTW-TV Channel 11 in Chicago is interrupted for 88 seconds by a pirate television transmitter overriding the station's transmission signal to broadcast a video of himself in a Max Headroom mask being spanked. The similar incident (for 15–20 seconds) occurred during WGN-TV's newscast when it showed the mask moving up and downwards. |
| Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back makes its network broadcast television premiere on NBC. |
| November 26 | The very first Survivor Series professional wrestling event is broadcast on pay-per-view. That same night, the World Wrestling Federation's competitor, Jim Crockett Promotions held their fifth annual Starrcade supercard event. Jim Crockett Promotions had previously aired Starrcade only on closed-circuit television. To compete with Starrcade, the WWF introduced the Survivor Series event, and held it on the same night as Starrcade. The WWF also limited the amount of pay-per-view providers that would carry Starrcade by not allowing providers to carry WrestleMania IV if they did not carry Survivor Series exclusively. Only a small amount of providers carried Starrcade, and it drew a 3.30 buy rate while Survivor Series drew a 7.0 buy rate. |
| December 7 | Remote Control, MTV's first original non-musical program and first game show makes its debut. |
| December 16 | San Antonio television station KABB goes on the air. |
| SuperStation WTBS airs the 1983 film A Christmas Story[14][15][16] for the very first time. Turner Broadcasting (as both an independent company and, from 1996 onward, as a subsidiary of the company presently operating as Warner Bros. Discovery) would maintain ownership of the broadcast rights to A Christmas Story. Beginning in the mid-1990s, they would air the film increasingly on both TBS and TNT throughout the holiday season annually. |
| December 27 | Through a short stint with NBC Sports, Gayle Sierens became the first woman to do play-by-play for an NFL regular season football game when she called a game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Kansas City Chiefs. |
| December 28 | The first ever Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series premieres in syndication starting off with the first four episodes. |
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