In
American television in 1995, notable events included television show debuts, finales, cancellations, and channel initiations, closures and rebrandings, as well as information about controversies and disputes.
Notable events
January
Date
Event
2
The
1994–96 United States broadcast TV realignment continues in two major markets: as a by-product of an affiliation deal between
ABC and
The E.W. Scripps Company, and a related deal between
CBS and
Westinghouse Broadcasting, Westinghouse-owned
WBZ-TV (channel 4) in
Boston, Massachusetts switches from
NBC to CBS, while NBC aligns with former CBS affiliate
WHDH (which will remain affiliated with the network until New Year's Eve 2016). In Baltimore, CBS switches affiliations to Westinghouse-owned
WJZ-TV (channel 13) after 46 years as an
ABC affiliate, while ABC joins Scripps-owned
WMAR (channel 2) and NBC reunites with
WBAL-TV (channel 11) after 13 years as a CBS affiliate. Later that year, Westinghouse acquires CBS, making both WBZ-TV and WJZ-TV
CBS owned-and-operated stations.
All My Children celebrates its 25th anniversary and broadcasts a prime-time special on
ABC.
In an interview with Kathleen Gingrich, mother of
Republican politician
Newt Gingrich, on
CBS' Eye to Eye, Mrs. Gingrich said she could not say what her son thought about
First LadyHillary Clinton on the air.
Connie Chung asked Mrs. Gingrich to "just whisper it to me, just between you and me," and Mrs. Gingrich's microphone volume was turned up as she replied "He thinks she's a bitch."[1] Many people interpreted Chung's suggestion that if Mrs. Gingrich would whisper this statement it would be promised that the statement would be off the record. Bill Carter for The New York Times reported, "Ms. Chung had become the object of some of the most ferocious criticism, justified or not, ever directed at any network anchor as a result of her now infamous interview with Speaker Newt Gingrich's mother, Kathleen."[2] The interview was also parodied on Saturday Night Live.[3]
11
The WB, a joint venture between
Warner Bros. Television and
Tribune Broadcasting in conjunction with original network CEO
Jamie Kellner, launches. Among the programs offered are four situation comedies (two family-oriented, one family-focused but adult-targeted and one adult-oriented soap opera-inspired satire): The Wayans Bros. (starring former In Living Color DJ/cast member
Shawn Wayans and his younger brother,
Marlon Wayans), The Parent 'Hood (starring
Robert Townsend), Unhappily Ever After and Muscle. While the former three series wound up lasting five seasons, Muscle fails to survive its first season. In addition to being available on around 70 affiliates, The WB is also initially distributed directly to cable and satellite providers via the
superstation feed of
Chicago charter affiliate
WGN-TV (owned by Tribune) to serve markets where the lack of available independent stations or stations that passed over the network in favor of fellow fledgling network UPN prevented The WB from maintaining an exclusive affiliation at launch. (This ended in August 1999, as a result of The WB gaining full-time affiliates in some underserved mid-sized markets and
a small-market cable feed being launched to serve smaller markets.)
16
The United Paramount Network (
UPN) launches, with a two-hour premiere of Star Trek: Voyager. This results in an affiliation change in San Antonio between
Fox affiliate KRRT (now
KMYS) and independent station
KABB, as KRRT leaves Fox for the new network (due to its then-ownership by
Paramount Pictures, UPN's part-owner) and KABB assumes the Fox affiliation.
The 1994–96 United States broadcast TV realignment continues in the
Flint/Tri-Cities, Michigan market, as
NBC affiliate
WNEM-TV in
Bay City and
CBS affiliate
WEYI-TV in
Saginaw swap affiliations. The move is deemed necessary by CBS to restore coverage in areas underserved by its then-new affiliate
WGPR in adjacent
Detroit, since WNEM-TV's signal is stronger than that of WEYI-TV.
24
Live broadcasts of the
O. J. Simpson trial begin; as a result, many network
soap operas are partially pre-empted, more or less, for nine months.
The 1994–96 United States broadcast TV realignment continues in
Seattle-
Tacoma, as
Gaylord Broadcasting-owned
KSTW joins
CBS for the third time while former CBS affiliate
KIRO-TV joins the
UPN network.
31
All major U.S. networks interrupt their regular programming to break the news regarding the
murder of
Tejano music superstar
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez.[5] The lead item on national television network evening news programs in
Corpus Christi, Texas had been the end of the
1994–95 Major League Baseball strike. Within thirty minutes of its announcement, Selena's murder became the lead item on all television stations in
South Texas.[6]Univision and
Telemundo are among the first national news stations to arrive at the crime scene.[7] Coverage of the singer's death and the murder trial would dominate American newscasts in 1995.[8]
Above Suspicion starring
Christopher Reeve premieres on
HBO. In it, Reeve plays a paralyzed cop who plots to murder his wife. Six days after Above Suspicion first airs, Reeve is seriously injured in a fall while riding on horseback, resulting in him becoming a
quadriplegic for the remainder of his life.
