| Date | Event |
| January 1 |
After episode 410 of Soul Train was broadcast this day, the series goes on hiatus for Don Cornelius's brain surgery. Original episodes return on April 30 after Cornelius returns from his convalescence. |
| January 3 |
Plinko is added as a pricing game on the CBS game show The Price Is Right; it would become one of the most popular of the show's games. Also on this date, three new game shows debut on rival NBC: $ale of the Century, Just Men!, and Hit Man. The two latter shows would cease being broadcast after 13 weeks, whereas $ale (itself a revived version) would go on to have a six-year run. |
| February 23 |
PBS broadcasts The Operation, a live telecast of an actual open-heart surgery. |
| February 28 |
More than 125 million Americans watch the 251st and final episode of M*A*S*H on CBS, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen". |
| March 6 |
Country Music Television (CMT) begins in the United States. |
| March 7 |
The Nashville Network (TNN) (known later as The National Network; now known as Spike TV) begins broadcasting. |
| March 10 |
MTV broadcasts the video of Michael Jackson's song "Billie Jean" for the first time. The video is the first by a black artist to gain great airplay on MTV, and is credited with helping the album Thriller, in which the song is included, become the best-selling album of all time. |
| March 19 |
US First Lady Nancy Reagan makes a special appearance on an episode of the NBC comedy Diff'rent Strokes, beginning her Just Say No anti-drug campaign. |
| March 20 |
NBC broadcasts the TV movie Special Bulletin, a fictional—yet realistic—depiction of a TV network's coverage of a nuclear terrorism threat in Charleston, South Carolina. The movie is an early collaboration between Edward Zwick (who directed) and Marshall Herskovitz (who wrote the teleplay); both men would create and produce thirtysomething later in the 1980s. |
| April 4 |
Archie Bunker's Place broadcasts its last original episode; CBS would cancel the series after 4 seasons (and without a proper series finale), ending Carroll O'Connor's run as Archie Bunker, which began during 1971 with All in the Family. |
| April 12 |
David Canary makes his first appearance on the ABC soap opera All My Children. |
| April 18 |
The Disney Channel is initiated on American cable TV. |
| April 21 |
WTWC-TV in Tallahassee, Florida signs on, giving the Tallahassee market its first full-time NBC affiliate. |
| May 6 |
A fire at Southfork threatens the lives of the Ewings on the season finale of the CBS drama series Dallas. |
| May 16 |
The concert special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever is broadcast by NBC; Michael Jackson, after a performance with The Jackson Five, provides the centerpiece highlight by performing, to "Billie Jean," his "moonwalk" dance for the first time on TV. |
| June 16 |
Pope John Paul II arrives in his native Poland, with ABC and NBC broadcasting his arrival live (CBS, hampered by budget reductions of its news division, broadcasts The Price is Right instead). |
| June 20 |
KLDH (now KTKA-TV) in Topeka, Kansas signs on, giving the Topeka market its first full-time ABC affiliate. |
| August 4 |
The cast of NBC's series Search for Tomorrow is forced to do a live show for the first time since the program began using videotape format during 1967; both the regular transmission tape and a backup were lost, something that is disputed by outside sources after the fact. |
| August 30 |
Though the station is still regarded as profitable, Field Enterprises closes down WKBS-TV/Burlington, New Jersey-Philadelphia after failing to find a buyer. |
| September 5 |
PBS's series The MacNeil/Lehrer Report becomes The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, the first American network news program to expand from a half-hour to one hour in length. |
| Tom Brokaw becomes the sole main anchor of the NBC Nightly News, ending a 17-month stint co-anchoring the broadcast with Roger Mudd. |
| Peter Jennings becomes sole anchorman of ABC's newscast World News Tonight, after the death of Frank Reynolds two months earlier. |
| Pam Long becomes co-main writer of the CBS soap opera Guiding Light. |
| September 8 |
The comedy series We Got it Made debuts, the first new series on NBC's autumn list to premiere — and the start of one of the least successful new autumn show rosters for a network in history, as none of the series would survive a 2nd season (the other series being Manimal, Jennifer Slept Here, Mr. Smith, Bay City Blues, The Yellow Rose, Boone, For Love and Honor, and The Rousters). |
| September 12 |
The animated G.I. Joe mini-series based on the toys of the same name debuts in syndication. Another mini-series airs the following year, with an ongoing show premiering in 1985. |
| September 19 |
The nighttime syndicated edition of the NBC daytime game show Wheel of Fortune premieres. The show is only picked up by 59 markets and is shut out of the top 3 markets. However, by late 1984, the show overtook Family Feud as the number one show in syndication. The show entered its 30th season in 2013 and continues being the number one show in syndication. |
| Press Your Luck premieres on CBS; the game show would end its run on September 26, 1986. |
| September 27–29 |
NBC broadcasts Live... and in Person, a live variety special program broadcast during 3 nights. Sandy Gallin is host, and performers include Neil Diamond, Liberace, Linda Ronstadt, and the cast of A Chorus Line. |
| October 3 |
During a live NBC news update, anchor Jessica Savitch appears incoherent, slurring her speech, deviating from her copy and ad-libbing her report. Savitch, dogged by rumors of drug abuse and instability, still has her contract renewed, but drowns in a car accident three weeks later. |
| October 6 |
American rock band R.E.M. makes its television debut on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman. |
| October 10 |
Adam, a TV-movie about the mysterious disappearance of Adam Walsh, makes its world premiere on NBC. The broadcast ends with a series of missing children's photographs and descriptions, along with a telephone number viewers could call to provide information on their disappearances. |
| November 20 |
An estimated 100 million people watch the controversial made-for-television movie The Day After on ABC, depicting the start of a nuclear war. |
| November 24 |
This day's episode of Sesame Street on PBS confronts the sensitive issue of death when Big Bird learns the concept as it relates to his late friend, Mr. Hooper (Will Lee, the actor who played Mr. Hooper, died of a heart attack in November 1982). |
| December 2 |
The epic (nearly 14 minutes) music video for Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is broadcast for the first time. It will become the most often repeated and famous music video of all time and increase Jackson's own popularity and the sales of the record album Thriller. |
| December 21 |
Gerald Ford, Betty Ford, and Henry Kissinger make cameo appearances on ABC's Dynasty.[1] |