1958 in television

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The year 1958 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1958.

Events

• January 14 – Television Wales and the West (TWW), the first ITV franchise for South Wales and West of England, begins broadcasting.
• February 17 – Pope Pius XII designates St. Clare of Assisi the patron saint of television. Thereafter, placing her icon on a television set was said to improve reception.[1]
• April 19 - Chronicle Broadcasting Network, the predecessor of ABS-CBN in the Philippines, launches DZXL-TV Channel 9.
• July 1 – The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) links television broadcasting across Canada. The CBC's microwave network between Nova Scotia and British Columbia, completed this year, makes it the longest in the world.
• August 30 – Southern Television, the ITV franchise for South Central and South East England, begins broadcasting.
• September 16 – Orson Welles's The Fountain of Youth is broadcast on NBC-TV's Colgate Theatre. Filmed in 1956 for a proposed Desilu series, the half-hour program airs only once and becomes the only unsold pilot ever to win a Peabody Award.
• October 17 – Fred Astaire makes his TV starring debut in the NBC special, An Evening with Fred Astaire, which later won nine Emmy Awards and is one of the first TV specials to be preserved on videotape.
• November 30 – During the live broadcast of the Armchair Theatre play Underground on the ITV network in the UK, actor Gareth Jones suffers a fatal heart attack between two of his scenes while in make-up.
• Ampex demonstrates their design for a color Video Tape Recorder.
• In the United Kingdom, the top-rated show of the year was the ITV game show Dotto, adapted from an American game show which in turn was based on children's Connect the dots game.
• The original American version of "Dotto" was the first game show to be implicated in the quiz show scandals, and was cancelled in August.
• Top-rated prime-time game show "Twenty One" was cancelled by NBC in October after former contestant Herb Stempel charged that the series was rigged and that he had been ordered to lose a match to the popular Charles Van Doren.
• Fall – The quiz show scandals resulted in the cancellation of the original big-money game show, CBS' "The $64,000 Question", and creating havoc within the US television industry.
• DuMont company sells its television manufacturing assets to Emerson company. The quality decreases.

Television shows

Series on air in 1958

• Gillette Cavalcade of Sports (1946–1960)
• Howdy Doody (1947–1960)
• Meet the Press (1947–present)
• Candid Camera (1948–present)
• The Ed Sullivan Show (1948–1971)
• Bozo the Clown (1949–present)
• Come Dancing (UK) (1949–1995)
• The Voice of Firestone (1949–1963)
• The Jack Benny Show (1950–1965)
• Truth or Consequences (1950–1988)
• What's My Line (1950–1967)
• Your Hit Parade (1950–1959)
• Dragnet (1951–1959)
• Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (1958–1960)
• I Love Lucy (1951–1960)
• Love of Life (1951–1980)
• Search for Tomorrow (1951–1986)
• Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951–present)
• American Bandstand (1952–1989)
• The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952–1966)
• The Guiding Light (1952–2009)
• The Today Show (1952–present)
• This Is Your Life (1952–1961)
• Panorama (UK) (1953–present)
• The Good Old Days (UK) (1953–1983)
• Disneyland (1954–1958) ends on September 3, to resume on September 12 as Walt Disney Presents (1958–1961)
• Face the Nation (1954–present)
• The Brighter Day (1954–1962)
• The Milton Berle Show (1954–1967)
• The Secret Storm (1954–1974)
• The Tonight Show (1954–present)
• Zoo Quest (UK) (1954–1964)
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1962)
• Captain Kangaroo (1955–1984)
• Cheyenne (1955–1962)
• Dixon of Dock Green (UK) (1955–1976)
• Gunsmoke (1955–1975)
• Jubilee USA (1955–1960)
• Mickey Mouse Club (1955–1959)
• The Lawrence Welk Show (1955–1982)
• This Is Your Life (UK) (1955–2003)
• Armchair Theatre (UK) (1956–1968)
• As the World Turns (1956–2010)
• The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford (1956–1961)
• Hancock's Half Hour (UK) (1956–1962)
• Opportunity Knocks (UK) (1956–1978)
• The Edge of Night (1956–1984)
• The Gale Storm Show, Oh! Susanna (1956–1960)
• The Price Is Right (1956–1965)
• The Steve Allen Show (1956–1960)
• What the Papers Say (UK) (1956–2008)
• Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963)
• The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom (1957–1960)
• The Army Game (UK) (1957–1961)
• The Sky at Night (UK) (1957–present)
• General Motors Presents (1953–1956, 1958–1961)