24
ABC announces that an episode of the soap opera All My Children was deleted from broadcasting due to the then-recent
Oklahoma City bombing; in the story, villainess Janet Green was supposed to explode the church in which her ex Trevor Dillon was to marry her rival Laurel Banning.
After being purchased by
New World Communications from Argyle Television, three additional stations switch to
Fox as part of the 1994–96 United States broadcast TV realignment:
KDFW (channel 4) in Dallas-Ft. Worth,
KTBC (channel 7) in Austin, Texas and
KTVI (channel 2) in St. Louis. KDFW and KTBC both defect from
CBS, while KTVI leaves
ABC. Independent station
KTVT (channel 11) in Dallas takes the CBS affiliation in that area through an affiliation deal between the network and
Gaylord Broadcasting (owners of KTVT); in Austin, former Fox affiliate KBVO (channel 42) swaps affiliations with KTBC and changes its calls to
KEYE; and in St. Louis,
KDNL (channel 30) swaps its Fox affiliation with KTVI and joins ABC. Former Fox-owned station
KDAF-TV (channel 33) joins
The WB, taking that affiliation from
KXTX-TV (channel 39) due to a temporary arrangement in which KXTX would carry WB programming, until such time Fox was cleared to move to channel 4. KXTX-TV then becomes an independent station.
Fox Kids, Fox's children programming block, doesn't follow the rest of the network's programming to KTBC and KTVI because of their commitments to news, and instead air on independent stations
K13VC and
KNLC. As a result of a dispute between Fox and KNLC, however, Fox Kids is moved to KTVI the following year.
WFMZ-TV initiates their very first daytime Berks Edition at 5:30 pm and the First Nighttime Newscast at 10:30 pm, covering the entire
Berks County and all across the
Lehigh Valley of Eastern
Pennsylvania and Western
New Jersey.
On the series finale of Yo! MTV Raps, numerous high-profile names in the world of hip-hop close the show out with a
freestyle rap session.
The
Tribune Company acquired a 12.5% limited partnership interest in
The WB for $12 million; the deal gave Tribune an option to increase its stake in the network up to a 25% interest; Tribune would eventually increase its ownership share in the WB to 22.5% on March 31, 1997.
21
As a result of the 1994–96 United States broadcast TV realignment, longtime
NBC affiliate
WLUK-TV in
Green Bay becomes the first of four "Big three" affiliates that SF Broadcasting (a joint venture of Savoy Communications and Fox Broadcasting) has purchased from Burnham Broadcasting to switch its affiliation to
Fox. NBC eventually aligns with former Fox affiliate
WGBA-TV. Two more NBC-affiliated stations (
WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama, and
KHON-TV in Honolulu), along with
ABC affiliate
WVUE in New Orleans switch their affiliations to Fox on January 1, 1996. NBC again swaps affiliations with the former Fox affiliates in Mobile and Honolulu (
WPMI and
KHNL respectively), while ABC joins
WB affiliate
WGNO and former Fox affiliate
WNOL joins The WB.
The 1994–96 United States broadcast TV realignment continues when longtime ABC affiliate
WGHP-TV (channel 8) in
High Point, North Carolina is sold directly to Fox (acquired via New World Communications from
Citicasters, along with
WBRC-TV in
Birmingham, Alabama due to
ownership conflicts) and as a result, becomes a Fox-owned station. Former Fox affiliates
WNRW-TV (channel 45)/
WGGT-TV (channel 48, now
MyNetworkTV affiliate
WMYV-TV) assume the ABC affiliation, and WNRW-TV changes its callsign to
WXLV-TV to reflect the new affiliation. Both stations retain a secondary
UPN affiliation until WGGT-TV leaves its WXLV-TV simulcast to become a full-time UPN affiliate the next year.
9
Kids' WB debuts on
The WB, anchored by Animaniacs, which transfers over from
Fox's children's programming block,
Fox Kids. It debuted on Fox Kids 2 years before.
