The following is a list of events affecting American television during 2005. Events listed include television series debuts, finales, cancellations, and new channel initiations.
Events
January
Date
Event
1
The U.S. channel package PT East, originally created by the New York, New York, company PrimeTime 24, and used by satellite TV viewers where over-the-air TV is unavailable, changes its ABC affiliate from WKRN-TV (Nashville, Tennessee) to flagship station WABC-TV (New York City).
DirecTV deletes the Trio channel from its lineup. The network loses two-thirds of its 20 million viewers, putting in doubt the future of the NBC Universal channel.
The 35th anniversary episode of the series All My Children is broadcast by ABC. The special episode, which used former characters Mark Dalton (Mark LaMura) and Nick Davis (Larry Keith), was also unique in that it was the last appearance of ailing actress Ruth Warrick. She died less than two weeks after the episode was broadcast.
8
CBS aired the first episode of the reality series The Will. Ratings for the show are so low, it was canceled after only one episode, following Fox's Who's Your Daddy would've been canceled for a week ago.
Paramount Television and UPN announce the cancellation of the series Star Trek: Enterprise. Soon afterward, fan efforts begin in order to save the show, climaxing in a campaign that raises more than $3 million (US) towards funding further production, an offer Paramount ultimately rejects.
After a 16-year hiatus, Doctor Who returns to television in the UK. Around this time efforts are under way to get the cult program a berth on an American network, however Sci-Fi Channel rejects it for the entire first two seasons on its revival run. The following Doctor Who episodes were returned to the air on BBC America in December 2009.
April
Date
Event
1
ABC news anchorman Peter Jennings anchors what will turn out to be his final World News Tonight telecast. Five days later, Jennings informs viewers of World News Tonight, via a taped segment, that he has been diagnosed with lung cancer and beginning of chemotherapy.
15
PBS Kids celebrates Tax Day with the first two-hour Cyberchase special "Know Your Dough".
May
Date
Event
1
Family Guy begins airing new episodes on Fox after three years off the schedule. This return was brought about after the unexpected popularity of the series' cable reruns and DVD releases.
2
Hunter Tylo resumes playing for the series The Bold and the Beautiful after her character, Dr. Taylor Forrester, was "killed off" three years ago. The revelation that she was alive surprised many viewers as it had not been hinted by any other sources, print or online.
13
The controversial final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise is broadcast in the United States, ending an 18-year, uninterrupted run of four consecutive or concurrent Star Trek series dating back to 1987.
Hurricane Katrina strikes the Greater New Orleans area, causing major disruption of the region's television broadcasts. Local television news programs relocate to other cities in order to cover the story, though most are interrupted by the storm; some continue to broadcast reports by the Internet.
September
Date
Event
2
While presenting for the NBC telecast of Concert for Hurricane Relief, music producer and rapper Kanye West ignored his script and addressed what he perceived as the racism of both the government and of the media, stating: George Bush doesn't care about black people, and called for the media to stop labeling African-American families as "looters" while white families were depicted as "looking for food."
10
Naruto marks its North American television debut for the first time on Cartoon Network's Toonami program sequence.
Comcast, a joint venture brought PBS to launch on its digital cable and Video-on-demand channel PBS Kids Sprout, a children's non-commercial network spun-off by PBS Kids.
