| Date | Event |
| January 2 | All My Children broadcasts its 20th anniversary special on ABC. Joe and Ruth Martin sit down with Erica Kane, her mother Mona, and Phoebe Wallingford as they go through scrapbook pictures which segue into memorable clips from the series's past twenty years. |
| January 8 | Deborah Norville makes her debut as co-anchor on NBC's Today (succeeding Jane Pauley) alongside Bryant Gumbel. |
| January 10 | Time Warner is formed. |
| January 13 | Married... with Children star Ed O'Neill guest–hosts Saturday Night Live, becoming the first star of a Fox television program to host the NBC sketch comedy series. |
| January 20 | "Too Much, Too Late", the fourth and final "lost episode" of Miami Vice to air after its series finale, "Freefall", is first broadcast on the USA Network. It was not aired on NBC due to its strong subject matter pertaining to child molestation. |
| January 21 | NBC broadcasts the National Hockey League All-Star Game from Pittsburgh. This was the first NHL game of any kind to be televised on American network television since Game 6 of the 1980 Stanley Cup Finals on CBS. |
| February 6 | NBC and the University of Notre Dame announce a deal that would call for the network to have exclusive rights to the Fighting Irish football team's home games, beginning in 1991. |
| WZTV became a Fox affiliate in Nashville, replacing WXMT, which became an independent station. This was partly due to the fact that Michael Thompson had bought out the station from TVX, which resulted in the loss of the Fox affiliation and the move to a higher-rated station. |
| February 9 | The Bradys, a sequel and continuation of the original 1969–1974 sitcom The Brady Bunch premieres on CBS. The Bradys involved more dramatic storytelling than that which viewers had seen in the previous Brady series such as the previous Brady Bunch sequel series, 1981's The Brady Brides.[1][2] Airing on Friday nights, The Bradys would ultimately fail in the ratings against Full House and Family Matters as part of the TGIF lineup on ABC and is canceled after one month; the last of the six episodes produced would air on March 9, 1990. |
| February 17 | On NBC, Aerosmith appear in Wayne's World, a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live, where they perform the Wayne's World theme song. |
| February 24 | The series finale of Mama's Family is broadcast in first-run syndication. In it, Naomi gives birth to a baby girl, who is named Tiffany Thelma. |
| February 25 | Challenger, a made-for-television docudrama about the tragic events of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986 is broadcast on ABC. Its production is somewhat controversial[3] as the families[4][5] of the astronauts generally objected to it.[6][7][8][9] |
| March 4 | On SportsCenter, ESPN broadcasts the graphic footage of Loyola Marymount University basketball player Hank Gathers' collapse and subsequent death from a heart condition[10] during a West Coast Conference (WCC) Tournament game. The network was at the game recording advance footage for the championship game it was scheduled to televise the next night. The tournament final was ultimately canceled in wake of Gathers' death and LMU was given the league's automatic bid to that year's NCAA tournament by virtue of its regular-season league championship. |
| March 12 | CBS affiliate in Boston, WNEV-TV changes its name to WHDH-TV. |
| March 13 | All My Children actress Debbi Morgan quits the role of Angie Baxter Hubbard. |
| March 24 | The season-ending cliffhanger of ALF, "Consider Me Gone", becomes an unintentional series finale when NBC gives Alien Productions a verbal commitment for a fifth season, but ultimately withdraws its support.[11][12] ABC resolved the cliffhanger on February 17, 1996, with the TV movie Project: ALF. |
| March 30 | Radio host Rush Limbaugh makes headlines when he guest hosts The Pat Sajak Show on CBS, and, in a departure from its regular format, enters the audience to get a response about the veto of a bill in Idaho that would have restricted abortion. Directly after announcing that the bill was vetoed, Limbaugh went to the first woman who stood up and was cheering the loudest. The woman denounced Limbaugh's anti-abortion statements earlier in the show. After a verbal confrontation with the angry woman in the audience, followed by an angry man shouting, Limbaugh addresses the camera and stated that he went into the audience in an attempt to show the viewing public that there was an underlying prejudice against him. Due to this, Limbaugh decides to conduct his interview with Sydney Biddle Barrows in another studio. After a commercial break, Limbaugh attempts to address the topic of affirmative action, but was backed out again by several male audience members wearing ACT UP T-shirts. After another break, Limbaugh returned and conducted the final segment after the audience had been cleared. |
