For American television in 2007, notable events included television show debuts, finales, cancellations, and new channel launches.
Notable events
January Date Event2Major American networks cover the state funeral of Gerald Ford.
February Date Event 1NBC affiliate WNKY in Bowling Green, Kentucky signs-on WNKY-DT2 as a CBS affiliate, giving the Bowling Green market its first locally based CBS affiliate.13Singer Julie Roberts appeared in the game show Wheel of Fortune and along with contestant Peter Buccellato, raising $124,250 cash and prizes (including the standard $100,000 grand prize) to her charity for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.
April Date Event 1NBC Nightly News weekend anchor John Seigenthaler retires after 6 years. 11MSNBC announces its simulcast of radio's Imus in the Morning would be canceled, effective immediately, after public outcry against host Don Imus' derogatory remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Imus' relationship with his show's radio distributor, CBS Radio, would be terminated later in the spring over the same incident.
May Date Event 1A cable headend owned by Comcast accidentally replaces an episode of Handy Manny on the Disney Channel with footage of graphic pornography for viewers in Lincroft, New Jersey. The incident is reported to Comcast, which investigates, but no findings are announced to the public. 5For the first time in 5 years, WNBC, NBC's New York flagship station, revives the "We're 4 New York" campaign after they return for a brief time during 2002 Winter Olympics. The song promos was stopped after the 2008 Summer Olympics in 2008 in the wake of the "Lend America" incident. 23On Fox, Jordin Sparks wins the 6th season of the popular singing competition American Idol; Blake Lewis is the runner up. 27ABC's New York flagship station, WABC-TV, is knocked off the air due to a newsroom studio fire that happened minutes before its scheduled 11:00 p.m. newscast. The station briefly returned to carry an ABC West Coast flagship feed and a rebroadcast of ABC World News.
June Date Event10The finale of the Television Series, The Sopranos, ends with the episode Made in America, ending with an infamous cut-to-black.14Trace Gallagher resigns as anchorman of Fox Report Weekend on the Fox News Channel and is replaced by Laurie Dhue. Studio B Weekend, which was also anchored by Gallagher, has already been pulled from the schedule. 1583 year-old Bob Barker hosts The Price Is Right for the 6,727th and last time, ending his 35-year tenure on the show and a 50-year run on television. (His last ever Pricing Game was his first: Any Number.) CBS airs Barker's final episode in both its regular daytime slot and in prime time (the latter airing as a lead-in to the 34th Daytime Emmy Awards, at which two of the network's soap operas, Guiding Light and The Young and the Restless, share honors for Outstanding Drama Series).24Professional wrestler Chris Benoit murders his wife Nancy and son Daniel before hanging himself to death. His spot in the ECW Championship match against CM Punk at Vengeance: Night of Champions is replaced by Johnny Nitro, who wins the match. WWE cancels Raw the following night and is replaced with a tribute to Benoit.25WWE replaces that day's scheduled Raw episode with a 3-hour tribute to Chris Benoit who murdered his wife and son and killed himself the night before. 25Four Points Media Group assumed operations of seven mid-sized CBS and The CW affiliates previously owned by CBS Corporation through local marketing agreements.26In an on-air protest over trivial journalism (specifically MSNBC producers ranking Paris Hilton's release from jail ahead of developments in the Iraq War), newsreader Mika Brzezinski attempts to set fire to a news script, tears up a second, and shreds a third.During installation of a new satellite receiver in Illinois, the Emergency Alert System is accidentally activated at 7:35 AM CDT. An Emergency Action Notification is issued for the United States, followed by dead air. This was played on almost every television and radio station in the Chicago area and throughout large portions of the state. The signal then switched to WGN radio. Garry Meier, then the announcer for WCKG, comes on the air, not knowing what has happened.Before the weekly broadcast of WWE ECW, Vince McMahon announces that Chris Benoit will no longer be mentioned on WWE programming going forward.
