MEDIA: IMPORTANT EVENTS OF THE 1980s

1980

1 June: Atlanta entrepreneur Ted Turner debuts the twenty-four-hour news channel, Cable News Network (CNN).
2 July: In Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia the Supreme Court rules that the press and the public have a right to attend criminal trials.
15-19 Sept.: NBC's miniseries Shogun, starring Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune, captivates audiences.
14 Oct.: President Carter signs a law forbidding the unannounced search of newsrooms, except in special circumstances.
21 Nov.: An episode of the television soap opera Dallas captures the largest audience for a program in television history. The episode answers the question from the spring season concerning an attempted assassination of the lead character J. R. Ewing, "Who Shot J. R.?"

Warner Communications, owners of the Superman character, sue the students of Richard J. Daley College in Chicago for trademark infringement when they name their student newspaper The Daley Planet.

12 Jan.: ABC debuts the prime-time soap opera Dynasty.
15 Jan.: Hill Street Blues, a police drama produced by Steven Bochco, debuts on NBC.
6 Mar.: CBS news anchorman Walter Cronkite goes off the air after nineteen years in broadcasting. He is replaced by veteran newsman Dan Rather.
8 Oct.: Cagney and Lacey, a police drama featuring two female leads, debuts on ABC.

Technological improvements in facsimile communications make the fax machine a popular business tool.
Music Television (MTV), a cable channel playing music videos twenty-four
hours a day, debuts.

8 Jan.: Following an eight-year antitrust suit, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) agrees to divest itself of its twenty-two Baby Bell telephone systems.
29 Jan.: The Philadelphia Bulletin ceases publication.
16 Aug.: The Saturday Review, a monthly featuring art and literary criticism, ceases publication.
15 Sept.: Gannett's national daily, USA Today begins publication.
29 Sept.: NBC debuts the television sitcom Cheers, set in a Boston bar.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorizes the testing of a cellular telephone system in Chicago.

28 Feb.: The farewell episode of the popular sitcom M*A*S*H attracts an audience of 125 million, making it the highest-rated show in history.
20 Nov.: ABC airs The Day After, a controversial movie simulating the effects of a nuclear war on a Kansas town.

17 Jan.: In a decision condemned by the film industry, the Supreme Court rules that home videotape recording of movies does not infringe upon copyright law.
4 Mar.: A television hall of fame is established. Among its first inductees are comedians Lucille Ball and Milton Berle, playwright Paddy Chayefsky (posthumously), producer Norman Lear, and industry magnates William S. Paley and David Sarnoff.
9 June: At Disneyland Donald Duck's fiftieth birthday is celebrated.
16 Sept.: The postmodern police drama Miami Vice, starring Don Johnson, debuts on NBC.
20 Sept.: NBC debuts the television sitcom The Cosby Show, starring comedian Bill Cosby.

24 Jan.: New York courts acquit Time magazine of libel in a suit filed by Israeli politician Ariel Sharon.
18 Feb.: Former commander of American forces in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland, drops a $120 million libel suit against CBS.
4 Mar.: The avant-garde publisher Grove Press is bought by Britain's Weidenfeld Limited, for $2 million.
8 Mar.: The New Yorker magazine is bought by Newhouse Publications for $142 million.
18 Mar.: Capital Cities Communications buys the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for $3.5 billion.
19 July: The U.S. Court of Appeals rules that the FCC's "must carry" provisions, which require cable systems to carry local broadcast stations, are a violation of the First Amendment.
Dec.: General Electric buys the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) for $6.3 billion.

14 Jan.: The FCC rules against local laws that forbid the use of backyard satellite dishes as opposed to other types of antennae.
10 Sept.: CBS president and chairman Thomas Wyman resigns. He is replaced as president by Laurence Tisch, the company's largest stockholder. Company founder William Paley becomes acting chairman.
15 Sept.: The television drama L.A. Law debuts on NBC.
29 Sept.: American journalist Nicholas Daniloff, arrested by the Soviet Union for spying, is released in a spy exchange.

Media baron Rupert Murdoch buys Harper and Row for $300 million.
Experts estimate that 43.2 million households have cable television, an increase of 2 million from the previous year.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich successfully repels a __BODY__.7 billion takeover bid by British publishing entrepreneur Robert Maxwell.
The baby-boomer melodrama thirty something debuts on ABC.

13 Mar.: On appeal a $2 million libel judgment against the Washington Post is overturned.
24 Sept.: The A. C. Nielsen Company introduces a new means of measuring television viewing audiences. A new system of push-button "people meters" replaces its old-fashioned television diary system.

24 Feb.: The Supreme Court rules that Hustler magazine's satires of evangelist Jerry Falwell are constitutionally protected speech.
13 Apr.: By purchasing an American publisher, Diamandis Communications, Inc., the French book and magazine publisher Hachette S.A. becomes the largest magazine publisher in world, printing over seventy-five publications in ten countries.
17 May: Pepsico Inc. becomes the first American company to buy advertising time on Soviet television.
7 Aug.: Media mogul Rupert Murdoch buys Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications (TV Guide, Daily Racing Form, Seventeen) for $3 billion.

News Corporation Limited buys William Collins and Sons of Great Britain, forming HarperCollins.
The New York Times Company sells all of its cable television properties for $420 million. CBS buys television station WCIX in Miami, Florida, for $59 million.