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The following is a list of events affecting American television during 1999. Events listed include television series debuts, finales, cancellations, and channel initiations, closures and re-brandings, as well as information about controversies and disputes.
DIY Network, a spinoff of Home and Garden Television, is launched.
4
Ed, Edd n Eddy premieres on Cartoon Network.
6
Bob Newhart receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
11
Jon Stewart debuts as host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, replacing Craig Kilborn, who moves to CBS to succeed Tom Snyder as host of The Late Late Show.
23
Gene Siskel hosts his final episode of Siskel & Ebert with Roger Ebert. On February 3, 1999, Siskel announced that he would take a leave of absence for the rest of the season but promised to be back the next fall. On February 20, 1999, Siskel died suddenly from complications from a second brain surgery. On that final episode, Siskel and Ebert reviewed At First Sight, Another Day in Paradise, The Hi-Lo Country, Playing by Heart, and The Theory of Flight
Paula Zahn leaves CBS News after 10 years.
31
The Denver Broncos win their second consecutive Super Bowl against the Atlanta Falcons with a score of 34–19.
Family Guypremieres on Fox immediately following the Super Bowl.
February[]
Date
Event
1
Prevue Channel re-brands as The TV Guide Channel, an EPG-branded version of TV Guide magazine.
HBO Family, HBO's fourth multiplex channel, is re-launched and premieres four new shows; A Little Curious, George and Martha, Anthony Ant and Crashbox.
Disney Channel Preschool Block rebranded as Playhouse Disney.
A special live edition of All That airs on Nickelodeon.
15
After three years of not being picked up by domestic distribution in the US, action series L.A. Heat finally airs on US television with the series airing on TNT.
26
Tom Snyder's last show on CBS's The Late Late Show. The following Monday, Craig Kilborn, late of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, takes his place as the show's host.
28
Futuramapremieres on Fox.
April[]
Date
Event
18
Hockey great Wayne Gretzky plays his final game (a 2-1 overtime loss between his New York Rangers against the Pittsburgh Penguins), which is broadcast in the United States by Fox. Mike Emrick and John Davidson were on the call with Sam Rosen conducting interviews.
26
NBC's The Tonight Show is broadcast in high-definition for the first time, making it the first late-night program to be broadcast in this format. Host Jay Leno's guests are: Salma Hayek, David Arquette, and Jewel.
29
The pilot episode of WWF SmackDown! is broadcast on UPN as a single television special. (The show would officially premiere again on the network with a new stage on August 26.)
May[]
Date
Event
1
SpongeBob SquarePantspremieres on Nickelodeon, following the broadcast of the Kids' Choice Awards.
Starz launches two multiplex channels; Starz Cinema and Starz Family.
6
HBO launches two multiplex channels; HBO Zone and HBO Comedy.
21
Susan Lucci receives a Daytime Emmy Award for her role as Erica Kane on the ABC soap opera All My Children, after eighteen failed nominations during previous years. The ceremony is telecast live on CBS.
23
World Wrestling Federation wrestler Owen Hart is killed after falling 70 ft (21 m) from the rafters at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, during a live pay-per-view broadcast of Over The Edge.
24
During an in-ring promo on WCW Monday Nitro, WCW wrestler Bret Hart pays tribute to his brother Owen, who was killed in an in-ring accident the night before at Over the Edge.
June[]
Date
Event
11
Cartoon Cartoon Fridays premieres on Cartoon Network.
17
The NHL on Fox airs for the final time.
July[]
Date
Event
18
The Simpsons actor Hank Azaria marries actress Helen Hunt. The couple would file for divorce over a year later.
31
CBS This Morning co-anchor Russ Mitchell as an Saturday anchor of CBS Evening News along with Thalia Assuras as an alternate Saturday anchor starting in November.
August[]
Date
Event
26
WWF SmackDown! airs its first episode, live from the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, on UPN.
