| Date |
Event |
| January 25 |
Black Entertainment Television launches in the United States as a block of programming on the Nickelodeon TV Network; it won't be until 1983 that BET becomes a full-fledged channel. |
| February 1 |
After 29 years on the air, the soap opera Love of Life airs its last episode on CBS. |
| February 3 |
Bob Hope's Overseas Christmas Tours, a two-part six-hour retrospective of Bob Hope's more than 30 years of entertaining at military bases and hospitals in the U.S. and abroad, airs on NBC. |
| February 14 |
Walter Cronkite announces his retirement from the CBS Evening News, which takes effect in March 1981. |
| March 16 |
The first regularly scheduled use of closed captioning on American network television occurs, with captions of spoken dialogue added to programming received through a decoding unit attached to a standard TV set.[1] |
| March 21 |
On the season finale of Dallas, J. R. Ewing is shot by an unseen assailant, leading to the catchphrase "Who shot J.R.?". |
| April 7 |
The Oldest Living Graduate, a live drama on NBC, is broadcast; the network hadn't aired a program like it since 1962. The production is aired from Southern Methodist University and stars Henry Fonda, George Grizzard, and Cloris Leachman. |
| April 29 |
The NFL Draft is televised for the first time on ESPN. |
| May 6 |
Ron Howard and Donny Most leave the cast of Happy Days as regulars, following the episode "Ralph's Family Problem". When Happy Days returns in the fall, Henry Winkler is given top billing in the opening credits. |
| May 10 |
Al Franken's "A Limo For A Lame-O" attack on NBC president Fred Silverman during a Weekend Update commentary on Saturday Night Live (SNL) angers Silverman so much that he abandons any effort to get Lorne Michaels to continue as the show's producer |
| May 24 |
The Not Ready For Prime Time Players appear in their final episode on SNL, after five seasons. |
| June 1 |
The Cable News Network (CNN) begins broadcasting. |
| June 20 |
Hollywood Squares presents its 3,536th and final network telecast on NBC, ending a 14-year daytime run; it remains the second-longest-running daytime game show in the network's history, behind the original 1958–73 run of Concentration. Two other NBC game shows, High Rollers and Chain Reaction, end their runs on this date as well. |
| June 23 |
The David Letterman Show debuts on NBC. Letterman's humor does not go over well with a morning audience, and the show is canceled in October. Letterman would stay at NBC and go on to host a late night show on the network two years later. |
| June 30 |
The ABC game show Family Feud moves from airing at 11:30 am ET to 12:00 noon. It is one of the few network daytime shows to survive at noon, a time slot where many stations preempt network fare for local news broadcasts. |
| July 4 |
The Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA launch a three-month strike against television and movie studios. The strike greatly delays US networks' fall seasons (some shows don't see their fall debuts until late October or November, if not much later), and prompts a union boycott of the 1980 Emmy Awards in September. The unions would ratify a new deal on October 25 to officially end the strike. |
| August 1 |
Ending a failed experiment, the soap opera Another World airs its last regularly scheduled ninety-minute episode. The show returns to sixty minutes on August 4, allowing room for a spin-off, Texas, based around Beverlee Mckinsey's Another World character, Iris Cory Carrington. |
| The 24/7 cable movie network Cinemax launches. |
| November 2 |
Archie Bunker's Place begins its season with the episode "Archie Alone", in which Archie Bunker grieves over the death of wife Edith (prompted by Jean Stapleton's departure from the series). Carroll O'Connor's performance in this episode earns him a Peabody Award. |
| November 15 |
SNL starts its new season with a new cast and new writers under the reins of Michaels' replacement Jean Doumanian, to widespread negative reviews. |
| November 18 |
Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters (Barbara, Louise and Irlene Mandrell) makes its debut on NBC, with a special guest appearance by Dolly Parton. The show was the last variety show on network TV with over 40 million viewers. |
| November 21 |
