In American television in 2001, notable events included television series debuts, finales, cancellations, and channel initiations, closures and re-brandings, as well as information about controversies and disputes.
Events
January Date Event1 In Hartford, Connecticut, UPN affiliate WTXX (now CW affiliate WCCT-TV) and WB affiliate WBNE (now MyNetworkTV affiliate WCTX) change affiliations due to WTXX's impending purchase by Tribune Broadcasting, owners of Fox affiliate WTIC-TV (which at the time operated WTXX under a LMA) and a minority owner of The WB. WBNE, meanwhile, changes its call letters to the current WCTX and adopts a new branding known as "The X".4 HBO's children's programs are transferred to its multiplex channel HBO Family.7 Extreme Championship Wrestling's final nationally and globally televised event, Guilty as Charged airs on pay-per-view. It featured The Sandman defeating Steve Corino and Justin Credible for the world title, only for Rhyno to defeat The Sandman to win the title. Rob Van Dam initially challenged Rhyno for the title, but was attacked by Jerry Lynn. Despite interference and with help from Joel Gertner, he won the main event.9 KXVA in Abilene, Texas, launches under Program Test Authority. The station (which would not be licensed for another 13 months) becomes the market's new Fox affiliation, moving from sister station KIDZ-LP, which becomes a full-time UPN affiliate.28 CBS broadcasts Super Bowl XXXV, their first since Super Bowl XXVI at the end of the 1991 season. Greg Gumbel, becomes the first African-American sportscaster to provide network televised play-by-play on a major professional sports championship. The Baltimore Ravens would defeat the New York Giants 34–7.
February Date Event5 Kelly Ripa joins Live! as a permanent co-host with Regis Philbin.18 Fox broadcasts its inaugural NASCAR telecast, the Daytona 500. In the final lap, Dale Earnhardt is killed following a head-on collision.
March Date Event6 TEENick first airs as a Sunday night block on Nickelodeon.12 Judge Marilyn Milian makes her debut as arbitrator on The People's Court. Replacing Judge Jerry Sheindlin, Milian would become the longest-serving judge, presiding for 22 seasons until 2023, in the syndicated court show's history.18 World Championship Wrestling produces their final pay-per-view, Greed.26 On TNT, WCW Monday Nitro broadcasts its final show from Panama City Beach, Florida, with a simulcast with the WWF's (now WWE) Monday Night RAW television series (then airing on TNN), ending a six-year ratings struggle in professional wrestling known as the Monday Night War. Live professional wrestling events would not be broadcast on TNT again until the launch of AEW Dynamite in 2019.
April Date Event 1 WrestleMania X-Seven from the Reliant Astrodome in Houston, Texas, is broadcast on pay-per-view. The event would receive acclaim from critics and fans. 2 CBS affiliate WWJ-TV started airing newscasts, produced by UPN affiliate WKBD-TV. The newscast would become a failure and was canceled in November 2002.10 Kevin Olmstead wins a $2.18 million jackpot on the ABC game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, making him the biggest winner in American game show history.
May Date Event17 NBC airs the hour-long season seven finale of Friends titled "The One with Monica and Chandler's Wedding". On The WB, Shannen Doherty makes her final appearance as Prue Halliwell on Charmed.18 The 28th Daytime Emmy Awards are presented on NBC.22 On The WB, Buffy the Vampire Slayer airs its 100th episode. It also served as The WB series finale after UPN announced that the series and Roswell would move to the network for the fall 2001 season.23 On UPN, Star Trek: Voyager airs its series finale with a two-part episode "Endgame".
June Date Event12 TNT is refocused as a drama-based cable channel with a new slogan, We Know Drama.18 Luke and Laura, widely regarded as the soap opera pairing that helped generate the term "supercouple", sign divorce papers on ABC's soap opera General Hospital, dissolving their fictional two-decade union.19 The inaugural BET Awards is broadcast.
July Date Event21 Nickelodeon's animated series Rugrats celebrates its 10th anniversary with a one-hour special, All Growed Up, followed by the documentary Still Babies After All These Years, narrated by Amanda Bynes. The "All Growed Up" premiere became the most-viewed children's program on cable television, resulting in a spin-off series based on the special produced and premiered in 2003.31 Fox Television Stations finalizes purchase of Chris-Craft Industries and its subsidiary BHC Communications. Shortly afterwards, ABC affiliate KTVX in Salt Lake City and NBC affiliate KMOL-TV in San Antonio was traded to Clear Channel in exchange for Fox station WFTC in Minneapolis/St. Paul, then-UPN station KPTV in Portland was traded to Meredith Corporation in exchange for Fox station WOFL in Orlando and UPN station KBHK-TV in San Francisco was traded to Viacom in exchange for the two Viacom-owned UPN stations KTXH in Houston and WDCA in Washington, D.C.
August Date Event 10 Samurai Jack premieres on Cartoon Network with The Premiere Movie, and becomes a successful series. 31 Mister Rogers' Neighborhood airs its final episode on PBS Kids. Fred Rogers died two years later of stomach cancer at the age of 74.