Debuts

• January 4 – Sea Hunt in syndication (1958–1961)
• June 16 – Variety View (1958–1959) (Melbourne, Australia)
• June 19 – Jack Wyatt's Confession on ABC (1958–1959)
• August 25 – Concentration on NBC (1958–1973)
• September 22 – Peter Gunn on NBC (1958–1961)
• September 24 – The Donna Reed Show on ABC (1958–1966)
• September 30 – The Rifleman on ABC (1958–1963)
• October 2 – The Huckleberry Hound Show, Hanna Barbera's second series (1958–1962)
• October 5
  • Lawman on ABC (1958–1962)
  • Encounter, an anthology series originating from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, began a five-week run on ABC, having been cancelled after the November 2 episode
• October 8 – Bat Masterson on NBC (1958–1961)
• October 10
  • 77 Sunset Strip on ABC (1958–1964)
  • Grandstand on BBC Television (1958–2007)
• October 15 – Mole's Adventure (Japan), the oldest surviving anime television show.
• October 16 – Blue Peter, the world's longest-running children's TV programme, debuts on BBC Television (1958–present)
• October 17 – An Evening With Fred Astaire on NBC; first show prerecorded on color videotape, wins nine Emmy Awards
• November 4 – Flight (1958 TV show) (1958–1959) syndicated premiere on NBC NYC; produced by California National Presentation
• December 22 – Quatermass and the Pit on BBC Television (1958–1959)
• Autumn Affair (1958–1959), the first Australian-produced television soap opera (on ATN-7 in Sydney, starting 1959 also shown on GTV-9 in Melbourne)
• Café Continental (1958–1961) (Sydney and Melbourne Australia)
• Don Messer's Jubilee (1958–1969)
• The Friendly Giant (1958–1985)
• The Shirley Abicair Show (1958) (Sydney and Melbourne Australia)
• Your Life in Their Hands on BBC Television (1958–1964 and many revivals)

Ending this year

Date	Show	Debut
April 28	Adventures of Superman	1952
May 31	The Polly Bergen Show	1957
June 7	The Life of Riley	1953
June 26	Climax!	1954
September 6	Club Oasis	1957
September 15	The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show	1950
October 1	Kraft Television Theater	1947
Unknown	Hey, Jeannie!	1958

Births

Date	Name	Notability
January 4	Matt Frewer	Actor (Max Headroom)
January 20	Lorenzo Lamas	Actor (Falcon Crest)
January 25	Dinah Manoff	Actress & director (Soap)
January 26	Ellen DeGeneres	Actress & talk show host (Ellen)
January 30	Brett Butler	Actress (Grace Under Fire)
March 3	Miranda Richardson	Actress
March 10	Sharon Stone
March 21	Gary Oldman	Actor & filmmaker
April 3	Alec Baldwin	Actor (30 Rock)
April 29	Eve Plumb	Actress (The Brady Bunch)
	Michelle Pfeiffer	Actress
May 23	Drew Carey	Actor, comedian, game show host (The Price Is Right)
May 30	Ted McGinley	Actor (Married... with Children)
June 12	Rebecca Holden	Actress & singer
June 22	Bruce Campbell	Actor (Burn Notice) & director
July 6	Jennifer Saunders	Actress, comedian (Absolutely Fabulous)
August 16	Angela Bassett	Actress
	Madonna	Singer & actress
August 18	Madeleine Stowe	Actress (Revenge)
August 29	Michael Jackson	Singer and actress, (died 2009)
September 21	Penny Smith	TV presenter
September 24	Kevin Sorbo	Actor (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys)
October 9	Michael Paré	Actor
November 12	Nick Stellino	Chef, author and TV presenter
November 16	Marg Helgenberger	Actress (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)
November 22	Jamie Lee Curtis	Actress (Anything But Love)
December 1	Charlene Tilton	Actress (Dallas)
December 10	John J. York	US soap actor