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.
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).
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Many of Sinclair's stations that were previously affiliated with UPN were converted to affiliates of The WB.
Prevue Channel (now Pop) revamps its programming to include short-form segments. The revamp lasts until January 31, 1999, when the channel is renamed TV Guide Channel.
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.
Long-running British children's television series Teletubbies begins its U.S. television debut on PBS Kids.
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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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
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]
Frasier appears for the first time on Thursday nights in the 9:00 slot, NBC had been discussing in May, displacing Seinfeld, although Just Shoot Me! has been moved to Tuesdays two days earlier. The show produced new episodes in its slot next week.
UPN adds two additional nights of programming to its schedule with primetime series added to Friday nights, including a movie block on Thursday nights.
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.
Showtime Extreme, a multiplex channel from Showtime, airs action and adventure films, thrillers, gangster films and sporting events. The channel's launch coincided with Viacom's channels (excluding the Showtime networks) moving from USSB to DirecTV.
BBC Worldwide and Discovery Communications launched BBC America as part of a $565 million alliance to develop new channels and co-productions. The channel carried British drama, comedy, and documentary programs and live news broadcasts from BBC World.
Toon Disney, devoted to carrying animated series and movies 24 hours a day, was launched by The Walt Disney Company on Disney Channel's 15th anniversary. The first program to air was "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment from Fantasia.
Named after the Discovery Channel series Wings, Discovery Wings Channel aired programs related to aircraft and aerospace. Discovery Wings also showed top-of-the-hour interstitials featuring aviation forecast data provided by the National Weather Service.
Paxson Communications launches PAX TV (now named Ion Television), a family-oriented broadcast network. Paxson's stations previously carried a number of paid programming services (as well as the overnight Christian block The Worship Network), branded as the Infomall Television Network until at the time of PAX's launch.[9]
The WB launches its programming service of cable-only networks, branded as the 100+ Station Group. It was originally known as The WeB, which was from its launch until March of next year. Several cable providers that carried The WB's programming on WGN Superstation feed (until it was dropped the following September) were replaced by its own service.[18]
History Channel International broadcast programs focusing on world history, plus a selection of programs in foreign languages for the Cable in the Classroom initiative.