September Date Event2 Adult Swim, an adult-oriented programming block, debuts on its Turner sister cable channel Cartoon Network.3 Actress Thuy Trang, best known for her role as the yellow ranger, Trini Kwan from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, dies in a car crash in San Francisco at age 27.5 CBS's travel-based reality-competition, The Amazing Race, which would later become one of the most successful franchises in television, premieres its first episode.7 Ed Toutant wins $1,860,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. He had previously appeared on the episode aired January 31, 2001, when the jackpot was $1,860,000, where he was ruled to have answered his $16,000 question incorrectly, but when it was discovered that there was a mistake in that question, Toutant returned to the program and wins the jackpot.8 Fox broadcasts the final episode of Murder in Small Town X, in which New York City firefighter Ángel Juarbe Jr. wins. Juarbe is killed three days later during the collapse of the World Trade Center.11 Viewers witness a terrorist attack, and the collapse of the World Trade Center in New York City live on television. Additionally, the broadcast towers of WABC-TV and WNBC, the respective flagship stations of ABC and NBC, are destroyed by the attacks, but those signals could be viewed cable and satellite. The broadcast tower of WCBS-TV is destroyed in the attacks, but its full-power backup transmitter at the Empire State Building remained. Most American over-the-air broadcasters and several cable networks suspend regular programming for four days, and numerous major daily talk shows were suspended for several weeks until their hosts feel comfortable resuming programming. Although they were first seen during 1952 and used by some television news programs ever since, continually scrolling news headlines along the bottom of the screen become commonplace after the Fox News Channel uses it to allow viewers to read recent developments during the attacks.13 UPN resumes normal programming with a live episode of SmackDown. The show was originally scheduled to be taped on September 11, but the taping was postponed by two days due to the attacks.15 All of the Big Three television networks resume their normal daytime programming schedules after four days of extensive news coverage of the attacks.16 Dick Schaap makes his final appearance as host of ESPN's The Sports Reporters. The show is expanded to an hour to cover the sports perspective from the September 11 attacks. Schaap delayed a hip replacement surgery in order to be on the program and dies from complications several months later.20 On CBS, Will Kirby is declared the winner of Big Brother 2, which was delayed by the attacks. Runner-up Nicole Nilson-Schafrich wins $50,000.21 All four major US networks, ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, broadcast America: A Tribute to Heroes, a two-hour telethon to raise money for the families of those killed by the attacks.24 The start of the 2001–2002 network season in the US is delayed as a result of the attacks, with some series such as NBC's The West Wing substituting special episodes dealing with the event instead of their originally scheduled season premieres. Some series, such as CBS's military-themed series JAG and NBC's New York-based Third Watch, are reformatted in consideration of the attacks.26 UPN airs the two-hour series premiere of Star Trek: Enterprise. Enterprise is UPN's replacement for Star Trek: Voyager.29 Fox affiliate WVSX (now WVNS-TV) in Lewisburg, West Virginia, changes its affiliation to CBS, giving the Beckley-Bluefield-Oak Hill market its first full-time CBS affiliate. Fox would not return to the Bluefield area until 2006, when the combination of a dispute involving WVAH-TV in Charleston and the end of the Foxnet cable service prompts WVNS-TV to establish a Fox-affiliated DT2 subchannel.
October Date Event2 The two-hour season 6 premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer first aired on UPN (attracting 7.7 million viewers), making it the first episode of Buffy to air on UPN following its move from The WB after the season 5 finale. The third-season premiere of Roswell (also from The WB) first aired on UPN a week later on October 9.3 In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, several planned series and events are canceled; most notably, NBC cancels a miniseries planned for spring 2002 which would have united the cast of Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, dealing with a terrorist attack on New York City. The pilot episode for According to Jim is broadcast on ABC. 4 Rose McGowan makes her first appearance as Paige Matthews, the long-lost younger half-sister of Piper and Phoebe Halliwell, on The WB's Charmed.15 In Wheel of Fortune, a compilation week of five taped sixth-episodes (which would later be called America's Game starting in season 26 in 2008) were shown for the first time. A new bonus round premiered a week later, in which a contestant can win as much as $100,000. This was not won until the December 19 episode by Douglas Ross.20 Concert For New York: A Tribute To Heroes is broadcast by VH1, with performances by Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Billy Joel and others. It raises funds for the families of those killed by the attacks.24 The Walt Disney Company completes its purchase of Fox Family for $2.9 billion. Wolf Lake aired its final episode on CBS due to low ratings. Four more episodes scheduled to broadcast were instead aired on UPN.25 Sony Pictures Entertainment merged the television units of Columbia TriStar Television and Columbia TriStar Television Distribution into one unified division, Columbia TriStar Domestic Television, partly because of Japanese ownership, all of Sony's television employees had various amount of job losses in favor of Sony's new broadcasting/cable/syndication unit. Columbia TriStar Domestic Television would produce the Columbia TriStar programs for the 2001–2002 television season.
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