| April 1 | CBS dismisses prominent sportscaster Brent Musburger one day before his final assignment for the network, the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. Later that year, Musburger signs with ABC Sports. |
| In what is dubbed "The Ultimate Challenge", The Ultimate Warrior defeats Hulk Hogan for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania VI from Toronto's SkyDome. The pay-per-view event marks the first time that WrestleMania was held outside of the United States. |
| April 8 | The pilot episode for Twin Peaks airs on ABC. The two-hour pilot is the highest-rated movie for the 1989–1990 season with a 21.7 rating and is viewed by 34.6 million people. In Los Angeles, Twin Peaks becomes the seventh most-watched show of the week earning 29% of viewers, the most-watched show being Married... with Children which gathers 34% of viewers.[13] |
| April 14 | CBS officially assumes the role as Major League Baseball's network broadcast partner (succeeding both ABC and NBC under a four-year deal through the end of the 1993 season) with coverage of the Chicago Cubs at Pittsburgh[14] and Los Angeles at Houston.[15][16][17] |
| April 15 | Sunday Night Baseball debuts on ESPN with coverage of the New York Mets against the Montreal Expos. |
| The Living Daylights makes its network broadcast television premiere on ABC. This would be the final time that a James Bond film would make its American television debut on ABC. The next Bond film, Licence to Kill would premiere on Fox in 1993. ABC wouldn't broadcast the Bond series again until 2002 under the title The Bond Picture Show. |
| April 21 | Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, a special program warning children about the inconvenience of drugs and featuring characters from several Saturday morning children's shows, is simultaneously simulcast by ABC, BET, CBS, Fox, NBC, USA Network, and Nickelodeon. |
| April 22 | The Earth Day Special, a two-hour commercial-free special event, premieres on ABC. |
| April 27 | Barbara Bel Geddes makes her final appearance on Dallas as Miss Ellie Ewing. |
| April 30 | The long-lost pilot show for I Love Lucy is broadcast by CBS as a special. |
| May 4 | Muppets creator Jim Henson makes what turns out to be his final public appearance when he appears as a guest on The Arsenio Hall Show. Henson would die less than two weeks later. |
| May 7 | Stepfanie Kramer makes her final appearance as Sgt. Dee Dee McCall on Hunter. |
| May 12 | Comedian Andrew Dice Clay guest-hosts Saturday Night Live. Cast member Nora Dunn immediately announces to the press that she was boycotting the show in protest. She stated the protest was in view of Clay's perceivably misogynistic act, and did so without informing executive producer Lorne Michaels, the cast, or most of the crew about her intent. Sinéad O'Connor was scheduled to be the musical guest for the episode, but she also boycotted the show because of Clay's involvement, forcing the producers to find two musical replacements, with one performance by Julee Cruise and a second by Spanic Boys.[18][19] NBC censors insisted that the episode be aired with a delay to compensate for anything Clay might say on air. During the live show, some audience members were pissed off at Clay but were immediately removed by the increased security detail. |
| May 18 | The made–for–TV film Return to Green Acres, which reunited Eddie Albert, Eva Gabor, and the rest of the surviving cast of the 1965–1971 sitcom Green Acres, is broadcast on CBS. |
| May 21 | CBS broadcasts the series finale of Newhart, in which it is revealed that the entire series was really just a dream of Bob Newhart's character, Dr. Bob Hartley from The Bob Newhart Show. |
| May 25 | CBS begins broadcasting its daytime lineup in stereo sound, becoming the last of the three major networks to do so. |
| The series finale of You Can't Do That on Television is broadcast on Nickelodeon. For its tenth and final season, only five episodes are produced (tying 1990 with 1987 as the shortest season of the series), with production ending in February. This is also one of the rare times in television where a show's cast and producer's knew they would not be coming back, allowing them to make several in-jokes and references to this being the final show of the series, despite it not being a proper "finale". Though ratings decline, Nickelodeon continues to air reruns until January 1994, at which point it is only aired on weekends. |
| June 1 | Mariah Carey delivers her first live television performance (singing "Vision of Love") on The Arsenio Hall Show. |
| June 6 | The character Taylor Hayes makes her first appearance on the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. |