30
Countess Vaughn leaves the cast of Moesha to star in her own television spin-off The Parkers with Mo'Nique, making her the first female African-American comedian to receive a spin-off.
September[]
Date
Event
6
On PBS, PTV is re-branded as PBS Kids with new IDs, bumpers, and promos, whilst on UPN, a new weekday & Sunday block called Disney's One Too debuts, a spinoff of ABC's Disney's One Saturday Morning.
Dragon Tales premieres on PBS Kids.
In Schenectady, New York, PBS member station WMHQ is relaunched as WEWB-TV, a commercial broadcast station affiliated with The WB Television Network (the Capital District's first affiliate of that network).
After a four-year hiatus, Family Feud resumes with a new host, Louie Anderson.
After four years, WGN's superstation feed drops programming from The WB and Kids' WB at the request of the network. The network's programs are replaced by movie, sports from Chicago's sporting teams and other broadcasts.
24
The WB begins airing programming on Friday nights.
27
The Rock garners the highest cable rating in WWF history with Mankind in a segment entitled "This is your life" on Raw Is War, which draws a record 8.4 rating.[1][2][3]
October[]
Date
Event
1
The infamous "YOU FOOL!" episode of Hollywood Squares airs in syndication.
4
ABC affiliate WPTY, and sister station WLMT, both in the Memphis area, begin allowing The WB programming, most notably on WPTY for late nights, and some kids shows, like Pokemon, airing on WLMT.[4][5]
10
The professional wrestlingpay-per-view event, Heroes of Wrestling is broadcast from the Casino Magic hotel and casino in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Although the event was heavily promoted, it was only purchased by 29,000 households. Additionally, the event itself was generally regarded to be of poor quality: Wrestling Observer rated it the worst major wrestling event of 1999,[6] with its editor Dave Meltzer giving a rating of "absolute zero" to a tag team match featuring Luke Williams and Butch Miller facing Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik. Meltzer's colleague, Bryan Alvarez of Figure Four Weekly, has repeatedly referred to this match as the worst he has ever seen and rated it "minus more stars than there are in the universe"[7]
27
The fourth and deciding game of the World Series airs on NBC. This is to date, NBC's 39th and final World Series. The New York Yankees defeat once again the Atlanta Braves, winning their second title in a row and 25th in franchise history.
November[]
Date
Event
12
Mike, Lu & Og and Courage the Cowardly Dog premiere on Cartoon Network as part of the Cartoon Cartoon Fridays programming block.
19
John Carpenter becomes the first player on ABC's game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? to win $1,000,000. Carpenter is also the first known contestant in the history of American game show to win $1,000,000.
December[]
Date
Event
1
Richard Pryorappears in the cold open of the ABC sitcom Norm in what would prove to be his final television appearance. He would die in 2005, 6 years later.
15
NASCAR strikes a deal with Fox Sports, FX, NBC, and TBS (later moved to TNT) worth $2.4 billion for a new six-year package,[8] covering the Winston Cup (now NASCAR Cup) Series and Busch (now Xfinity) Series schedules. NASCAR wanted to capitalize on its increased popularity even more, so the organization decided that future deals would be centralized; that is, the networks would negotiate directly with NASCAR for a regular schedule of telecasts. The old deal arrangement saw each track negotiate with the networks to broadcast their races. As a result, NASCAR had races on CBS, TNN, ESPN, ABC, NBC, and TBS. However, NBC, which had just entered the sport, showed only one race in 2000. NASCAR wanted to increase the number of races by each partner, and have as many races on broadcast networks as possible, to prevent fans from missing races.
31
ABC participates in the global broadcast 2000 Today with ABC 2000 Today. Peter Jennings anchors ABC's broadcast of the special from New York City, joined later by Dick Clark who hosts the countdown in Times Square.
^"2001 TV Deal". Archived from the original on September 18, 2000. Retrieved 2017-09-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) Quote: While many fans were upset that ESPN and CBS lost the rights, insiders say that their bids were close to $100 million annually under the winning bids from Fox and NBC.