10
A major compensation deal between
NBC and
CBS after the Westinghouse-Group W/CBS deal as a result of the 1994–96 United States broadcast TV realignment becomes effective: two NBC
O&O's (
KCNC-TV in
Denver and
KUTV-TV in
Salt Lake City) and the network's
Philadelphia affiliate
KYW-TV become CBS-affiliated stations (and quickly after that CBS-owned stations after Westinghouse merged with CBS), while former
CBS affiliate
KSL-TV in Salt Lake City joins NBC and CBS O&O
WCAU in Philadelphia becomes an NBC-owned station. Meanwhile, in
Miami, CBS-owned
WCIX (channel 6) and NBC-owned
WTVJ (channel 4) swap channel positions, with WCIX becoming WFOR-TV as a result of the change. Two related swaps also occur in Denver, as former
ABC affiliate
KUSA-TV joins NBC, and former
CBS affiliate
KMGH-TV switches to ABC as a result of an affiliation deal between the network and
McGraw-Hill, KMGH's owners.
As part of a deal between
Outlet Communications and
NBC,
WB affiliate
WNCN-TV in
Raleigh, North Carolina switches to NBC, ending WNCN's 9-month affiliation with The WB. Former NBC affiliate
WRDC elevates its
UPN affiliation to full-time status, while
WRAZ, which had signed on three days earlier, joins the WB.
KASW signs on the air in
Phoenix, Arizona, as part of a
LMA with, and taking
The WB from,
KTVK which becomes
independent. In addition, KASW also assumes the local broadcast rights to
Fox Kids, which
Fox affiliate
KSAZ-TV is pre-empting in favor of news.
More than 150 million people tune in to watch the verdict in the
O.J. Simpson murder trial, which ends with Simpson being found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife
Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend
Ronald Goldman. The verdict is met with both praise and criticism.
In the
Michiana region of Indiana,
Elkhart-based
ABC affiliate
WSJV swaps affiliations with
South Bend-based
Fox affiliate W58BT (which will become
WBND-LP by the end of the year). The rush for W58BT to switch to ABC (at the insistence of network executives, who didn't want to wait for W58BT to sign-on a new transmitter) causes a partial transmitter failure, which is fixed within a few days.[13][14]
ABC and
NBC begin their unprecedented shared coverage of the
World Series through their soon to be concluding revenue sharing joint-venture with
Major League Baseball called
The Baseball Network. ABC, who last broadcast a World Series in
1989 airs Games 1, 4, and 5 (with
Al Michaels,
Jim Palmer and
Tim McCarver on the call) while NBC, who last broadcast a World Series in
1988, airs Games 2, 3 and the decisive Game 6 (with
Bob Costas,
Joe Morgan and
Bob Uecker on the call). (A seventh game, if necessary, would have been televised by ABC.) While NBC will continue to hold some MLB rights for the next few years, Game 5 on October 26 would prove to be the last Major League Baseball game to be broadcast by ABC until Game 1 of the
2020 American League Wild Card Series between the
Houston Astros and
Minnesota Twins.
28
In
Toledo, Ohio,
NBC affiliate
WTVG swaps affiliations with
ABC affiliate
WNWO and becomes an ABC owned-and-operated station.
The
Atlanta Braves win the
1995 World Series in six games over the
Cleveland Indians, making them the first Major League team to win a championship for three different cities (first being Boston in 1914 and then Milwaukee in 1957). It is also the final broadcast for
The Baseball Network, which as previously mentioned, was a joint-venture between
Major League Baseball,
ABC, and
NBC.
November
Date
Event
1
Clear Channel Communications, owners of recently purchased
WHP-TV in
Harrisburg, entered into a local marketing agreement with Gateway Communications, owners of
WLYH-TV in
Lancaster to start operating the station. As a result, WLYH-TV's news operation has been discontinued.[15]
Major League Baseball reaches a television deal[16][17] with
Fox[18] and
NBC, allowing the former to obtain MLB game rights. Fox paid $575 million for the five-year contract, a fraction less of the amount of money that
CBS had paid for the Major League Baseball television rights for the
1990–
1993 seasons.[19][20]
On
NBC, The Today Show becomes the highest-rated morning news program (and would remain so until 2012).
16
WLYH-TV in
Lancaster ends its affiliation with
CBS following a local marketing agreement with
WHP-TV, and as a result,
WLYH-TV became a primary
UPN affiliate, cutting back the programming hours within the programming schedule.[21]
^KTVK only aired ABC's daytime and primetime programming at the point of disaffiliation; the piecemeal dropping of ABC shows from the station throughout the latter half of 1994 resulted in KNXV-TV carrying all
ABC News programming from December 1994 onward.
^Temporarily carried
The WB during part of 1995 before transferring the affiliation to
KASW upon that station's sign-on.
^Known as WRNW-TV prior to the affiliation switch.