| June 7 | The start of the Cruise of Deception storyline is broadcast on the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives, lasting through July 16, 1990. The story includes several of the show's most popular characters attending a masked ball on a cruise ship, which is taken over by a vengeful Ernesto Toscano, played by Charles Cioffi. The miniseries acts as the climax of several stories that had been developing previously to it, and the launching pad of several more, some of which would play out through most of the 1990s. NBC promotes the story heavily to lure kids home from school to watch the show during their summer vacation. |
| Nickelodeon Studios officially opens in Orlando, Florida. |
| June 14 | CBS concludes their 17-year run with the NBA, as the league was moving to NBC after the 1990 NBA Finals. In their goodbye montage, CBS used Marvin Gaye's rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" from the 1983 NBA All-Star Game. |
| June 27 | Genie Francis, in an attempt to shed her image as Laura Spencer on ABC's soap opera General Hospital, starts playing Irishwoman Ceara Connor on All My Children (which also airs on ABC). |
| WUTV officially became a Fox affiliate in Buffalo again after Act III Broadcasting took control of the station, and acquired stronger programming and the Fox affiliation rights from WNYB-TV, which was then sold to the Tri-State Christian Television. |
| June 29 | Pinwheel, the very first show to air on Nickelodeon as well as its Nick Jr. block, is broadcast on the network for the final time. |
| July 1 | WPTY-TV became a Fox affiliate in Memphis, replacing WLMT. This was due to the station's higher ratings, and WLMT lost the Fox affiliation because there is a clause that Michael Thompson bought out the station from TVX in 1989, which resulted in the loss of its affiliation. |
| July 5 | ABC airs the National Academy of Dance's first annual Gypsy Awards from the San Diego Convention Center. Taped on January 19, America's Dance Honors is notable for marking Sammy Davis Jr.'s final public appearance prior to his death on May 16. Liza Minnelli taped a special introduction to the show in light Davis' death. Later that December, Davis gave his final acting performance in the made-for-TV film The Kid Who Loved Christmas. |
| July 10 | CBS broadcasts the first of four consecutive Major League Baseball All-Star Games. Unfortunately, the 1990 edition from Chicago's Wrigley Field, is interrupted by a rain delay in the top of the seventh inning. During the delay, CBS airs Rescue 911. |
| July 16 | Radio DJ personality Rick Dees debuts an ABC late-night talk show, Into the Night, Starring Rick Dees. |
| Johnny Depp makes his final appearance as Officer Tom Hanson on 21 Jump Street. This is also the final episode to be broadcast on Fox as for its fifth and ultimately final season, 21 Jump Street would air in first–run syndication. |
| July 30 | MovieTime, which initially launched on July 31, 1987 as a national barker service to air movie trailers, entertainment news, event and awards coverage, and interviews is rebranded as E!. This name change is made to emphasize its widening coverage of the celebrity–industrial complex, contemporary film, television and music, daily Hollywood gossip, and fashion. |
| July 31 | Memories of Murder, the first ever film to be produced for the Lifetime Television Network is broadcast. |
| August 10 | The American Wrestling Association holds its final television taping. |
| August 17 | CBS airs an unsold half-hour pilot that's based on the film Steel Magnolias. The cast includes Cindy Williams as M'Lynn, Sally Kirkland as Truvy, Elaine Stritch as Ouiser, Polly Bergen as Clairee, and Sheila McCarthy as Annelle.[20] |
| August 23 | The pilot episode for Ferris Bueller, an adaptation of the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, is broadcast on NBC. In said pilot, Ferris (Charlie Schlatter) refers to the film and expresses his displeasure at Matthew Broderick portraying him, even going as far as destroying a life-size cardboard cutout of Broderick with a chainsaw.[21][22] The show would ultimately be cancelled after its first season and only 13 episodes due to its poor reception. It would also suffer from comparisons to another series, Fox's Parker Lewis Can't Lose, which proves to be more successful when it comes to ratings, lasting for three seasons. |
| September 8 | Fox Kids, a children's programming block, debuts on Fox. |
| September 9 | CBS debuts a brand new look for The NFL Today, front-lined by Greg Gumbel and Terry Bradshaw. Gumbel and Bradshaw replaced Brent Musburger and Irv Cross respectively. The two would remain on The NFL Today until CBS lost their NFL rights to Fox at the end of the 1993 season. |
| TNT broadcasts their first Sunday night NFL game with the Philadelphia Eagles visiting the New York Giants. |
| September 10 | The Disney Afternoon debuts as a syndicated children's block. |
