The following is a list of events affecting American television during 1998. Events listed include 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).
February
Date
Event
9
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.
March
Date
Event
2
The Powerhouse era begins on Cartoon Network, replacing the Checkerboard era.
10
Showtime launches a new multiplex channel, Showtime Extreme, which 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.
Long running British children's television series Teletubbies begins its U.S. television debut on PTV.
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.
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.
May
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.
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]
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]
31
Pax TV (now named Ion Television), a family-oriented broadcast network owned by Paxson Communications, begins broadcasting. The network was originally carried for Paxson-owned stations by 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 its network launch.[7]
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.[8]
UPN adds two additional nights of programming to its schedule with primetime series added to Friday nights, including a movie block on Thursday nights.
15
Plinko, one of the most-popular pricing games on The Price Is Right increases its middle slot to $10,000, making its top prize $50,000.
The Powerpuff Girls premieres on Cartoon Network, becoming Hanna-Barbera's final TV show, distributing episodes until 2001 when Cartoon Network Studios took over until the series ended in 2005.
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.[9] 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.