July Date Event 6Adult Swim begins airing on Friday nights, broadcasting daily for the first time, after Cartoon Network ended its Fridays programming block on February 23. 18 Evangelist Tammy Faye Messner makes what would turn out to be her final television appearance as a guest on CNN's Larry King Live. At the time, she said she weighed 65 pounds (29.5 kg) and was unable to eat solid food. Messner's husband, Roe Messner later said that he believed she chose to do the interview to say a final goodbye to her fans. Messner would die two days later after an eleven-year bout with cancer. 23Drew Carey is announced as the new host of The Price Is Right; his first episode as host aired on October 15.
August Date Event 7On the premiere episode of the CBS game show Power of 10, contestant Jamie Sadler wins $1,000,000. This was the first time that a contestant won $1,000,000 or more on the first episode of an American game show. 17The Disney Channel's premiere showing of High School Musical 2 becomes the most-watched made-for-cable movie ever, drawing in 17.24 million viewers. It is followed by a Hannah Montana episode guest starring the Jonas Brothers and the series premiere of Phineas and Ferb.
September Date Event 1In one of the first football games to air on the Big Ten Network, Appalachian State University upsets the University of Michigan, 34–32, at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, the first time an NCAA Division I FCS school defeats an AP-ranked school from the Bowl subdivision. 7The soap opera Passions airs for the final time on NBC, only to resurface on September 17 as an exclusive presentation of DirecTV's 101 Network. The cancellation leaves Days of Our Lives as the last remaining soap opera on NBC.10Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. block receives a rebrand, containing bumpers encouraging preschoolers to play with Nick Jr., stop-motion logo animations, and no on-screen host for the first time since 1994.The 1999 incarnation of Family Feud surpasses the original incarnation of the show, making it the longest running incarnation of the franchise itself. 15CBS' Saturday morning cartoon block, KOL Secret Slumber Party, is renamed KEWLopolis. 16The 59th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony airs on Fox. 21Former CBS Evening News anchor, Dan Rather, filed a $70-million lawsuit against CBS News and their parents, Viacom, CBS Corporation, and their executives, Sumner Redstone of National Amusements, Leslie Moonves, CEO of CBS Corporation and Andrew Heyward, former president of CBS News.
October Date Event1TBS becomes exclusively a national cable network after WTBS, the Atlanta, Georgia "superstation" from which it was born, becomes an Atlanta-only TV station as WPCH-TV (Peachtree TV).KQET/Watsonville (the satellite of KTEH) switched programming sources from KTEH to KQED. 15Drew Carey replaces Bob Barker as the new host of The Price Is Right on that day's episode. 22NBC Nightly News returns to the newly rebuilt Studio 3C at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and sister network MSNBC's new set in Studio 3A is inaugurated. 28Game 4 of the World Series is broadcast on Fox. The Boston Red Sox sweep the Colorado Rockies. It was the team's second title since the "breaking the curse" in 2004 and seventh in franchise history.
November Date Event 5The Writers Guild of America commences a strike against television and movie production studios; the strike lasts until February 2008, but not before production on TV shows are halted and networks' schedules are severely disrupted.Kathleen Herles steps down as the voice of Dora the Explorer after 7 years. 15Jorja Fox appears for the last time as a regular cast member as investigator Sara Sidle on the CBS drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
December Date Event 3ESPN's Monday Night Football telecast of the unbeaten New England Patriots and the Baltimore Ravens draws 17.52 million viewers, breaking the basic cable viewership record set earlier in the year by sister network Disney Channel's High School Musical 2.4The 2007 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is broadcast on CBS. 7.4 million people tune in. 23Ashlee Register wins the $1,720,000 jackpot, along with a banked total of $75,000, for a grand total of $1,795,000 on the ABC game show Duel. She becomes the second female contestant to win $1,000,000 or more on a game show and sets the record for the highest amount of money won on a game show by a woman. 29After weeks of political pressure (and, to a lesser extent, acknowledging the limited reach of the NFL Network), the National Football League allows that network's broadcast of the game between the New England Patriots and New York Giants to be simulcast nationally on league broadcast partners CBS and NBC. The Patriots would win the game to become the first team in NFL history to go undefeated in a 16-game regular season. (The teams would meet again later in Super Bowl XLII, where the Giants won the NFL title and prevented the Pats from going 19–0.)
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Debuts