| September 12–14 | Wheel of Fortune contestant Mindy Mitola won a total of $146,014 cash & prizes accumulated for her 3-day stint in the show, setting an all-time winnings record for the program, surpassing Diane Landry's $129,370 held last year. This record would last for almost five years until Peter Argyropolous and Deborah Cohen surpassed her record on February 8–9, 1996 with $146,529. At the time, she also became the biggest winner (for any individual contestant) in the program until more than 18 years later on October 14, 2008, where Michelle Lowenstein surpassed her total with $1,026,080. |
| September 15 | The CBN Family Channel renames itself The Family Channel. By this point, the network had grown too profitable to remain under the Christian Broadcasting Network umbrella without endangering the ministry's non-profit status. |
| Captain Planet and the Planeteers, an animated environmental edutainment series that was created by created by Barbara Pyle and Ted Turner premieres on Turner's cable channel TBS. |
| September 16 | WSYM in Lansing officially became a Fox television station. |
| September 23–27 | The Ken Burns directed miniseries The Civil War is broadcast on PBS. More than 39 million viewers would tune in to at least one episode, and viewership averaged more than 14 million viewers each evening, making it the most-watched program ever to air on PBS. |
| September 26 | Cop Rock, a police procedural series that mixes music and choreography throughout storylines debuts on ABC. The show is a critical and commercial failure and is canceled by ABC after 11 episodes.[23] The combination of a fusion of musical performances with serious police drama and dark humor with its high-powered production talent, make it infamous as one of the biggest television failures of the 1990s.[24][25] TV Guide Magazine would rank it #8 on its List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time list in 2002[26] and dubs it "the single most bizarre TV musical of all time".[27] |
| October 1 | The very first edition of UWF Fury Hour airs from Reseda Country Club in Reseda, California on SportsChannel America. |
| October 6 | All My Children star Susan Lucci guest–hosts an episode of Saturday Night Live, becoming the first daytime soap opera performer to do so. |
| October 13 | WLAJ in Jackson, Michigan signs-on the air, giving the Lansing market its first full-time ABC affiliate. |
| October 20–26 | CBS airs the first of four consecutive World Series. The Cinninnati Reds sweep the heavily favored and defending world champions, the Oakland Athletics in four games to win their first world title since 1976. |
| November 3 | The NBA on NBC debuts on NBC, with its first game being the Los Angeles Lakers visiting the San Antonio Spurs. |
| November 10 | Chris Farley, Tim Meadows, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, David Spade and Julia Sweeney join the cast of Saturday Night Live. |
| The series finale of Charles in Charge airs in first-run syndication. In the finale, Sarah puts on a show to raise money, and Charles directs while preparing for an interview to get into Princeton. |
| November 17 | ESPN broadcasts the Notre Dame Fighting Irish's college football game against the 1990 Penn State Nittany Lions. This is to date, the final time that a television network other than NBC, would broadcast Notre Dame's home games. On September 7, 1991, NBC would start televising Notre Dame's home games;[28] it would become the first Division I-A football program to have all of its home games televised exclusively by one television network. |
| The last original episode of Pee-wee's Playhouse airs on CBS. In July 1991, series star Paul Reubens is arrested for exposing himself in a Sarasota, Florida, adult movie theater,[29] prompting CBS to immediately stop airing its Playhouse re-runs, which are originally intended to air until late 1991.[30][31][32] The show is replaced by reruns of The Adventures of Raggedy Ann and Andy. |
| November 18–20 | The two-episode television miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's 1986 epic supernatural horror novel It premieres on ABC. |
| November 22 | The Undertaker makes his World Wrestling Federation debut at the fourth annual Survivor Series pay-per-view event. |
| December 3 | ABC attracts a great deal of controversy when it airs Madonna's infamous music video for her single "Justify My Love" on its late-night news program Nightline, as part of an interview with the singer on the video's explicit sexual content. The broadcast follows across-the-board bans of the video by MTV and other networks around the world.[33][34] |
| December 10 | Following his broadcast of a Chicago Bears–Washington Redskins NFL game, CBS announcer Pat Summerall is hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer after vomiting on a plane during a flight. Summerall would be out for a considerable amount of time. While Verne Lundquist replaced Summerall on games with John Madden, Jack Buck (who was at CBS during the time as the network's lead Major League Baseball announcer) was added as a regular NFL broadcaster to fill-in. |
