See also:
1975 in television,
other events of 1976,
1977 in television and the
list of 'years in television'.
Events
- January 1 - NBC replaces the peacock logo with a modern N made up of two trapezoids.
- January 6 - SABC television goes on the air in South Africa, introducing television to the nation for the first time.
- January 17 - The Blues Brothers make their debut on NBC's Saturday Night Live.
- February-March - Rich Man, Poor Man mini series.
- April 5 - Patricia Phoenix returns to the role of Elsie Tanner on Coronation Street after an absence of three years.
- April 7 - Margot Bryant makes her last appearance as Minnie Caldwell on Coronation Street.
- April 24 - Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels makes on on-air offer to pay The Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show. Lennon and McCartney were apparently watching the show together in New York and considered walking down to the studio to accept the check.
- May 22 - Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels raises his previous offer to The Beatles from $3,000 to $3,200.
- November 7 - Beginning tonight, NBC airs the movie Gone With the Wind on TV over two nights due to its length. The event is the highest-rated US television event of the season.
- November 9 - the Museum of Broadcasting is opened, located on the first three floors of the Paley Foundation building in New York City. (The museum would later be renamed the Museum of Television and Radio).
- December 1 - Punk group the Sex Pistols cause a storm of controversy and outrage in the UK by swearing on the regional London news program Tonight with Bill Grundy. Grundy, who has goaded them into doing so, is sacked.
- The Olympics, broadcast from Montreal, draw an estimated 1 billion viewers worldwide.
- Matsushita introduces the VHS home video cassette recorder to compete with Sony's Betamax system.
- Dennis Potter's Play for Today Brimstone and Treacle is pulled from transmission on BBC1 due to controversy over its content, including the rape of a woman by the devil. It is eventually screened on BBC2 in 1987, after having been made into a film starring Sting in 1982.
Debuts
Television shows
Ending this year
Births
Deaths
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