The mystery of "Who Shot J.R.?" is solved on Dallas; the revelation that Sue Ellen's sister Kristin (played by Mary Crosby) did the deed) draws a record number of viewers. |
| November 22 |
Eddie Murphy makes his first Saturday Night Live appearance, appearing in a non-speaking role in the sketch "In Search Of The Negro Republican". |
| December 8 |
Howard Cosell announces the murder of former Beatle John Lennon in the closing seconds of a Monday Night Football game. An NBC bulletin, reporting the murder of Lennon, interrupts The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. |
| December 20 |
NBC Sports broadcasts the New York Jets 24–17 season-ending victory over the Miami Dolphins without announcers, the only time that has ever been done with an NFL game. |
| December 30 |
After 26 years on the air, 20 of which were on NBC, the network announces that the long-running anthology Disney's Wonderful World will not be on its fall 1981 schedule; the show will, however, be picked up by CBS. |
| Date |
Name |
Notability |
| January 8 |
Rachel Nichols |
Actress (The Inside, Alias, Criminal Minds, Continuum) |
| January 10 |
Sarah Shahi |
Actress (The L Word, Fairly Legal, Person of Interest) |
| January 17 |
Zooey Deschanel |
Actress and singer (New Girl) |
| January 22 |
Christopher Masterson |
Actor (Malcolm in the Middle) |
| January 30 |
Wilmer Valderrama |
Actor (That '70s Show) |
| February 9 |
Margarita Levieva |
Russian-American actress (Vanished, Revenge, Allegiance) |
| February 12 |
Sarah Lancaster |
Actress (Saved by the Bell: The New Class, Chuck) |
| Christina Ricci |
Actress (Pan Am) |
| March 3 |
Katherine Waterston |
English actress |
| March 7 |
Laura Prepon |
Actress (That '70s Show) |
| March 12 |
John-Paul Lavoisier |
Actor (One Life to Live) |
| April 1 |
Randy Orton |
WWE wrestler |
| April 8 |
Katee Sackhoff |
Actress (Battlestar Galactica, Longmire) |
| April 14 |
Claire Coffee |
Actress |
| April 26 |
Darris Love |
Actor (The Secret World of Alex Mack) |
| May 2 |
Ellie Kemper |
Actress (The Office, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and singer |
| June 20 |
Tika Sumpter |
Singer and actress |
| June 23 |
Melissa Rauch |
Actress (The Big Bang Theory) |
| June 24 |
Minka Kelly |
Actress (Friday Night Lights, Charlie's Angels, Almost Human) |
| June 25 |
Shannon Lucio |
Actress (The O.C., Prison Break) |
| July 3 |
Olivia Munn |
TV host and actress (Attack of the Show!) |
| July 4 |
Carrie Keagan |
TV host and actress |
| July 10 |
Jessica Simpson |
Singer and actress |
| July 18 |
Kristen Bell |
Actress (Veronica Mars, Gossip Girl, House of Lies) and singer |
| July 29 |
Rachel Miner |
Actress (Guiding Light, Californication) |
| July 30 |
April Bowlby |
Actress (Two and a Half Men, Drop Dead Diva) |
| August 12 |
Maggie Lawson |
Actress (It's All Relative, Crumbs, Psych, Back in the Game) |
| Dominique Swain |
Actress |
| August 26 |
Macaulay Culkin |
Actor |
| August 28 |
Carly Pope |
Canadian actress (Popular, The Collector) |
| September 9 |
Michelle Williams |
Actress (Dawson's Creek) and singer |
| September 13 |
Ben Savage |
Actor (Boy Meets World, Girl Meets World) |
| September 21 |
Autumn Reeser |
Actress (The O.C., Valentine, No Ordinary Family) |
| October 1 |
Sarah Drew |
Actress (Daria, Everwood, Grey's Anatomy) and singer |
| October 13 |
Ashanti |
Singer and actress |
| October 17 |
Justin Shenkarow |
Voice actor (Harold Berman on Hey Arnold!) |
| October 21 |
Kim Kardashian |
Actress (Keeping Up with the Kardashians) |
| October 30 |
Sarah Carter |
Actress (Shark, Falling Skies) |
| October 31 |
Samaire Armstrong |
Actress (The O.C., Resurrection) |
| November 12 |
Ryan Gosling |
Actor (Breaker High, Young Hercules) |
| November 25 |
Valerie Azlynn |
Actress (Sullivan & Son) |
| November 13 |
Monique Coleman |
American actress |
| December 3 |
Anna Chlumsky |
Actress (Veep) |
| Jenna Dewan Tatum |
Dancer and actress (American Horror Story) |
| December 5 |
Tamara Feldman |
Actress (Gossip Girl) |
| December 18 |
Christina Aguilera |
Singer and child actress (Mickey Mouse Club) |
| December 19 |
Marla Sokoloff |
Actress (The Practice, Big Day The Fosters) |
| December 30 |
Eliza Dushku |
Actress (Tru Calling, Dollhouse, Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.) |
